63

‘I’m so sorry, Mr McLean. Late miscarriage is rare, but not unheard of. Especially in first-time mothers who are … older.’

McLean barely heard the words. He stared across the ward to where Emma lay asleep. Surrounded by the white sheets and pillows, her pale features looked somehow deathly, even though he knew that she was alive and not in any serious danger. The same couldn’t be said for their daughter, or what might have become their daughter had she been given the chance. The ambulance had arrived swiftly, along with a squad car and two constables, but it had always been too late. Even if he had been home when it had started to happen it would have been too late.

‘We’ll keep her in overnight for observation, but apart from the shock she’ll be fine.’

Something in the nurse’s words finally got through to him. He didn’t know her, didn’t seem to know any of the busy hospital staff, but she had a kind face and a soft voice. From the Western Isles, if he was any judge.

‘I should have been there.’

A momentary flicker of confusion ran across the nurse’s face. ‘But you were there. You called the ambulance.’

‘Earlier. When it started.’ McLean shook his head, knowing he was being stupid and yet somehow unable to stop himself. ‘I just should have been there with her.’

The nurse laid a gentle hand on his arm. ‘You can stay as long as you like. I know visiting hours are over, but, well, they tell me you’re a policeman. Come here more often than most.’

McLean wondered who ‘they’ were and what else they said about him. ‘It’s OK. I’d better head home. I’ll be back first thing to pick her up, OK?’

The nurse nodded, then hurried off to deal with some other emergency. McLean had been fully intending to stand up, go out to the car park and drive home, but instead he just sat and stared into the distance. He couldn’t process anything at all. Not the events that had unfolded since they had raided Extech Energy that morning, not the revelations about Jennifer Beasley and Edward Gosford, Maddy and Dan as he should probably call them. His mind refused to even go near what he had seen in Alan Lewis’s house, and the full enormity of what had happened to Emma hovered over him like a thunderstorm waiting to break.

So wrapped up in not thinking, he hardly noticed as someone sat down next to him. Or perhaps it was his subconscious reassuring him it was a friend, knowing by the bulk and the curious scent of rosewater and mothballs that he had no need to respond.

‘I’m so, so sorry, Tony.’

Madame Rose’s words finally penetrated his fugue state. McLean blinked dry eyes, then looked around to see the transvestite medium sitting alongside him. Despite the hour she was as well turned out as ever, makeup meticulously applied, hair coiffured to within an inch of its life. Her face betrayed her, though, etched with sadness, eyes shiny.

‘It’s not your fault. Could have happened to anyone.’ The words came out automatically. He wasn’t even sure what they meant.

‘But it happened to you, and to Emma. How is she?’ Madame Rose reached out and enveloped his hand in hers, patted it once then withdrew. The contact brought McLean back to himself.

‘Physically, she’s fine. Lost a lot of blood, but they’ve put her on a drip, keeping her in overnight.’ McLean ran his other hand through his hair, feeling the grit and sweat of a long day between his fingers. ‘Mentally? I really don’t know.’

Madame Rose stood up, groaning in that quiet way old people do. She faced him, so close that looking up at her all McLean could see was a halo of fluorescent ceiling light around her head.

‘Emma’s a survivor. You should know that by now, Tony. My concern is more for the child she carried.’

McLean opened his mouth to reply, but for a while couldn’t find the words to say. He was too tired to take it all in, and Madame Rose’s strangeness wasn’t helping.

‘The child is dead, Rose. What did you think happened here? A premature birth? This was a miscarriage, probably brought on by exposure to too many toxic chemicals or something like that. Christ knows, the two of us have been in contact with enough of the stuff this past week.’ McLean’s voice cracked as he spoke, the full horror flooding into his mind, threatening to overwhelm him. He buried his face in his hands as much to hide the tears as anything, tried to hold back the sobs that wanted to break through. A hand on his shoulder steadied him.

‘Go home, Tony. There’s nothing to be gained from you staying here. Go and get some rest.’

McLean nodded once, although he couldn’t meet Madame Rose’s gaze. He struggled to his feet with almost as much difficulty as the old medium.

‘We’ll speak more of this later,’ Rose said, and he felt like he was being dismissed from a verbal disciplining by his old housemaster. A little boy, he turned and limped up the corridor towards the hospital entrance. And all the while he couldn’t decide whether it was the sadness that was crushing him, or relief.

The tiredness that had disappeared when he had first found Emma in the bath returned now with a vengeance. It was past midnight; he’d been up since before five the morning before and he couldn’t quite remember when last he’d eaten anything. Had there been cake? If so, it was long gone. He had followed the ambulance to the hospital in his Alfa, buzzing with adrenaline. Now the thought of driving back across town filled him with weary dread. Leaving it in the hospital car park wasn’t exactly an option, though.

How he made it home without crashing, McLean couldn’t be sure. He’d get a bollocking if anyone ever found out he’d driven in that state, but he was frankly too tired to care. The crunch of the gravel under his wheels as he turned up the drive woke him from a stupor far too close to actually sleeping at the wheel.

The constables who had arrived at the same time as the ambulance were long gone now, just Mrs McCutcheon’s cat waiting for him in the kitchen, her greeting no more than a muted chirrup and a brush of her head against his hand. In the rush to get to the hospital, nobody had bothered to pick up the chair or right the overturned mug. He could see how the events had played out now. Emma in her dressing gown, having a cup of tea while she waited for him to come home. Whatever triggered the miscarriage it must have come on fast. She’d knocked over her mug and the chair, hurried to the bathroom. Why she’d gone to the nursery he didn’t know. Perhaps he’d ask her some day. Right now he didn’t know how he was ever going to speak to her again.

He wanted to sleep, wanted to sit in the corner and cry, wanted everything to be the way it had been before … when? McLean felt the tears blur his vision, felt the lump in his throat. Fought them both back.

In the laundry, he found a bucket and a mop. Filled the one with warm soapy water and carried them both back to the hall. Starting there was as good a place as any. He dunked the mop in the water, squeezed it out until it was almost dry.

Then he set about the task of cleaning the blood from the floor.