Will steered the car into the first available space, grabbed his backpack from the seat beside him, and then tore across the car park towards the hospital entrance.
The foyer was busy, crowded with the sick and injured pouring in from the city night, a pungent smell of sweat, blood, and fear crawling up the walls. The nurse’s station along one side was three-deep with people, a mixture of harried-looking police officers, parents with children in their arms, worried families, and surly drunks.
He dodged around a porter pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair, a patch covering her eyebrow and bruises on her cheek, and ran to the end of the corridor.
He punched the button for the elevator and paced impatiently. He was debating whether to take the stairs when the doors finally opened. Tempted to drag its occupants from the car, he stood to one side to let them pass, then barrelled into the elevator and hit the button for Amy’s ward, then the button to close the doors, apologising under his breath to the porter and his charge who arrived too late and glared at him through the closing gap.
His throat dry, he replayed the short conversation he’d had with her surgeon in his mind. The man hadn’t elaborated further, only reiterating that Will should hurry.
He turned his back to the doors, wrapped his fingers round the brass railing that encircled the elevator space, and stared at his reflection in the mirrored wall.
Dark circles pooled under his eyelids, his eyes red and sore. He rubbed a hand across his chin, feeling the stubble that prickled his skin, and tried to remember when he’d last shaved. His hair stood on end, and as the elevator travelled farther upwards through the guts of the hospital, he ran his hand through it and tried to slick it into place.
It looked worse.
He spun round at the sound of a soft ping and burst through the doors as they opened, then skidded across the tiled floor, and came to a halt next to the ward nurse’s desk.
She held a phone to her ear and held up a hand to stop Will from interrupting. She spoke softly, succinctly, issuing instructions, taking notes, until finally she finished the call and put the receiver down.
‘Yes? What can I do for you?’
‘I’m here about Amy Peters,’ said Will. ‘Mr Hathaway phoned me earlier. He told me to get here as soon as possible.’
Will gulped, out of breath, both from the rush to the ward from the car park and the sheer panic that wound across his chest.
The woman pursed her lips. ‘I’ll let him know you’re here.’
She gestured to a seat while she picked up the phone again, but Will ignored her.
He couldn’t sit still, not now.
Dread began to seize him, worming its way into his mind as the seconds drew out. The soft tones of the nurse’s voice reached him, but despite holding his breath and standing still, pretending to look at a poster on the wall, he couldn’t hear what was being said.
The phone was returned to its cradle, and the corridor returned to the steady beat of a busy ward, the far-off sounds of machines beeping, patients moaning, and calm, soothing voices.
At the sound of footsteps echoing off the walls towards him, Will turned and knew before the surgeon even reached him what his words would be.
He could see it in the man’s face, the look of defeat, exhaustion, and sorrow etching lines across the man’s features. Yet he said nothing, not until Hathaway reached out and took him by the arm.
‘Thanks for coming so quickly, Will,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s go through to this room here, shall we?’
He opened a door and led Will through to a small office which had been stripped bare of any official hospital paraphernalia and instead had been laid out with a decor the interior designer probably marketed as calming.
Two green armchairs sat at angles facing each other, a soft plush material that looked a little threadbare on closer inspection. A square white coffee table had been planted between the chairs while, next to the window, a dark green fern fought to escape the pot it had been squashed into.
Will tore his eyes away from the silvery spider web that wrapped around two of the leaves and turned his attention back to Hathaway, who was trying to usher him into one of the armchairs. He acquiesced, dropped the backpack to his feet, and waited, his hands folded in his lap.
‘Will, I’m very sorry. We did everything we possibly could,’ Hathaway began, his eyes searching Will’s face. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that Amy passed away thirty minutes ago.’
Will felt the rush of air leave his lungs as he leaned forward on his knees and wrapped his hands around his head. He stared at the mottled grey and green carpet, his chest tightening as a deep primitive ache began to encircle his chest.
‘I thought she was going to be okay,’ he whispered. ‘I thought…’
‘Her injuries were too great,’ said the surgeon. ‘Trauma to the head is always very, very difficult to treat. We did our best, and I’m satisfied my team couldn’t have done any more.’
‘Did she… would she have felt it?’
‘She died peacefully, Will. She wasn’t in any pain. She’d been heavily sedated since coming out of surgery,’ said Hathaway. ‘She simply slipped away from us.’
Will lifted his head as the surgeon finished speaking, his eyes stinging, and then he dry-heaved.
Hathaway kicked the wastepaper bin across the floor, and Will grabbed it, his stomach contracting painfully from lack of food. Bile stung the back of his throat, and he retched.
The surgeon moved across the room and placed a comforting hand on Will’s shoulders until the tremors subsided, before taking the container away from him and placing it near the door.
Will leaned back, his nostrils flaring at the putrid stench, and with shaking hands, he took the glass of water the surgeon had held out to him.
He nodded his thanks, and guzzled half the water, his eyes stinging with tears.
Hathaway pushed a box of paper tissues towards him, and he took two, shoving one in his pocket and gripping the other in his hand.
He panted as he tried to fight down the urge to be sick once more, and sipped the remaining water.
‘Could you keep this quiet for a while, to give me time to let our friends know before they hear about it on breakfast news or something?’
‘Of course. I’ll ask the police to do the same.’
Will sniffled. ‘I want to see her.’
‘Of course.’
He followed Hathaway from the room, avoiding the nurse’s gaze as they passed the reception counter for the ward, and continued past her to a second corridor that led farther into the bowels of the hospital. After a few paces, the surgeon stood to one side and pushed open a door.
‘This is the chapel of rest,’ he said, then placed a hand on Will’s shoulder. ‘Take as long as you need. I’ll be outside.’
Will nodded, sniffled, then stepped inside.
The room had been painted and furnished in a non-denominational decor, with three short rows of seats on each side of a central aisle. Soft lighting pooled around the space from wall sconces, casting shadows amongst the large picture frames that held photographs of landscape scenes.
Will stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked slowly forward, his fingernails digging into his palms.
His footsteps were soundless on the thick burgundy carpet, and he realised the walls must have been sound-proofed, as the noise from the hospital had fallen silent as the door closed behind him, cocooning him in the space.
He reached the front row of chairs and exhaled.
In front of him, a simple open casket had been laid out on a raised altar, a figure visible within the folds of material that lined it.
He sank into the chair nearest to him and rested his head in his hands.
A memory resurfaced, unwanted, of him sitting next to his mother, several years ago now, after she’d fought long and hard with the authorities to have her husband declared dead, so they could try to move on with their lives.
They’d sat in a room, like this, alone except for an embarrassed funeral director and a ticking clock, staring at a casket they knew to be empty, while the man standing in front of them intoned the eulogy.
The service had been brutally short. His mother’s illness had spiralled not long afterwards.
Guilt consumed Will as he wondered what he would have done differently, if he could have that last morning with Amy back.
Would she have agreed to meet Rossiter at the hotel alone again, knowing her life was in danger? What if it was sunny, instead of raining? Would she have accepted Rossiter’s offer of a lift in his car?
He shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts, knowing full well he would be dragged down into a depression from which there would be no escape this time.
Standing on shaking legs, he moved towards the casket, not sure what he would find.
The surgeon’s team had been kind. They had cleaned Amy’s face, wrapped a thin blue towel around her head, hiding the scars of surgery. A sheet had been pulled up over her body, the same colour as the towel.
Will reached out and fingered the material. It matched her eyes perfectly, but he’d never see them again. She looked as if she was asleep, her face impassive, her hands folded across her chest, her face paler than he could ever remember.
He leaned forward and kissed her cool unmoving cheek, before touching her face, his fingers tracing her jawline as tears splashed onto the sheet.
‘Sleep well, Amy,’ he murmured, his voice shaking. ‘You’re safe now.’