Roxanne
Roxanne tugged off her snowsuit, and raced towards the hospital lifts.
As she waited with nurses, doctors and a pale man with a drip, determination took hold. If this was Isla, and she prayed it was, they had another chance to put her broken pieces back together. Roxanne could be Isla’s glue. With Sally and Gary and Millie, and maybe even Jack if she could convince him, they could work with Isla, make everything right again.
A lift descended, and the doors whooshed open. Inside, huddled at the back next to the man with the drip, she pressed the button for the high-dependency ward.
Once there, she hurried towards the doors and pushed the intercom. ‘Hi, do you speak English?’ she said into the metal grid.
‘Yes. Can I help?’
‘I’m Roxanne Furaha, a friend of Isla Johnson. I understand she is here.’
A few moments later a nurse appeared, smiling as she opened the door. She gestured for Roxanne to enter. ‘Your friend is unconscious,’ she said, as Roxanne followed her onto the ward. ‘But there are signs that she is making progress.’ She screwed up her forehead. ‘Is your friend English?’
‘She is, yes.’
‘Does she speak Norwegian?’
Roxanne shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Why?’
‘It’s just that her mutterings seem to be in Norwegian. But that’s not unusual, as she may have heard someone speak Norwegian just before her accident.’ She pointed to a side room. ‘Please go ahead, I’ll be with you in a moment. And don’t be too worried by her injuries. They will heal.’
Roxanne approached the room and tapped on the glass door, despite being aware there was nobody inside to invite her in. Isla wasn’t going to sit up and wave, excited to see her.
She edged open the door and stood in the doorway. Everything blurred in front of her, as tears swam into her eyes, her determination from moments ago draining away.
The beeps of the monitor sounded loud in her ears, and she desperately wished she wasn’t alone, that Isla’s parents were there, or Jack, to absorb some of the shock. It was as though the fear that had hovered about her since she first read Isla’s email had thickened and lowered quite suddenly, about to consume her.
‘Isla,’ she whispered, taking a step forward and brushing the tears from her eyes. ‘It’s me, lovely lady. What have you been up to?’
But as she approached she knew. The woman’s face was swollen, bruised and grazed from her injuries, difficult to identify, perhaps, but this wasn’t her friend.
She touched the woman’s arm. ‘Oh God, where are you, Isla?’
The woman’s eyes flickered open, and closed again, and Roxanne dropped into the chair next to the bed. She would have to tell Sally.
But then what?
Where was Isla?
Who was this poor woman?
Why had she got Isla’s bag, her identity?
She pressed her palms into her eyes attempting to halt tears, before burying her head in her hands.
‘Please don’t worry, the signs are good.’ It was the nurse entering the room, and Roxanne looked up, a shimmer of tears clouding her vision.
‘No, you don’t understand,’ she said, rising. ‘This isn’t my friend. This isn’t Isla.’
‘But she has identification.’
‘But it isn’t her,’ Roxanne said again, a lump rising in her throat. ‘You think I wouldn’t recognise my own friend?’ She paused. ‘Can I see her bag?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. It’s in the safe,’ the nurse said, leaving the room.
Roxanne stood over the bed, studying the woman’s swollen eyes, the bruises as black as storm clouds on her forehead. ‘Did you snatch Isla’s bag?’ she whispered.
There was no response.
The nurse was back, unzipping Isla’s canvas bag. She placed it carefully on a side table, glancing at the door as though she wasn’t sure she should be allowing Roxanne to look inside.
But Roxanne wasted no time in pulling out Isla’s passport, and leafing through a notebook with jottings about Kiruna. There were pens, and her purse, which she opened to find a handful of pound coins, and a wad of Swedish kronas. ‘Oh God,’ Roxanne said. A wallet-sized photo of Isla with Andy outside the café, stared up at her through the transparent plastic of the purse.
She threw everything back into the bag and zipped it closed, handing it to the nurse, and glancing over her shoulder at the woman in the bed. ‘She must have stolen it,’ she said.
‘Perhaps, but we need to let the police decide that,’ the nurse said, leaving the room with the bag.
Roxanne looked again at the woman. Had she snatched Isla’s bag? Had Isla chased after her? Was that how it had happened? Had Isla chased the woman into the road, and was now hiding? But then how did that fit with her threatening to take her own life?
Roxanne pulled out her phone and began texting Sally. She was about to press send when the phone rang. It was Jack.
‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’ve just picked up Sally’s message. I can’t seem to get hold of her. Is there any news from Narvik? Are you there?’ His voice was wispy and breathless.
‘I’m in Narvik now. It isn’t Isla.’
‘Thank God.’
‘Really? At least we’d have been sure she was alive. Where are you?’ Her voice was rising in volume. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I stayed in a hotel near the airport overnight. I just shut down, you know, thinking – drinking too much.’
‘You’re an arsehole.’ Roxanne regretted the words as soon as they left her lips. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that.’
He didn’t reply for some moments. ‘I’m at Camp Arctic. Can you come back?’
‘Why?’
‘Something’s not right here.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘I just know Isla’s here somewhere. Call me crazy. I can’t explain it.’ There was a crack in his voice, and Roxanne felt a pang of sadness. ‘It’s hell, Roxanne. I should probably fuck off. But something keeps calling me back.’
Roxanne looked at the woman in the bed once more. Her vitals beeped, and lights zigzagged across the screen by her bed. She was still and lifeless, eyes closed. I’m no use here.
‘On my way,’ she said, ending the call and leaving the room.