At first Jo thought it was a lorry reversing. She rubbed her eyes, then swung her legs off the mattress and retched. Grabbing her phone from the bedside unit, she realised it had been her ringtone that woke her and the Unknown Caller had rung off.
She checked the time: 2.32 p.m. Three missed calls. God, how long had she slept?
Then she caught sight of the empty bottle of Pinot next to the fingerprint-smeared glass. Surely she hadn’t drunk all that. On a school day. She fumbled the glass and staggered to the en suite. As she passed the mirrored wardrobe she had to double take then ran her hand through her matted hair.
She put the glass on the sink and sat on the toilet. Once she’d finished, she washed her hands and filled the wine glass with water, downing it in one go. She was about to repeat the exercise when she heard the phone ring again. She dashed back to the bedroom to grab it. Voicemail. She hit ‘play’.
‘Mrs Howe, it’s Mrs Holmes, North Hove Primary School. I’m afraid 280we’ve had to call an ambulance for Ciaran and Liam. It seems they have some kind of food poisoning. I wonder if you could call me as soon as you can.’
The headteacher’s even tone was at odds with her message. Food poisoning? Ambulance? What the hell?
Jo’s fingers raced across the screen as she located the school’s number. Hitting the call button, she paced the bedroom willing the pre-recorded messages explaining how to report an absence to fuck off. Eventually an equally insidious voice to Mrs Holmes’s answered.
‘North Hove Primary, how can I help you?’
‘Put me through to Mrs Holmes,’ Jo snapped with more panic than aggression.
‘Can I ask what it’s about and I’ll see if she’s free?’
‘My two boys who’ve just been rushed to hospital. Put me through.’
With a fluster, the receptionist couldn’t transfer the call fast enough and in two rings the West Country burr of Mrs Holmes came on the line. ‘Mrs Howe?’
‘Yes, what the hell has happened?’
‘I’m afraid Ciaran and Liam have both been taken ill this afternoon. We did try to get through as soon as it happened but …’
‘Both of them? How? I mean, what’s wrong with them?’
‘Well, they’ve both been fitting and vomiting quite violently and Liam was unconscious for a while.’
Jo’s head span. ‘Are you sure? They’re OK now, yes?’
‘They’re on their way to hospital. The paramedics did what they could to stabilise them. They thought it was some kind of food poisoning. Can I ask, have either any allergies we weren’t aware of?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘It’s just if they have, you really should tell us.’
‘I said they haven’t. Which hospital are they going to?’ As she asked this, Jo was racing downstairs to search for her keys, purse and warrant card. 281
‘The Royal Alex,’ said Mrs Holmes. ‘But the paramedics said they’d go straight to trauma so you should call first.’
‘Fuck that,’ said Jo as she ended the call.
She dashed to the front door, leapt in her car and wheel-span it off the gravel driveway. She powered down the road, mentally planning the quickest route across Brighton to the children’s hospital. It seemed every red light was conspiring against her, so she made up time by racing down the bus lane. If only she was in her police car. She prayed that all her officers would be too busy to pay any attention to her Brands Hatch driving, too preoccupied to put a tube in her mouth. That would be the final nail in her career’s coffin.
Once she passed her own police station, she was logjammed in the Brighton College school traffic. She cursed the town planners who had decided to build one of the country’s most prestigious public schools and the dual-sited Royal Sussex County Hospital and Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital within yards of each other on the same narrow road. Weaving between buses, taxis and white vans, she eventually arrived at Upper Abbey Road where she darted into a residents’ bay. She was about to jump out of the car when the bottle of Pinot sprung to mind, so she grabbed a handful of mints and a face mask from the glovebox.
She stumbled as she stepped out of the car, then regaining her footing, sprinted to the Children’s Accident and Emergency entrance. Her mind raced as to how she could let Darren know. She shoved that to the back of her mind as she ran through the doors to reception, fixing her face mask firmly around her ears.
‘Mrs Howe. My sons have been brought in by’ – she frowned – ‘what do you call it, ambulance, from North Hove Primary.’ She hoped her slurs weren’t obvious.
The receptionist tapped a keyboard. Jo saw a frown flash across the young man’s face before it returned to the corporately approved smile.
‘Take a seat, Mrs Howe, and I’ll ask one of the doctors to come and see you.’ 282
Terror coursed through her. ‘They are OK, aren’t they?’
‘The doctor will see you soon.’
Jo took the only vacant seat, next to a woman whose toddler seemed intent on coughing her lungs up onto the linoleum floor. Now she was grateful for the face mask for a second reason.
Each time the door to the treatment area opened, Jo went to stand – but each time the doctor, nurse, cleaner or whoever strode past on a mission that did not involve her.
God, her head ached.
After what seemed like an hour, but was only fifteen minutes, a young floppy-haired man in a check shirt and grey jeans ambled into the waiting area, looked around then, guided by the receptionist, headed grim-faced towards Jo.
‘Mrs Howe?’ Jo nodded. ‘My name is Deepak. I’m one of the doctors, would you like to come through for a chat?’
‘Are they OK? Can I see them?’ she said, aware she’d given too many death messages in her time not to spot the preamble.
‘We’re helping them all we can at the moment, but we should talk in private.’
Jo followed the doctor as closely as she could without tripping into him, then waited while he used his ID card to unlock a door to the left.
As she stepped in, the room did little to salve Jo’s terror. The soft chairs, gentle wallpaper and tissues on the table all screamed somewhere where hearts were broken.
‘Please, take a seat,’ said Deepak.
Jo perched on the edge of a floral two-seater settee, silently urging the doctor to get it over and done with. Her whole body shook.
‘Mrs Howe, both of your boys are very unwell. They seem to have some kind of food poisoning and we have sedated them for now, but the next twenty-four hours are critical. I must ask you, is there anything you know that they might have eaten which could have brought this on? Any allergies, any food which might be out of date? I gather from the 283paramedics that they take packed lunches to school.’
‘Yes to the packed lunches, but no to the allergies. My mum looked after them overnight but I’m not sure what she put in their boxes. Probably something like a cheese and pickle sandwich, cereal bar, a banana and a fruit drink. I can check but they can eat anything.’
‘I understand.’ By the age of him, Jo doubted that. ‘Nothing else?’
‘No. They’d both have had Coco Pops for breakfast, I think. She always gives them that. Do you think it’s something they’ve eaten?’
‘We don’t know yet. As I say, we have sedated them both and they really are in the best place. The symptoms we are seeing, well, we don’t see them every day, so we are trying to work out what they have taken so we can provide them with the right treatment.’
‘Do you think they’ve been poisoned?’
The doctor looked taken aback. ‘Well I’m not able to say. Is there any reason why they may have been?’
‘I’m not sure, it’s just some stuff’s been happening to some of my colleagues and I just wondered.’
‘Poison?’
‘No.’
The doctor looked more relaxed, infuriatingly so in fact. ‘I see. It’s probably best not to overthink these things. Let us focus on what’s causing their condition so we can make them better.’
‘Can I see them now?’
‘Briefly, but they are in isolation until we know what we are dealing with.’
Deepak stood and Jo followed him out of the door, up some stairs and through a maze of corridors. They reached a sign saying High Dependency Unit, and once again the doctor’s card allowed them in. He guided Jo to a window. She was about to ask what she was supposed to be looking at when it dawned on her. The two mounds beneath the tangle of tubes and cables, surrounded by multicoloured flashing screens and what looked like bellows, were Ciaran and Liam. 284
‘My babies, my babies,’ she cried as she pounded against the glass. ‘What have they done to you?’
The world blurred out.
She couldn’t remember how she ended up in a different but identical family room, but as she looked up, she saw an older doctor who seemed to wear both a look of empathy and of wanting to get this over with.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jo. ‘Can you tell me what’s going on?’
‘Of course. I’m Rebecca, one of the consultants. I won’t go over what Deepak told you, other than to say Ciaran and Liam are very sick but in the best hands. It’s a matter of time but we really do need to know what’s in them so we can give them the right treatment. You have no idea?’
‘No, I told him that. I think they might have been poisoned deliberately though.’ Jo could have punched Rebecca’s patronising look right off her face. ‘I mean it.’
‘Of course, but that’s most unusual and doesn’t affect what we are trying to do. I’m afraid until we know, it’s a waiting game.’
Jo stood up. ‘Well, if you don’t believe me, I’ll speak to some people who will. You never know, it might just save their lives.’
Running down the stairs and out of the hospital, Jo had no idea of where she was going or what her next step should be. All she knew was that hanging around watching her boys fade away would only achieve just that.
As she reached her car, the flapping yellow fixed penalty notice mocked her from the windscreen. She ripped it off, opened the door and chucked it into the footwell. She needed to tell Darren so tapped on Belmarsh’s number. Three times it rang out.
She sat in the driver’s seat and gripped the steering wheel. People said that long, deep breaths were the key to a calm mind, so she gave it a go. After five, she concluded that was bollocks. What the hell could she do? Instinctively answering her own question, she called Bob.
‘Ma’am, you OK?’ 285
Just the sound of his voice broke the dam of tears and all she could do was sob.
‘Jo. Where are you? What’s happened?’
Even she couldn’t understand her own words as she blurted out, ‘Boys … poison … life support … Darren.’
‘Tell me where to find you? I’ll be there.’
‘The Alex … west entrance … God …’
The line went dead and Jo howled so loud that a passing dog walker tapped the window and mouthed, ‘You OK?’ Jo ignored them.
Five minutes later, Bob wrenched open the passenger door, threw himself in and embraced her with the strength of a bear. Jo looked up and saw his car not so much parked but abandoned between two communal bins just down the road.
‘I’m so sorry about earlier. Tell me what’s going on,’ he whispered. She couldn’t get the words out so he said, ‘Take your time.’
It took a full two minutes before Jo could compose herself enough to utter a comprehensible sentence. ‘It’s the boys. They’re in there with machines keeping them alive. They say it’s food poisoning.’
‘Please. Tell me everything from the start. And slowly.’
Between her tears, she started from being woken up by the school’s call and finished with seeing the boys hooked up to more contraptions than she’d ever seen in her life. ‘They’re saying it’s food poisoning but it’s not, Bob. They’ve got to them.’
Bob squeezed her tighter. ‘You don’t know that. These things happen you know. Kids get ill, doctors fix them and they carry on like nothing’s happened. You’ll see.’
Jo broke his grip and glared at him. ‘Really? Two brothers, whose mum and everyone connected with her are targeted by God knows who, just happen to fall victim of “food poisoning”, and you say it just happens?’
‘How would anyone have got to them? At the same time? It’s probably something they ate, like the doctors said.’
Jo shook him off. ‘I thought you of all people would understand. Just 286go back to the nick and sort the other shit out. Find out about this Evans bloke and who attacked Scotty.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’ve no idea, but I know what I’m not going to do. Sit on my fat arse and wait for the loves of my life to die through apathy.’ She reached across Bob and opened his door. ‘Go on, get out.’ She shoved him. ‘And get a message to Darren.’
He stood on the pavement, then stuck his head back in. ‘You really shouldn’t be driving you know.’
‘Is that so?’ she said, then started the engine and accelerated down the hill.