LITMIR.BIZ

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her body, but then the blockage cleared and her head lolled back slightly. He placed her head gently down on the pillow, and, as she slowly exhaled, he could feel her body deflate. Not like any corpse he had touched but not like a living person either; she was suspended in between.

      He leaned over, looking at her closely, two faces separated by a wall of muslin and silence. He adjusted the gauze over the curve of her cheek; he twirled the wisp of blonde round his finger. She didn’t pull away. He thought the veining of blood underneath was fainter, the scars beginning to heal. He stood back, regarding her, thinking how she would have been. She was young, slim and fit; her calves had been firm, her ankles still slender despite her pregnancy, her toenails perfectly cut. Even the scar round the base of her toe was smiling.

      ‘Do you mind?’ he said. ‘I need to see.’ He lifted up her left hand, rolling back the cotton wool padding on her palm, where the burning was deepest, where she had lifted her hands to her face. The nails were long and shaped, the back of her hand was covered in smooth tanned skin. He traced a thin band of white at the base of the third finger. He felt – imagined – that she pulled her finger away from his touch.

      ‘I’m sorry, but I had to know. It’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s fine.’ He put the hand down carefully, reluctant to let her go and leave her. He held his hands over hers, warming them as he studied the monitor, a single fluorescent line firing across it, hiccuping every now and again, left to right, left to right.

      There was a movement . . . a something...

      He turned and looked at her. ‘You OK?’ he asked. Bloody stupid question.

      Nothing, just the wheeze of the respirator.

      He moved towards the door, opening it and closing it without leaving the room. She sighed, and he watched her relax, her head dropping slightly in heartfelt relief.

      He smiled and took one last look. He walked back slowly to his seat in the corridor, deep in thought, and sat down, his arms folded, his eyes never leaving her door.

      ‘I’m official this time. Official.’ His voice was still deep, polite, conversational, sexy, but there was something else. This time it wasn’t going to be a monologue. ‘Look, sweetheart, I think – I know – you can hear me. And that leaves you with two options. Either I can sit here and talk to myself and feel like a right prick, or you could talk back.’

      She so desperately wanted to talk to somebody; it had been months since she had said more than good morning to another human being. And she wanted to hold her baby in her arms; the pain of not having that was worse than anything. She considered her options, who she could trust, who she couldn’t. She didn’t have much choice.

       ‘The fingers on your left hand aren’t too bad. The right hand sustained a bit of damage, I’m afraid. Can you move your thumb?’

      She knew she could not move her hands; her fingers were bound together, not tightly but restricted. She moved her thumb, felt her skin crack and a searing pain shoot through her palm.

      ‘Good.’ His hand rested on hers, his fingers warm.

       She moved her thumb again, easier, less pain. She felt tearful, tense, yet she so wanted to say something. He kept talking, his voice steady and reassuring. He tapped the tip of her forefinger gently. ‘What about this finger? Can you move that?’

       It was difficult, a small movement, but he saw it. ‘Good. So we’ll make it a finger for yes, and the thumb for no. That OK with you, sweetheart?’

      She thought for a moment, then twitched her finger.

       ‘You fancy a wee chat? My name’s Alan.’

      Yes, I know. She twitched her finger.

       ‘Look, love, we know what happened to you, and we can find out who did it.’ Strong words, but the voice remained friendly. He sounded very young. ‘But the first problem is, we don’t know who you are...’

      She listened hard to his voice, so young, so sympathetic. But so few words – could she judge? She kept still.

       ‘Do you have any memory of what happened to you, anything at all?’

      Conversational? Concerned? She kept still.

       ‘OK, OK.’ He didn’t speak for a while. She wondered if he was going to trip himself up, imagined him contemplating his next question. ‘Look, I’m not stupid, and I don’t think you are either.’ The voice paused. ‘You made a good attempt at covering your tracks, but a trained eye can always see things.’ She felt fear prickle at the back of her neck. ‘You were in labour, yet the last thing you did before you went out that door was to wash bits of burned photograph down the sink. Must have been important to you.’

       She heard him move, shifting closer. ‘Somebody got to you. They’ll come after you again. You know they will. They might come after the baby.’

      He wasn’t threatening her; he was stating fact. She was sure he would hear the panic of her heart as it slapped against her chest. She kept her fingers still.

       After a moment he said, ‘If there’s anybody we could contact for you, let them know how you are?’

      She stayed still.

       His voice softened. ‘What about the guy who gave you the ring? Your husband? Fiancé? Was he involved in the attack?’

      The thumb jerked. No.

       ‘He’s a good guy, then?’

      Piet, smiling at her, on the yacht, the wind ruffling his hair, his Steve McQueen smile . . . she watching as the flames ate the photograph, the black flakes disappearing down the drain in a torrent of water...

      Eventually her finger twitched.

      ‘I see.’ She felt his fingers, warm and soft, caress her hand. He had the same gentle touch as Piet.

      This was a man used to talking to women.

      I want to hold my daughter.

      ‘But I’ll have to call you something. What do you fancy?’ His hand was still stroking hers. ‘You have long blonde hair. Rapunzel?’ She had no idea what he was talking about, but she could tell he was teasing her. ‘Alice in Wonderland? Oh, I know – Anastasia. They can’t work out who she is either. Anna for short.’

      Anastasia and the rest of the Romanovs? They had had their precious stones, their diamonds, all the wealth they could take with them, sewn into their clothes. They didn’t make it.

      She could remember holding a pile of uncut pure diamonds, almost warm to the touch, in her hands. They were secure now, wrapped in black velvet in a safe-deposit box in Edinburgh. They were safe, safe for their child, but she herself wasn’t. A tear of pain bit into her eyes to remind her. Her life was precarious.

       ‘I’ve got a present for you . . . we took them from your room – your ring, the watch, it’s all there.’

      Her finger twitched.

       ‘Here’s the ring. I thought it was silver, but Mappin & Webb tell me it’s an imperfect blue diamond set in platinum, a one-off. Why were you in a bedsit with a diamond worth a fortune?’

      There was no response.

       ‘Did the guy who owns the watch give you the ring?’

      Again her thumb twitched, twice.

       ‘OK.’ The voice was conciliatory. ‘Just make sure someone doesn’t take them. Things go missing in hospitals, you know.’

      Her finger twitched three – four – times.

      Silence

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