LITMIR.BIZ

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they returned to ICU Cormac pretended that he hadn’t recently woken up. Carly noticed the curtains were drawn around a nearby bed where a teenage motorcyclist had been since last night. She could hear muffled sobs from his family and feared the worst. The thought that at any moment that could be them struck her like a falling tree.

      Rosemary retook her place next to Fergus and Carly stood totally still, staring at the drawn curtains. ‘Are you all right?’ Cormac asked, looking concerned.

      ‘No. There must be more we can do. We can’t just sit here waiting for him to …’ She knew there were two ways she could end that sentence. ‘You said there was always something!’ She jabbed a finger at Cormac although she knew he wasn’t the source of her frustration. They shouldn’t have to be working out where Rosemary was going to stay or how she was going to speed-tidy-up the flat so that his mother didn’t think she was the slovenly sort. They should be planning a wedding and arguing over guest lists and seating plans, not working out a rota of who was going to sit with Fergus in case he woke up or … She felt crosser than she ever had before, with the possible exception of the time when Fergus was juggling with the flat keys and managed to drop them down a drain. She wanted Fergus back and she wanted him back now.

      ‘Is there something you want to do?’ asked Cormac gently.

      ‘Yes, I want to do something! Argh!’ Carly was tired and beyond frustrated. She marched round to her side of Fergus’s bed thinking that she and Rosemary must look like a pair of statues or, worse still, gargoyles.

      She picked up the iPhone and scrolled back to the teenage Fergus playlist they had put together earlier, selected ‘The Ketchup Song’ and pressed Play. She took Fergus’s limp fingers in hers and spelled out the track for him. She squeezed his hand but he didn’t respond. She clutched it tightly and tried her best not to cry.

      Cormac was watching her closely. He walked round to her and crouched down. ‘You’re a lovely girl, Carly,’ said Cormac, his face sincere. ‘You’ve brought back the old Fergus.’ He spoke slowly and melodically while Carly stared unblinking at Fergus. ‘After the illness he wasn’t himself, he took the hearing loss hard. In shock he was, to tell the truth. Lost his job and his self-confidence. Terrible thing to watch something like that happen to your child.’ Cormac shook his head as if remembering. ‘And then you came along with your kick-up-the-bum attitude and he was determined to learn sign language so that he could talk to you.’

      Carly turned to Cormac, still crouched at her side. ‘Did he say that?’ she asked, engrossed in the alternative side of the story she knew so well.

      ‘He did. You put the fire back in his belly, so you did. We couldn’t ask for a better girlfriend for our boy.’ Cormac opened his arms and Carly leaned in for a hug. She didn’t mean to cry but she didn’t seem entirely in control of the tears; at the moment they came and went at will as the emotions ebbed and surged.

      A strained voice from the bed made them spring apart. ‘Fiancée. She’s my fiancée.’

      Jack was sitting on the back step of the ambulance when Rhonda pushed past the police and ran to him.

      ‘A customer came in and said there was an ambulance, a fire engine and police.’ She waved her arms about, just missing Jack’s head. ‘What the hell has happened here?’ continued Rhonda, scanning the front garden and taking in Jack’s naked torso. Jack went to lift up his mask and Clark wagged a finger at him so he left it in place.

      ‘It was the boiler. It must be faulty and it’s poisoned Beth,’ he said. Rhonda’s hand shot to her mouth and she looked back at the cottage. ‘They’ve taken her to hospital. Petra went with her. They tell me she’ll be fine.’ Jack gave a sideways glance at Clark, who saw his cue to join in the conversation.

      ‘Proper hero he is. Saved her life, risked his own. Mind you, that wasn’t so smart.’ He handed Jack a clipboard and paper. ‘There you go, you need to sign that if you really won’t let me take you to hospital.’ Jack scrawled something similar to his signature on the bottom of the form.

      ‘If he says you need to go to hospital, you should go!’ said Rhonda, putting her hands on her hips.

      ‘Leo is missing,’ said Jack, his voice anxious.

      Rhonda looked like someone had slapped her. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘He was with me at the pub but he wanted to put his big Easter egg somewhere safe at home. I should have walked him to the door instead of watching him because once he was past the willow tree I couldn’t see him and I assumed—’

      ‘It’s not your fault,’ said Rhonda, cutting him off. Her eyes alternated from his face to his ripped torso.

      ‘It is my fault,’ said Jack, standing up. He held on to the ambulance until he was sure of his steadiness.

      ‘Go to your GP tomorrow, ask for a blood test to check your carboxyhaemoglobin level,’ said Clark. ‘Take this with you.’ He tore off a carbon copy of the form and handed it to Jack.

      Jack saluted him, took off the oxygen mask and swapped it for the form.

      ‘What shall I do?’ asked Rhonda.

      ‘We need to search the village.’

      ‘I can round a few people up to do that.’

      ‘Great. If Leo’s here we have to find him fast because when Beth comes round he’s the first person she’s going to want to see.’

      ‘If he’s here?’ questioned Rhonda, her forehead creased into a deep frown worthy of someone far older.

      Jack didn’t want to share what was going through his head and as Rhonda’s expression changed to horror it appeared he didn’t need to. Dark thoughts were dominating his mind. He guessed it was down to the carbon monoxide but he could still picture Beth lying on the sofa and the awful sensation that had accompanied it when he had feared he was too late to save her. Question was, was it too late to save Leo?

      Jack splashed his face with water. He was tired and dirty. His body ached and his head still throbbed. He’d left Rhonda checking for Leo at the last few houses and gardens on the village green while he got himself a T-shirt. It appeared that the sight of him topless had rendered a couple of women speechless and was definitely distracting Rhonda. Doris was very pleased to see him and was nudging her food bowl round the kitchen hopefully. Jack went upstairs to get a clean top and Doris followed him, then peeled off to the spare bedroom where he could hear her making odd little grunting noises. He pulled the top over his head and took a peek at what Doris was up to. She was rolling on the sleeping bag with her legs in the air.

      Jack smiled at her. ‘Come on, Doris. Does it smell of Leo?’ Doris got up and trotted past him and down the stairs. Jack looked from her to the sleeping bag – he had an idea. After a full two minutes of waving the sleeping bag under Doris’s nose, feeding her a treat and repeating ‘Leo’ countless times he felt they were ready to give their experiment a go. He clipped on her lead and they set off in search of Leo.

      The police were now stepping up their interest and another patrol car had parked by the green. Leo had been missing for nearly an hour and nobody had seen him since he left the pub. Jack was mentally berating himself for not having waited a few more minutes. If he had would he have seen that Leo couldn’t get inside? Would he have found Beth sooner? Whatever way he thought about it he knew Leo would be safe if he hadn’t taken his eyes off him and the guilt made him feel sick.

      A picture of Beth laughing flashed through his mind but was instantly replaced by a picture of her lying motionless on the sofa. His heart clenched when he thought of her in hospital. The thought of losing her scared him more than he thought possible. He pushed it out of his mind; he couldn’t be in two places at once so he needed to deal with each problem in turn.

      He headed for the tearoom; if anyone had a handle on the latest news it was Rhonda and Maureen. He opened the door and the bell announced his presence. ‘Any news?’ he asked.

      Rhonda shook her head while she loaded a tea

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