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touched him gently on the arm. ‘I hope he will wake up when we touch on what’s most important to him. It could be the movie. Maybe it could be your voice or your touch. If we can just find the trigger that will get him to respond.’

      ‘Have you done this sort of thing before?’ he asked. ‘You know … woken someone from a deep coma?’

      Allegra pushed Alice Greeson’s broken body from her mind and tried to concentrate on the rare successes she’d had so far. ‘I have had some success, yes.’

      ‘What about my wife?’ he asked, his tone becoming harsh. ‘Are you going to try and coax her awake as well?’

      ‘I would like Kate to regain consciousness so we could at the very least establish what actually happened and why,’ she said.

      His eyes became like chips of cold blue ice. ‘What happened was she wanted to take Tommy away from me permanently.’

      ‘So there’s absolutely no doubt in your mind that Kate tried to take her own life and that of Tommy?’

      ‘Of course there’s no doubt. It’s what the police suspected from the start. She tried to commit suicide and kill Tommy to get back at me for asking for a divorce.’

      ‘When did you ask her for a divorce?’ Allegra asked, watching him closely.

      He gave a shrug, his eyes falling away from hers. ‘I don’t know … a couple of days ago.’

      ‘What was her immediate reaction to your request?’

      ‘She wasn’t too happy about it, obviously.’

      ‘Did she say or do anything then to make you suspect she would take things this far?’

      His eyes came back to hers, his expression growing impatient. ‘Look, Dr Tallis, I have no idea what was going on in my wife’s mind. Quite frankly, I haven’t for years. I just wanted to end the marriage as soon as possible. I gave it my best shot but I decided it was time to leave.’

      ‘Did you discuss custodial arrangements with Kate when you asked for a divorce?’

      ‘I might have. I don’t really remember. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the office. I have a meeting and I’m already twenty minutes late as it is.’

      Allegra watched him walk out briskly, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of the building. He didn’t even pause by his son’s bed on the way past.

      ‘What did I tell you?’ Bethany said, joining her once more. ‘Cold and clinical.’

      ‘He certainly is,’ Allegra agreed. ‘But at least he’s given me the go-ahead to work with Tommy. I was worried he might dismiss it right out of hand, but he was surprisingly agreeable.’

      ‘I don’t suppose he wants you to work on his wife,’ Bethany said cynically.

      ‘No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t.’ Allegra looked towards the isolation room where Kate was being monitored, a tiny frown bringing her brows together. ‘Has anyone been in to see her yet?’

      ‘No one at all. I guess she either doesn’t have any relatives or if she does, they’re all too angry with her to visit—not that you could blame them after what she tried to do.’

      ‘Surely there must be someone close to her, a friend or sister or cousin, if not her parents. She can’t possibly be all alone in the world. Someone must care about her.’

      ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Bethany said, ‘Unless the husband has deliberately not told them.’

      ‘It’s been in the papers though …’

      ‘Not everyone reads the paper every day,’ Bethany said.

      ‘True, but news has a habit of travelling anyhow so you’d think someone would have at least called to ask after her by now.’

      ‘I guess you’re right,’ Bethany said. ‘And when you think about it, Tommy hasn’t had too many visitors either.’

      ‘Has anyone apart from his father been in?’

      ‘Mr Lowe’s sister, Tommy’s aunt, has come in a couple of times.’

      ‘What was she like?’

      Bethany screwed up her face. ‘Exactly like her brother, cold and distant. She was dressed to the nines—you know the type, the cloying perfume and the coiffed hair and designer gear and heavy jewellery. She barely sat by Tommy’s bed for more than a minute or two before leaving.’

      ‘Does Tommy have grandparents?’

      ‘I heard one of the nurses ask Mr Lowe that earlier,’ Bethany said. ‘He made no mention of Kate’s parents but he said his were travelling somewhere interstate and couldn’t be contacted.’

      Allegra’s frown increased. ‘Which probably means he doesn’t want them to be contacted. I wonder why?’

      ‘Beats me,’ Bethany said. Changing the subject, she asked, ‘What are you going to do with Tommy?’

      ‘His father said he loves Harry Potter movies. I’d like to set one up playing next to his bed—it might trigger memories, stir some neurological activity. It’s part of the coma recovery protocol, using familiar auditory stimuli as triggers.’

      ‘What are you going to play it on? This place is pretty cluttered as it is.’

      ‘I’ve got a portable DVD player and stereo earpieces,’ Allegra said as she reached for a piece of equipment. ‘I’ll set it up on the side shelf out of the way. Also, I want to put on a BIS monitor to record any sort of cerebral activity. This strip sticks on his forehead, and the lead plugs into the monitor. This one’s got an eight-hour recorder. I’ll set it going now, and take a baseline record. In an hour, can you plug in the earpieces and start the DVD? When it’s finished, just take out the earpieces. Leave the BIS going till I come in later tonight, OK?’

      ‘Sure’ said Bethany. ‘Got that. What time will you be back in?’

      ‘About eight-thirty tonight, I think. I’ve just got one social engagement, and then I’ll come in and collect the stuff and go home.’

      ‘I didn’t know you even had a home,’ Bethany said with a wry grin. ‘You seem to spend most of your time here.’

      Allegra sent her a rolled eyed look as she left. ‘Don’t remind me.’

      CHAPTER NINE

      ALLEGRA had not long completed the pre-admission clinic for Harry Upton’s list for the following week when her mobile phone buzzed with an incoming text. She looked down at it and saw it was from Tony Ringer, the night duty intensivist, informing her that Joel was in the high-dependency unit with Harry Upton, assessing the patient who’d had the complication after surgery that morning and that Joel needed anaesthetic information urgently.

      Allegra remembered the case well. Gaile Donovan was a forty-eight-year-old woman with ovarian cancer that had invaded the pelvic wall and sigmoid colon. Harry had helped the gynaecologist with the pelvic exploration. The gynaecologist had been keen to get the tumour out but after five litres of blood loss, the normally calm-under-pressure Harry had broken out in a sweat trying to control the bleeding and had insisted they pull the plug before the patient expired on the table. They had packed the pelvis and temporarily closed the abdomen, with the intention of a second-look laparotomy the next day.

      When Allegra arrived in HDU, she could hear Harry and Joel discussing the plan of action.

      ‘The patient’s BP has hit the floor, Harry,’ Joel said. ‘She’s obviously bleeding again—you have no choice but to operate again now.’

      ‘It was a nightmare the first time around,’ Harry said. ‘I think an angiogram and embolisation would be a better choice for controlling the bleeding.’

      ‘Listen,

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