LITMIR.BIZ

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buried in him like some atavistic threat.

      They went to the police together, in Michael Blake’s car.

      ‘We were about to come looking for you, my son,’ said the officer who met them.

      Rob was interviewed under caution and not re-arrested. In an interview room a police inspector tape-recorded Rob’s account of the day before. As Rob talked he could hear Danny’s voice, his laughter, as if he and not Michael Blake were sitting beside him.

      Before he came to the crash itself the inspector interrupted him.

      ‘You can have a break for a cup of tea, if you want.’

      Rob drank the thick brew gratefully. When the interview began again he sat with his head bent, trying to remember. The opaque spot at the centre of his recollection had thickened and spread. One minute he had been racing away from the police, the next Danny was lying on the grass and the whole world had changed.

      ‘Do you have any more to add?’ asked the inspector.

      Rob shook his head. Nothing.

      The inspector told Rob and Michael Blake that the breath test performed at the roadside had shown an immediate positive. The result of the blood test would not be available for some weeks, and in the meantime the police would collect evidence and statements. Officers would interview Cat and the other girl, and statements would be prepared. After that a report would be submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service, with a recommendation as to what the charges should be. Until that time, Rob was free to go.

      ‘By the way,’ the inspector added, ‘it seems from the accident investigator’s preliminary report that your nearside rear tyre deflated before the crash.’

      Rob nodded his head again, too numb to make much of the information.

      ‘Is there any more news from the hospital?’ he asked.

      ‘There’s no change.’

      Michael Blake said, ‘Mr Ellis is a self-employed carpenter and cabinet maker, and all his tools necessary to conduct his business are in the back of the van. When can he expect to have them back?’

      The inspector looked at his notes. ‘After the examiner has finished with the vehicle the contents of it will be put in our store. Mr Ellis can collect them once they are approved for release. Probably in about a week’s time.’

      Outside, Michael said, ‘You’ll be able to work when the plaster comes off, at least.’

      A bus filled with shoppers passed beside Michael’s parked car. A boy with a school bag slung over his shoulder ran and jumped on to the platform.

      ‘Yeah,’ Rob said softly.

      ‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’

      ‘No thanks,’ Rob told him. He walked away, in no particular direction, only wanting to place himself somewhere else.

      The waiting stretched into the next day and the days that crept after it. The ward and the stuffy waiting room became as familiar to the women as their own bedrooms. They sat on the plastic chairs and held one another’s hands. When they spoke they talked about the past, editing it for one another so that it seemed to consist only of happy times. For the present they watched the hands of the clock and the nurses and the flickering screen above Danny’s bed. They tried not to consider the future at all.

      Lizzie drove home to Sock for part of each day, and when they could stay awake no longer Jess and Beth took it in turns to snatch a few hours of sleep in the cramped bedroom near the unit.

      Danny’s condition did not improve. He did not stretch out his arms again, or clench his fists when the nurses pinched his bruised flesh or pressed on his sternum. The machines did their busy work and Danny lay inert between them.

      In the middle of the third day Ian arrived from Sydney.

      It was more than two years since Jess and Ian had separated, and over a year since she had last seen him.

      In the shabby hospital surroundings he looked fresh and fit, even after the long flight, and his suntan was incongruous beside the women’s strain-etched faces.

      Beth leapt up and ran to him with a cry of relief. She clung to her father.

      ‘I’m here,’ he soothed her with his mouth against her hair. ‘I’m here now.’

      As if the mere fact of his arrival altered everything, Jess thought, then let the thought and its bitterness slide away from her. She had no capacity now to focus on anything but her fear for Danny, and beyond it the dark bulk of awakening grief that was beginning to diminish even the fear.

      When Ian looked to her she awkwardly extended her hand, but he pushed it aside and took her in his arms. They stood without speaking as the old familiarity of touch and shape and scent reasserted itself. Jess resisted a sudden blind impulse to give way and hide her face against her husband’s shoulder. She would not allow herself to weep here, not yet.

      ‘How is he?’ Ian asked.

      She shook her head, unable to speak.

      In the ward the Indian family were clustered around their daughter’s bed, and the grown-up children of a heart-attack victim waited silently beside their father.

      Ian went straight to Danny.

      ‘Hello, son,’ he said.

      He bent forward and gently stroked his cheek, and touched the hank of black hair that protruded from the white bandage. Danny lay wax-faced and motionless.

      ‘Hello,’ Ian whispered again.

      Jess watched and listened to him murmuring to her son. Her dry eyes were wide and staring.

      Later, when the grey light was beginning to fade, Ian and Jess went out to walk for a few minutes in the damp air. Cosy yellow lights were coming on in the buildings on the opposite side of the road, and as they passed under a street lamp it kindled with a blood-orange glow. They walked in silence, a little way apart. In the last months of their marriage, when Ian had met Michelle, they had become used to opposition, then to acrimony. But any expressions of regret or attempts at self-justification were choked by the desperation of this moment. There seemed to be nothing to say about the past that mattered any longer.

      At length Jess said dully, ‘I think they are preparing us for the worst.’

      ‘We don’t know that. They may not know themselves.’

      Ian would not anticipate the worst before it befell him. At times his optimism was almost wilful. Jess recalled the tired old differences between them, the way that their separate needs and shortcomings had chafed each other for so many years. Their mutual failure seemed merely sad now, belonging to some long-ago time. She stopped in the middle of the pavement and threw her head back.

      ‘What can we do?’ she cried, a wail of anguish escaping her.

      Ian put his hands on her shoulders. The extreme familiarity of his face only reminded Jess that they were hardly more than strangers now. She didn’t know anything about his new life.

      ‘We can’t do anything,’ he told her patiently. ‘Not even us. Only the doctors, and Danny himself.’

      Looking beyond the man who had been her husband, into the lighted windows and the rooms containing remote ordinary life, Jess told herself with simple certainty, If he dies, everything will end. And her thoughts spun away to the beginning, to when Danny was born, and back before the beginning, as if to another life.

      Lizzie had come back from an afternoon with her baby and had taken her place beside the bed. Beth was in the waiting room, drinking a plastic beaker of tea. She looked up as soon as the door opened, as everyone confined in the room always did.

      Rob’s leather jacket was slung over his shoulder, concealing the plaster cast on his arm. The right side of his face had darkened with bruises and scabs. His eyes met hers and Beth knew at once who he was.

      ‘You’re

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