LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘What happened? I only saw you a couple of hours ago,’ she asked.

      ‘That woman I found. She was completely fucked up, thrown away like rubbish. It was awful. I thought she was dead. She looked dead.’

      ‘You found her in time, though. You got her to the hospital.’

      ‘Who does that to another person? Sometimes I feel like we are swimming against the tide with this job, I really do. Every day it’s something else; it never stops.’

      Imogen knew that this was about more than the woman he had rescued today – it was about the woman he grew up with, about his parents. Adrian rarely talked about his mother, but Imogen knew that his father had been violent and that Adrian struggled to accept aggression towards women on any level. She knew what it was like to grow up in challenging circumstances, but not a day went by when she wasn’t grateful that there was no kind of abuse in her own childhood; she had seen what it had done to friends. Working in the police, she knew how demoralising an abusive childhood was and how massively it impacted who people became.

      ‘You’ll feel better after you get cleaned up,’ she said. ‘We can go straight back to the hospital as soon as you’ve showered.’

      ‘What if she dies?’

      ‘Whatever comes next, we are going to find out what happened to her. She’s not going to die. I know it. You saved her, Adrian.’

      Imogen parked the car near Adrian’s house and he jumped out immediately. He didn’t want to hang around, she could tell. He unlocked his door and went inside, leaving it open for her to follow.

      Imogen made herself comfortable on the sofa and waited for Adrian to return. She was at home in his house now, maybe even more at home here than in her own place.

      There was an old cookery show on TV; it was one she hadn’t seen since her mum was alive and she felt a pang of sadness as thoughts of her mother crossed her mind. They used to watch Keith Floyd together regularly; her mother loved his vibrancy and authenticity. She would wink and say that she had met him once, and Imogen wondered if it was code, a clue that he was her biological father. The mythical bio-dad who was everything from a prince to a crack addict – it seemed silly now to think that she thought this TV celebrity might be her father. There again, her mother had a way of doing the unexpected, so it wasn’t completely out of the question.

      It had been almost a year since her mother had died and she had barely allowed herself time to think about her. Once she gave herself that permission, there would be no stopping it and so she preferred not to start. Imogen had always felt as though crying was a weakness in some way and so she was loath to succumb. She switched channels until she found something less emotionally challenging.

      Her eyes became heavy as she focused on the screen, the Northern accents a refreshing change from the Devonshire twang that she was used to.

      Adrian’s lips woke her, pressing against hers gently; she wondered what she must look like and hoped she wasn’t drooling.

      ‘I forgot to say thanks,’ he said before kissing her again.

      She kissed him back.

      ‘Feel better?’ Imogen said.

      ‘I’m sorry if I was a shit,’ Adrian said, perching on the sofa next to her.

      She moved to accommodate him and nestled in his arm as he drew her closer.

      ‘You weren’t. I get it. That must have been a traumatic experience for you. Sorry you had to go through it alone.’

      ‘I’d better get back to the hospital,’ Adrian said.

      ‘Can we just stay here for a minute?’

      ‘DI Walsh is already there. She hasn’t woken yet, but I’d like to be there when she does eventually wake up. I offered for us to do the night shift. He just phoned to tell me the doctor ruled out sexual assault.’

      ‘Well, that’s something at least,’ Imogen said.

      ‘Is it? I don’t see how anything could have made it any worse. She was as near to death as anyone I have ever seen. When I felt her hand around my leg, I thought I had lost my mind. She looked so … she just looked gone. I should have checked her pulse straight away.’

      ‘She’s in good hands now. The doctors will take care of her. We just need to find out who she is and how she ended up there. How about you? Are you OK?’

      ‘I don’t know if OK is the right word for it.’

      ‘I can see your brain ticking over. You can’t overthink this one; you’re going to do your head in. You acted quickly and now that woman is in hospital getting treatment thanks to you. You did absolutely everything you could. This isn’t on you. This is on whoever did that to her, OK?’

      ‘This is going to be a messy one, isn’t it?’ Adrian sighed.

      ‘Let’s hope we have seen the worst of it. Whatever happened to her, she’s got us now. And we can make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else,’ Imogen placated but knew his mind was already swimming with the ghosts of his own past.

      ‘I wish I shared your optimism.’

      ‘If I had been through what she had been through then there is no one else I would want on my side. You saved her life, Adrian. Remember that.’

       Chapter Four

      I am in a hospital bed, everything hurts and I don’t know how I got here. Various nurses and doctors come and go – I haven’t opened my eyes yet, but I hear them speaking. I know from their conversation that I have no identification on me and they have no other way for them to identify me. I wonder if this is all a dream – am I really asleep? Or maybe I’m really dead and in some kind of celestial waiting room. I can’t say I would be devastated if that were the case. I feel no pain – I am grateful for the drugs they’ve given me. I fade in and out of sleep, undecided on whether or not I even want to wake. Maybe this time I can disappear. I have a head start and he thinks I’m dead.

       Chapter Five

      Adrian watched the numbers and lines on the heart monitor. He had no idea what any of the information meant, but it was steady and so he assumed that was a good thing. They weren’t in intensive care either, which also boded well for the mystery woman. The easy chair in the hospital cubicle was comfortable and he had volunteered to stay until the woman woke. He had sent Imogen home after a couple of hours; there was no point in both of them losing the night.

      Adrian was shaken by what had happened. He had seen plenty of horrific cases in his time as a DS and he wondered if there would ever come a time when he wasn’t shocked by this kind of thing. But being upset was the right reaction. The moment you stopped being upset was the moment you should go and do something else. It’s normal to be afraid or angry. It’s normal to feel frustrated or powerless in some situations. You had to keep it inside, though. You had to stay strong, not just for yourself, but also for the people around you. One chink in the armour and all of your defences were compromised.

      A nurse came in with a small basin and a cloth. She smiled uncomfortably at Adrian then gently wiped the woman’s face and hair, trying to soften the mud that had now dried on her skin and clumped together at her roots. They had already scraped under her fingernails and taken photographs of any abrasions or bruises. But legally they couldn’t take blood samples or test her DNA without consent and she would need to be awake for that. The nurse rinsed the cloth and dabbed at a cut across the woman’s eyebrow.

      As he watched the nurse, Adrian remembered his mother, a fragment of time that they shared together. In a conscious effort to block out his father, Adrian’s

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