Kitabı oku: «The Blame Game», sayfa 5

11
Michael
1st September 2017

It’s a shock to the system to be in a car again, right after the crash. I break into a cold sweat as we move through the streets, pushing through crowds of people – donkeys, too, and I swear some guy had an orangutan back there – and then a flood of cars that veer all over the place. The driver tells me there are no road lanes in this town. Looks like there are barely any roads either, at least not of the tarmac variety, despite the fact that there appears to be a car-to-human ratio of eleven-to-one. Dust rises from the tyres, making it impossible to see or breathe. Like driving through a sandstorm. The driver smokes weed, has some funky music playing loudly. He tries to strike up a conversation, asks if I’m a medical student at the hospital. I say yes and try to conceal the lie in my voice.

There’s a white phone charger trailing into the back seat over a couple of Coke cans. It’s a match for my phone. I say, ‘Can I use this?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he says. I plug in my phone and within minutes the screen flashes white. I scroll through my photographs, past videos taken by Reuben. I click on one of them and find it’s of the bookstore, pre-fire. The sight of it pierces me. His face appears large on the screen as he props the phone against the leg of a table, plucks a book off the shelf and then sits on the floor, cross-legged, filming himself reading. A pair of legs appears next to him after a few minutes. I watch as he glances up at whoever’s standing there, then goes back to reading. It must be a customer. She’s carrying a Sainsbury’s shopping bag. She steps over him, like he’s part of the furniture, then turns to him and snaps, ‘Why are you just sitting there in the middle of the floor? Can’t you see people are trying to get past?’

Reuben lifts his head and stares at her blankly before returning to his book.

‘So rude,’ the woman says off-screen, and instantly I feel an old urge to shout, He’s not rude, he’s autistic! Helen and I once said we ought to have that emblazoned on T-shirts and wear them whenever we went out as a family. One day Saskia came home from school and said her teacher had said she was very artistic. Saskia was quick to correct the teacher. ‘I told her that doesn’t mean I’m rude and ignorant, Mummy. Artistic people are just as polite as neuro-typical people. Isn’t that right?’

We had a laugh at that one.

I scroll through his other videos, one of him playing Minecraft, another of him drawing. I know Reuben is an amazing boy. Despite society’s obsession with status, personas, the endless barrage of visual culture, we still place a ludicrous amount of trust in what we see. On the outside my boy isn’t normal, and that’s still a problem. Helen and I vowed a long time ago that we would fight for our children to feel at home in this dying, messed-up world, to find their place in it. We would protect them.

And that’s precisely what I intend to do now.

I scroll through my gallery to find the photographs I took of the letters. Helen doesn’t know I opened them, but she knows we were receiving them. Why hide them from me? Every year, a new letter. And always on the date of Luke’s death to make a point. As if I could ever forget.

I took photographs of the letters in case she got rid of them. And I needed time to think about what the letters said, about why she didn’t tell me about them. There are many secrets in our marriage, but they pale in comparison to squirrelling away letters that contain so much threat. Helen’s forever accusing me of avoiding confrontation, and yet she was the one keeping these from me. Why? What has she got to hide?

I start to panic when I can’t find the images. There are photos of Reuben wearing a snorkel mask for the first time, giving a big thumbs up. Pictures of Saskia pirouetting in her Trolls swimsuit, her face all lit up when she spotted the dolphins. I try to flick past them as fast as I can but something in my chest gives and I have to look away so as not to start sobbing.

Finally, I pull up an image of one of the letters and zoom in on the cream page.

Sir,

We write again on behalf of our clients regarding the death of Luke Aucoin.

Our records show that you signed for our previous letter. We request that you contact us immediately to avoid further consequences.

Sincerely,

K. Haden

A wave of anger rolls over me as I read the words ‘further consequences’.

‘Where to, man?’ the taxi driver asks.

‘The airport,’ I tell him. ‘Make it quick.’

12
Michael
16th June 1995

It’s decided: we’ll spend the next three nights in Chamonix learning stuff like what to do in an avalanche (‘Duck?’ Theo offers), crevasse rescue (‘It’s called chucking a rope down there, mate,’ Luke says), and belay techniques, or in other words, we’ll be drinking our body weights in vodka and singing German folk songs, with some token ice pick swinging in between.

This morning we’re joining a crowd of fifteen other climbers led by a mountain guide named Sebastian who is taking us up the Aiguilles Rouges for some mixed climbing techniques. This part of the Alps reminds me of Ben Nevis in Scotland, or the Lake District – a palette of earthy brown and velvety green, with gentle rises and pockets of snow in the nooks of distant peaks. Mountains stretch as far as the eye can see, no sign of human life anywhere. Just our little group swallowed up in the mountains.

It’s a warm sunny day without much of a breeze, but Sebastian has us all geared up as if we’re approaching the summit – helmets, crampons, ice picks, the lot. Still, I get to watch the sun rise over the mountains, a rich, yolky light breaking over the crystalline towers, bright rays the length of motorways pouring across the valley. It’s pretty awesome. Enough to make me feel more at ease around Helen.

‘Where did you meet Luke and Theo?’ she asks me amiably, once we’ve settled into our stride. ‘I mean, I know you all go to Oxford but did you know each other before?’

‘Nah. We’re all on the University rowing team,’ I tell her. ‘Ugly here got us all into climbing. Didn’t you, Luke? We did Ben Nevis last year.’

He grins. ‘Dragged you and Theo kicking and screaming up Ben Nevis, more like.’

‘We’re doing Kilimanjaro next. Then Everest,’ I tell her, and she looks impressed.

‘Wow, Everest,’ she says, glancing at Luke, who clearly hasn’t mentioned any of this to her. ‘I don’t think I’ll be going on that trip!’

Oh, are you sure? I want to say in a voice dripping with sarcasm. What a pity.

‘Come on, you lot!’ a voice shouts. The guide, Sebastian. He’s made the group stop on a massive rock ledge overlooking a sapphire lake. We take off our helmets and rucksacks and start to set up the stove, but Sebastian shouts at us again.

‘This is not the lunch stop,’ he says. ‘First, we learn how not to die. Second, we eat. OK?’

Sounds fair.

Helen stands close to the front of the group, watching Sebastian as he demonstrates how to make a top managed belay site.

‘If you need to lower into a gorge, you need to set up an anchor,’ he says, looping a figure eight of rope around a tree by the edge. ‘You clove hitch yourself into the shelf which enables protection at the edge. My belay device clips into the masterpoint. I need two lockers on the masterpoint – use a small carabiner for this to redirect the brake strand, OK?’ He holds up a carabiner and links it to the shelf. I take a peek over the edge. Quite a distance to the bottom.

‘Now, for a demonstration. Who will be my volunteer?’

A nervous laugh ripples among the crowd.

‘You,’ Sebastian says, gesturing for me to step forward.

‘What, me?’ I say, glancing around.

‘We’re going to cover what happens in the event of an arête shearing your rope, OK?’

Luke laughs and shoves me forward. One of the more outspoken blokes in the crowd – the South African fella with purple dreads – raises a hand. ‘An arête? What is this?’

‘An arête is a knife-edged ridge,’ Seb says. ‘If your rope is rubbing back and forth on this, what do you think will happen?’

‘It’ll break,’ everyone murmurs.

He holds up a worn piece of rope and demonstrates. ‘Snap!’ He turns to me and gestures at me to lower down off the side of the cliff. I’m not feeling overly confident about this right now. Still, I hook myself to the rope and try not to look too terrified as I lower down, eyeing the rope fearfully as it tightens around the tree. He lowers me down about twenty feet – which feels like a hundred feet – when suddenly I feel the rope go slack. My feet slip against the smooth rock and I scramble wildly to find something to hold on to. There’s a chink in the rock face and I dig my fingers into it, my heart thumping like there’s a box of frogs in my chest.

A few moments later, Sebastian shouts at me to climb back up. The rope tightens and I scramble back up there like Spiderman.

Everyone applauds and I try not to faint.

‘So, you see,’ Sebastian informs the group. ‘It’s important you know how to make a secure anchor when descending, but even more important is making sure your rope doesn’t run over any sharp edges. If you find yourself in a no-fall zone, the number one rule is …?’

‘Don’t fall!’ everyone shouts.

Back in Chamonix, Luke announces at the bar that he’s paid for us all to sleep in one of the dorms – we’d been camping outside but he says it’s a better idea to stay indoors. ‘Call it insurance,’ he says. ‘We don’t want somebody forgetting to stub out their cigarette because they’re too drunk to think straight. We might all end up without any gear.’ We both turn to Theo, who says, ‘What?’

‘Don’t play innocent,’ Luke says, shuffling a deck of cards. ‘You know you almost set the house on fire last weekend. Every time you get drunk you set your cigarette on the edge of the sofa or on the frigging mattress.’

‘Don’t remember,’ Theo says with a shrug.

‘Don’t remember?’ Luke laughs. ‘The corner of the sofa was on fire, mate. It was starting to climb up your trouser leg. I grabbed a glass of water that turned out to be vodka, almost chucked it over you. You can imagine how that would have gone.’

‘You going to deal or what?’ Theo says, a fag bobbing between his lips, nodding at the pack of cards in Luke’s hands. He begins to deal.

‘What are we playing?’ I ask.

‘What are we drinking?’

‘Gin.’

‘Gin rummy, then.’

‘Why not poker?’ Theo asks.

‘Fine, poker.’

‘Where’s Helen?’ I say. ‘Isn’t she joining us?’

Luke deals. ‘She’s reading. Doesn’t want to impose.’

The gin has warmed me up, broken down my hostilities. ‘Mate, I don’t mind if she wants to come.’

Luke gives me a dark stare. ‘I don’t know what drug you’re taking but it’s making lies fall out of your mouth.’

‘I’m serious. Where is she? Invite her down here.’

Luke shakes his head. ‘She won’t come. She’s got an early start with one of the trainers on the slopes.’

‘She’s training?’ Theo says.

‘Yeah. She doesn’t want to rely on me when we’re doing the tough parts. She’s independent, mate.’

I sit with that for a moment. A sense of guilt has crept in, my words about her being a leech and a millstone starting to nip at my conscience. I figured that she was Luke’s trophy girlfriend, but with every hour that I spend in her company I find all my assumptions being scratched away. She seems hard-working, independent, and pleasant to be around. Even better is that so far Luke has been on top form, joking around and insisting on paying for everything. I’m putting it all down to Helen being here.

I stare at my cards. Not a great hand. My high card’s the queen of hearts.

‘You seem really into this chick,’ I tell Luke, only realising once I’ve said it how childish it sounds.

‘Thanks, mate. She’s my girlfriend so it’s probably a good thing that I’m into her. If you know what I mean.’

‘How long you been … you know …?’

‘Seven months.’

‘A long time to keep her away from your best mate,’ I say. I think about mildly accusing him of either lying or being possessive but think better about it.

He shrugs. ‘She lives in London. And when she’s in Oxford we don’t exactly want any extra company, if you know what I mean.’

Theo and I share a look. ‘So, we probably shouldn’t bring up any of the one-night stands you’ve had in that time?’ Theo adds.

‘Not unless you want me to mention the essay I helped you write for Comparative Literature last term. The Dean might not like that so much.’

I play my queen of hearts. Luke sets down a queen of spades and an ace.

He wins.

The next day the three of us are badly hungover. Luke and Theo say they’ll give the training a miss, but I spot Helen, all geared up in a fluorescent pink shell suit heading off to the practice slopes with the rest of the climbers.

‘Hey! Helen! Good morning!’ I say, waving like an idiot.

She turns to the sound of her name. Sees me, waves. ‘Hi, Michael. Have a good night?’

I nod and slap my forehead. ‘Paying for it now, though.’

Another smile.

I am restless all day. Even when I join another climbing group with some French dudes who are eager to practise rope skills I feel distracted, my thoughts spiralling off in all directions.

13
Helen
1st September 2017

I’m at the British High Commission, sitting in a leather chair opposite Vanessa’s desk. I’m too numb for tears. I’m paralysed with fear and blind confusion at what has just happened. The walls seem to move in and out, exhaling. I don’t trust anyone.

I watch Vanessa on the phone to her superiors asking for advice. At least, that’s what she tells me she’s doing but for all I know she’s part of this. For all I know she’s involved in the crash.

I want to go back to the hospital and find Michael and tell him what’s happened. I need to leave, call someone, beg for help. Inside I’m floundering like someone tossed into the middle of the ocean without so much as a life jacket. When Vanessa looks up I ask if I can use one of the other phones to call my friend, Camilla, back in England, but she simply nods and holds up a finger, distracted by the person she’s speaking to. My breath comes in short, quick bursts. I move in and out of my body, into the past and the future.

The shrill sound of Vanessa’s mobile knocks me back into the room. She sets the handset of the landline down and answers, then hands her phone to me quickly. It is Alfredo, the neurosurgeon, and suddenly I’m plunged seventy miles north, in the hospital with Saskia.

‘We have done extensive scanning of Saskia’s brain,’ he says. ‘We can see a number of contusions on the frontal lobe and signs of a diffuse axonal. What I cannot see just now is whether there is any bleeding or swelling in the brain.’

‘Will she be OK?’ I ask tearfully.

He gives a sigh, and my heart plummets. ‘There’s a possibility that the pressure will increase and slow blood flow to the brain. If this happens, something called cerebral hypoxia and ischaemia can occur. It means that the brain can begin to protrude through the skull, which we certainly do not want.’

I feel turned inside out by this news. My mind races with questions. Will she survive this? Will she walk again? Speak again? What are the long-term effects?

‘What can you do to help her?’ I say weakly.

Another grave sigh. ‘She will need an operation to insert an ICP bolt to monitor pressure in the brain cavity.’

There’s a long silence, and I realise he is asking for my permission to perform this operation. To put a bolt in my daughter’s head.

‘Yes,’ I hear myself say, though instantly I feel terrified, flooded with doubt. Is this the right thing? Did I just agree? Can I trust him?

He tells me that the next twenty-four hours are absolutely critical for her survival.

‘Yes, please do whatever it takes,’ I tell him, apologising as I break into sobs. I tell him I will do anything, absolutely anything for her. I will sell my body, rob a bank, plunder a city. I will give her my organs. I will give her my life.

‘You must leave this to me,’ he says, and I realise with terrifying helplessness that Saskia’s fate – her survival – is entirely out of my hands.

‘Can you take me to Michael, please?’ I ask Vanessa as she wheels me through the hospital doors. I’m so weakened with worry about Saskia that I feel sick, and although I am desperate to see Michael I have no idea how to tell him about the van driver’s accusation. How will he take it? How will he cope with news of Saskia and this accusation?

As we turn towards the corridor linking to his room I hear a man’s voice bark, ‘Helen? Helen Pengilly?’

The man is white, broad-shouldered and sandy-haired, the sleeves of a white linen shirt rolled up to his elbows, his hands in fists by his sides. He seems restless, as though he’s searching for someone.

It is Theo.

I give a sharp, high-pitched scream.

‘What’s wrong?’ Vanessa shouts. I turn all the way around in the wheelchair and pull on her clothes, yelling at her to get me out of here.

‘Oh my Lord, Helen!’

A woman’s voice. My vision blurred with tears, I make out another blurry figure racing up the corridor towards me. A slim woman, early thirties, short red hair, a black cotton dress and yellow sandals. Her face is wet and streaked black with running mascara. My heart pounds in my throat as Theo walks briskly towards me, but with each step he reveals himself as someone else entirely. It’s not Theo after all. For a moment everything turns black and I’m gasping for breath.

Moments later my younger sister, Jeannie, is on her knees in front of me, her arms reaching around and pulling me into a painful embrace. I can smell her, feel her lips on my cheeks.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she says, fumbling to take my hand in hers. ‘I just can’t believe what’s happened, Helen, I can’t! It’s so awful!’

She reaches up and pushes a strand of hair out of my eyes, then cups my face. I burst into tears and she pulls me into another embrace.

When she pulls back she seems to be looking at the man behind her with a frightened expression.

‘This is my boyfriend, Shane,’ she says quickly. ‘Shane, my sister Helen.’

‘How do you do?’

I flinch as he looks at me, half-expecting him to turn into Theo again. My heart is still doing somersaults in my chest in case I’m mistaken. But he remains Shane – handsome, mid-forties, surprisingly anodyne, at least compared to Jeannie’s usual class of boyfriend – and offers a hand, as though we’re meeting in a café or bistro instead of a ramshackle hospital halfway around the world. He shakes Vanessa’s hand and pulls a banknote out of his pocket, handing it to her, before stepping in to take over the job of pushing my wheelchair.

‘Vanessa’s from the British High Commission,’ I say.

‘Oh, apologies,’ he says as she looks down with confusion at the twenty-pound note in her hand. ‘Shane Goodwin, how do you do? You guys do a terrific job.’

I stare at Jeannie, engulfed with relief at the sight of a familiar face, by the fact that I’m no longer alone. It doesn’t matter how awkward it is, how fractured my relationship with Jeannie is – she has come all this way to be with me, and for a fleeting moment I feel like I’ve been rescued. The threat of someone walking through the hospital doors lessens as Shane chats amiably to Reuben, asking after the game he’s playing on his iPad. Shane begins to push the wheelchair towards the ward while Jeannie makes a huge fuss over me.

‘This hospital is horrific,’ she says loudly. A nurse passing by gives Jeannie a sour look. ‘Honestly, of all the places to have a car accident, Helen! It’s like a building site. Where’s Saskia, by the way? And Michael? Are they in a different ward?’

‘Saskia’s been transferred to another hospital in Belize City …’ I explain, but Jeannie doesn’t hear. She frowns as she looks over the ward, commenting on the lack of chairs for visitors and the appalling smell.

‘… we’ve just got off a twenty-two-hour flight,’ she says bitterly. ‘Business class, but still. And the drive here … Oh! I won’t bore you with the details but it was horrendous …’

From the corner of my eye I can see Reuben growing anxious. He’s like a sponge, absorbing my mood. Shane keeps trying to talk to him – in a way that tells me he has no idea about Reuben’s condition – and he’s inching closer to me and stamping his feet.

‘Do you need the bathroom?’ Shane asks him. He turns to Vanessa. ‘Do you know if there’s a bathroom anywhere for this chap?’

Reuben starts to shake his head. He doesn’t stop. I intervene, taking his hand, pulling him on to my knee and whispering into his ear.

‘It’s alright, Reuben,’ I tell him, ‘you’re safe,’ but he bangs his hands hard against his ears and makes a brrr sound with his lips, like the noise of a toy car. I can already tell he’s heading for a full-scale meltdown and I’m in no position to stop him. The people on the ward are staring, Jeannie is informing Shane and anyone in a five-mile-radius that Reuben is autistic, bless him. My heart is pounding at the thought of what is happening to Saskia as we speak. I’m struggling to breathe and Reuben is now bouncing on my lap, so hard that I give a loud yelp of pain. Shane steps forward to intervene but Reuben shouts, ‘Get off! Don’t touch me!’ and Shane leaps back like he’s burnt his hands.

I tell Reuben to take off his socks and lie down on the floor, resting his feet on my lap. Shane and Jeannie look appalled. My arms feel like lead, but quickly I run my hands up and down his shins, then the soles of his feet.

‘It calms him,’ I explain weakly, and they nod but Jeannie looks as though she might throw up.

Once Reuben has been calmed and we’ve waved goodbye to Vanessa, I settle back into my bed on the ward and Jeannie cordons off the space with a curtain. She and Shane make seats out of plastic containers and sit by the bed, and I wait until Reuben is sufficiently distracted by a game on his iPad before telling them in frantic whispers what happened. The figure I saw at the beach hut. The van I saw swerving into our lane. The gut-wrenching moment of impact, unimaginably fast and horrific, that moment where I thought we wouldn’t make it, that this was it – the end. And as I describe it I recall more details, each one like a lash across bare skin, breaking me down into juddering tears. I remember screaming for help. I remember climbing out of the car and surveying the scene, taking in the sight of the crumpled car and the small figure of Saskia’s body on the ground with such horror that I blacked out. The boots by my face.

Retelling this changes the air, making it fizz. Jeannie and Shane look horrified. She takes my hand and asks about Saskia, why she isn’t here. I tell her about Belize City, that Saskia’s in surgery as we speak. I tell them about the interview at the police station. How I had expected to feel safer once I’d relayed my fears to the police, but instead I felt much, much worse, as though they viewed me with suspicion.

‘What fears?’ Jeannie asks, and I have to close my eyes and steady myself before I say it.

‘That someone’s trying to kill us,’ I say through deep, juddering breaths, and instantly I can see the look of disbelief on both their faces. ‘The police arrested the van driver and he’s told them that Michael paid him to crash into our car.’

‘Say that again?’ Jeannie says, her eyes widening, and once I’ve repeated it she sits back in her chair and shares a horrified look with Shane. ‘Well, of course the other driver’s going to say anything to get off the hook. I’ll bet you anything he was drink-driving and now he’s trying to get out of serving jail time. Can’t say I blame him. I mean, if the hospitals are this bad you can imagine what the prisons are like.’

‘Surely they don’t believe a word the other driver says?’ Shane offers, a little more gently. I tell him I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.

‘Does Michael know?’ Jeannie asks. ‘Have you told him?’

I shake my head. ‘He was still unconscious when I left.’

I ask them to help me into the wheelchair so I can finally head to see Michael. My thoughts pendulum between breaking this hideous news to him and his fate, which seems to rest now on the word of a stranger. What will happen to Michael if the police decide to investigate? Will they arrest him? Will they arrest me? What will happen to Reuben and Saskia?

The thought of the police barging in to rip Reuben from my arms makes my blood run ice-cold and my whole body tremble uncontrollably.

Shane offers to sit with Reuben while Jeannie pushes me in the wheelchair to check on Michael. The corridor is dark, a puddle forming in the middle from a drip in the ceiling and a single strip light that flutters, on the verge of giving up. Jeannie’s chatter behind me is soothing in its buoyancy, the confident tone of her voice.

‘We need to arrange a way home,’ Jeannie is saying in a crisp voice. I notice her accent has changed again – it tends to change to match her environment – to a solid RP accent, just like Shane’s. Last I heard she was working in London as a Programme Director for the National Opera. ‘I’ve already spoken to the airline and re-arranged your flights. Shane was already in Mexico when I got the call. He said he’d fly down and meet me here. Do you think you’ll be well enough to travel tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Oh, ignore me. I forgot that Saskia’s in a different hospital. That reminds me: I hadn’t told you about Shane, had I? It must have been weird for you to see him earlier. He’s my new boyfriend. Met him at a thing in Mayfair. He’s handsome, isn’t he? And guess what?’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got him into leech therapy. We’re going on a GOOP retreat in January. A week in Bali with shamans, yogis and leeches. Bliss.’

My younger sister and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, mostly on account of how different we are. She’s demanding, opportunistic, and doesn’t listen very well, unless you’re sharing wild gossip, in which case she’s all ears: a difficult person to warm to. Intuition whispers that she’s not here for me at all but for the drama. Jeannie adores drama.

We’d not seen each for six years when the fire at the bookshop happened, and within twenty-four hours she was on my doorstep, eying up the destruction to our livelihood, and the niece and nephew that didn’t recognise her, with unveiled glee. She stayed for two weeks, which was long enough for Michael to tell me to cut ties with her.

I wonder what he’ll say when he sees her here. Maybe he’ll be grateful. We need as many people fighting our corner as we can get right now.

‘We must have the wrong room,’ Jeannie says when we turn into Michael’s side room.

I glance at the metal cupboard in the corner with the dent in the door, the flaking blue paint on the wall beside it making a butterfly pattern in the plaster. ‘No, it’s definitely this room. I remember it.’

The bed is empty, the covers flung back. Jeannie flicks on the light.

‘Well, where is he, then?’

The ventilator, monitor and drip-stand are here, tubes hanging redundantly by their sides. I glance at the chair beside the bed where I spotted Michael’s clothes and backpack. They aren’t there.

‘They must have moved him,’ I say, and swiftly Jeannie walks out of the room and further into the ward to find someone to ask.

‘We’re looking for Mr Pengilly,’ she tells a nurse, pointing at Michael’s room. ‘My brother-in-law. He was just in that room.’

The nurse walks a little way ahead of us and turns into the room. She lifts the clipboard at the bottom of the bed, scans the notes. ‘Michael Pengilly,’ she reads slowly, then looks again at the bed as if he might materialise.

‘Excuse me, please,’ she says after a few moments, then heads back down the corridor to find a doctor. We tell him the same thing, and again we go back to Michael’s room, only to confirm the same: we had arrived to find the bed empty. Michael was last seen by a nurse at three o’clock. He’d been sleeping but otherwise stable. By all accounts, he should still be in the room. The catheter and IV have been removed but nobody had signed off their removal.

I spot some bloodied dressings underneath the bed, and Jeannie picks them up and thrusts them at a nurse who stands in the doorway, her mouth open.

Just then, a doctor appears by the nurse’s side.

‘We have been conducting an extensive search for Michael Pengilly,’ he says, out of breath.

‘And?’ Jeannie says, throwing her arms up.

‘We have searched the whole hospital, checked all the wards. Nobody has seen him. I’m afraid he has gone.’