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Rob’s silent for a moment, remembering the blond man in the Under Armour gear being rushed into theatre. He was an RTA victim, a rush-hour cyclist in his forties who’d been caught between an SUV and a bus, barely alive with his stats dropping by the second. There was blood everywhere. People were shouting. The lights in the theatre seemed overly bright, the machines overly loud, but that was probably due more to the bump of coke Rob taken to try to stay alert on the double shift he was working. He should’ve known coke on top of Fentanyl was a bad combination. He’s a bloody doctor. He should have bloody known.
‘Rob, you still there?’ asks Jeff.
He exhales hard. ‘I’m here.’
‘Look, I know it’s troublesome, but really don’t worry. We’re well prepared to fight this and I had the team work on a number of strategies. Why don’t you pop in to see me tomorrow morning, at, say, eleven? We’ll have a chat to set your mind at rest and start getting you prepped for the hearing.’
‘Okay,’ says Rob, feeling sick to his stomach. ‘What about my new job? I’m due to fly out in a few weeks. Should I tell the Dubai hospital board?’
‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ replies Jeff, hastily. ‘Let’s see if we can squash this appeal first, shall we? There’s no need to scare the horses just yet.’
Rob’s left leg twitches, as if it wants to run. ‘Okay, yes, sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Good, good,’ says Jeff, the jovial bounce back in his tone. ‘See you at eleven.’
Hanging up, Rob puts his phone down on the counter beside the stack of post. He glances at the letter still in his hand and sees that it’s shaking.
What the hell am I going to do?
In the aftermath of the fatality, Rob had found out all he could about the patient. It’s amazing how much information you can find out about someone from Google, Facebook and the rest. He’d learned that the man had been forty-two when he died that evening on the operating table. He’d worked for a domestic abuse charity and volunteered every Friday night at a local food bank. He’d had a wife, Veronica, and two little girls: Bethany, aged 5, and Felicity, aged 7. They did a load of things together as a family – camping, wild swimming, horse riding, cooking. Rob had stared at the photos of them on Facebook for hours. They looked happy. So happy, Rob had been jealous of him even though the man was dead. His name was Angus Pearson and he had died within seconds of Rob injecting him with over six times the correct dosage of anaesthetic. All attempts to bring him back had failed.
Rob looks down at the letter in his hand and feels his stomach lurch. Whatever Jeff says, however confident he is about winning the appeal, Rob can’t see a way to clear his name. Deep down he knows he doesn’t deserve to, anyway.
He killed Angus Pearson.
As he puts the letter back into the envelope, Rob’s phone buzzes on the countertop beside him. He glances at the screen, now lit up with a text notification, and reads the message: They’ve found Hannah buried in the school basement. It’s awful. Call me. Lx.
For a moment it feels as if Rob’s heart has stopped beating.
Hannah? Found? In the school? Jesus.
This can’t all be happening.
It’s too much. Rob’s chest tightens and it feels as if the panic is going to overwhelm him. He hurries across to the drinks cabinet at the other end of the kitchen and curses Sandra for tidying the decanters from the counter. Removing the best stuff from the cabinet, he pours a generous measure into a tumbler and downs it in one, barely registering the sharp, fiery taste.
His hand trembles as he pours another. He gulps it down. Feels the fire this time.
And pours another.
Chapter 8
The weather has turned. The torrential downpour makes the road conditions tricky in the half-light but tonight Jennie doesn’t care. It’s been one hell of a day and she’s wrung out. Her brain feels like mush. Guarding her reactions and words, holding in the grief for her lost friend in front of her colleagues, has been unbearable. But here, cycling along the main road with the rain pelting her face, she can finally let the tears fall without fear.
She pedals along Prebendal Road and stops at the traffic lights before the main road, waiting for them to go green. An old Volvo with a mum and three kids inside pulls up beside her. The little boy in the seat closest to Jennie presses his face against the window and sticks out his tongue, waggling it up and down until his older sister pulls him away. The mum turns in the driver’s seat, mouth opening to speak to the child. The lights turn green and Jennie sets off again. She wonders what the mum had been going to say to her son.
The standing water on the tarmac is worse along Main Street, and with the constant traffic swishing past her, it makes spotting the frequent potholes difficult. Jennie’s got most of them memorised, but every so often she hits one and the jolt has her clenching her jaw. The bloody council needs to get them fixed. If she had the time, she’d write them a stingingly worded letter.
As she’s pedalling out of town the traffic starts to thin out. Suddenly, Jennie shivers. The hairs stand up on the back of her neck as she gets the weirdest feeling that she’s being followed. Glancing over her shoulder, she sees a car crawling along the road a little way behind her. While she’s watching, it indicates left and pulls up on the kerb. Jennie shakes her head. They’re not following her; they were just looking for an unfamiliar address.
As she continues on, a rumble of thunder sounds overhead and the rain worsens. She feels the damp starting to seep through the seams of her waterproof jacket and bows her head against the deluge as she pedals faster.
Not far now.
Turning off the main road, Jennie sets off along the narrower, darker lane that winds away from the town centre, past the park and children’s playground, and towards her mum’s house. There’s barely any traffic here, and only a couple of cars pass her in as many minutes. Pretty soon it’s just Jennie, the road, and the rain.
Rainwater cascades down her face. The bike’s wheels slosh through the deepening puddles. Jennie can’t believe Hannah was buried under the basement floor for all these years, so close to where she’s been living and working. Her tears fall faster.
It’s a few minutes later when she gets the weird feeling again and shudders. Looking over her shoulder, all she sees behind her is an empty road. She blows out hard. It’s been a long and challenging day; maybe her mind is playing tricks on her. She is tired. But the uneasy feeling is growing. She can’t shake the sense that someone’s watching her.
