Hidden (4 page)

‘Gentlemen.’

Aden nodded, pocketing his warrant card, and slipped into the ward. The nurse was waiting for them, standing by the nurses’ station, her hands dipping into and out of one another. She looked young – too young surely to do a job like this – broad across the middle, long blonde hair pulled high into a chunky bun.

‘Did you find him?’ she asked.

Aden shook his head. ‘No, I’m sorry. You’re the witness?’

The girl nodded. ‘Chloe Chambers. You know this is the second time, right? That he showed up at the door last night, too? Scared Emily half to death when she saw that gun, I’ll tell you. What does he want with us?’

‘I don’t know yet. You get a good look at him?’

Chloe chewed her thumbnail, shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. It was dark. He had like a hood up, so you couldn’t see his face. I’d say he was – I don’t know – maybe six foot, slim, I think.’ She studied him as she spoke, hands flailing. ‘I’m sorry, I really am. Maybe Emily . . . but I don’t think she saw much more than I did. And that’s what’s so scary, you know? You just think: well, it could be anybody.’

Aden frowned. ‘Emily. She’s the one who reported him last night?’

‘Yeah. It spooked the hell out of her.’ Chloe folded her arms across her chest, shuddered.

‘Is Emily here?’

The nurse shook her head. ‘She’s off tonight. I can try calling her . . .’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but reached behind her, punching a quick series of numbers into the desk phone. Long moments stretched out, then Chloe shook her head. ‘She’s not picking up. It’s late. I guess she’s probably sleeping.’ She replaced the receiver and glanced behind her to where her patients lay. ‘It’s just . . . it’s scary, you know? The patients on this ward, they’re very sick. And you just think: how much worse can it possibly get for them?’

Aden followed her gaze, looking beyond the bright light of the nurses’ station, into the darkness of the ward. For the first time he noticed the beeping of machines; that Rhys was standing with his back against the door as if he was prepared to bolt. Aden glanced over his shoulder, could see the beds in darkness, the soft glow of lights, the dance of figures, medical-staff shadows moving from bed to bed, the huff of respirators. He let his gaze trickle around until it found him. Dylan Lowe lay stretched out on his back in a single bed, in a room of his own. Machines surrounded him, his hair longer now than it had been a year ago, brushed back out of his face. The light in the room was dim, but Aden could just about make out his face, looking so much older than he had on that night with the darkness and the rain and the blood. Could just about see his eyes, the way his vacant gaze hooked on the ceiling above.

And, with a crashing sense of horror, Aden understood just what it was that the gunman had wanted.

IMOGEN LISTENED. IT
was, after all, what she did best. She listened to the hum of the refrigerator, the growl of passing cars – one, two – casting shadow and light across the bedroom ceiling. She listened to Dave, his breathing steady and deep. Every now and then he would let loose a snore, a low grumble that welled up from his belly, building, building, then falling away into nothing. Imogen clutched the thin sheet between her fingers, even though it was a hot night and the sheet stuck to her skin like it had been glued there.

Her engagement ring was visible, even in the darkness. It caught the orange street light as it crept its way in through the curtains that never seemed to close right, a beacon in the darkened room. A single diamond set in white gold. The band narrow and plain, the diamond that her mother had described as modest. Although surely diamonds by their very nature were anything but modest. A solitaire. Such a strange name for something that joined together two people. For life.

It had been a year now. A year almost to the day. There had been no bended knee, no champagne or beds covered with the petals of blood-red roses. But then, that had never been Dave’s style. He had asked her over breakfast. She had just taken a mouthful of toast. With peanut butter. She remembered that, remembered the way the peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth, stoppering it up.

‘Look, I’ve been thinking. It’s been a long time. Us. We’ve been together a long time.’

Eight years. They had been together for eight years.

‘I mean, it’s probably time. Don’t you think?’

Imogen had stared at him. There were toast crumbs, resting on his lower lip. Had felt like her brain had split itself in two, the part that understood what it was that he was saying – that this moment, the one she had waited for since she was a child, had finally arrived. And the other part, the part that couldn’t stop staring at the crumbs.

‘So . . . will you?’

‘Will I what?’ She had watched as the crumb tumbled from his lip, landing on his forest-green tie. It left behind it an orb of grease.

‘Marry me. Will you?’

Dave faced away from her, the wall of his narrow back slicing the bed in two. Imogen turned her head slightly, watched his outline in the darkness. The narrow points of his shoulder blades jutting out, almost to his ears, sleeping like he walked, shoulders up, head pulled in like a turtle retreating into its shell.

Imogen couldn’t remember saying yes. She had said yes, of course she had. They had, after all, been together for eight years. And she loved him. He was the only partner she had ever known. She studied the outline of the ring, the way it distorted the shape of her hand. She had said yes and they had kissed and a new future had unfurled itself before her – a simple white dress, a small reception, a honeymoon somewhere warm, then babies that grow to children. One, two, perhaps even three.

A year ago now. Imogen studied his back, his shoulders and, lifting her fingers, trailed the tip of them along the curve of his T-shirt. Dave gave a small grunt, shifted in his sleep, and she pulled her hand back.

‘So? Are you ever going to get around to it?’ Imogen’s mother had leaned back in her deckchair, had been sipping something dark, exotic-looking.

It had been a thrummingly hot day today, wicked blue skies, not the merest whisper of a cloud. Her mother had called. You must both come over, we’re doing a barbecue. Your sister and Amy will be here. I won’t take no for an answer.

‘Get around to what?’ Imogen hadn’t looked at her mother, had watched her niece instead. Amy, two years old with gossamer strawberry-blonde hair, lips strung into a Cupid’s bow, a little swimsuit, pink striped with a narrow frill. Imogen’s father had blown up the paddling pool, had carefully filled it with lukewarm water, and Imogen smiled as Amy shrieked with delight.

‘You know what.’

She did. She did know what. It had been a year after all and, as her mother often reminded her, she wasn’t getting any younger.

‘Mum. Leave her alone. They’ll do it when they’re ready.’ Mara had winked at Imogen. ‘Plenty of time to be old and boring and married.’

They were identical twins, Imogen and Mara. The same and yet different. Same copper-red hair, same narrow nose, same Cupid’s-bow lips. But Mara was beautiful. A terrible thing to think about one’s twin, but true nonetheless. There was an ease about her, an effortlessness that Imogen had never been able to conquer. Her hair shorter, cut into a sleek chin-length bob, whilst Imogen’s hung just beyond her shoulders, never seeming to look quite the way it was supposed to. There were curves to Mara, her small breasts neat and shapely, her hips rounded, where Imogen was all angles and corners, thin, her stomach concave, ribs that protruded, so that when she looked at herself naked – something she very rarely did – Imogen was put inevitably in mind of a toast-rack.

‘I don’t know, Mum. We haven’t really thought about it yet. Like Mara said, there’s plenty of time.’

How to say that they had never talked about it? Not once. That the engagement alone had seemed to be a fait accompli, sufficient by itself. And that, as time had worn on, Imogen had stopped glancing at bridal magazines and flower displays, and that now, when she thought about weddings and the future that seemed to sit there, just out of reach, her stomach would ravel itself up into a tight little knot.

Dave shifted, the bed-springs aching with his movement.

She looked back down at the ring in the darkness. She wanted to be a mother. It was all she could remember ever wanting. Mara would talk about becoming a doctor, a lawyer. For Imogen it was simpler than that. For her, it was a child, dimpled hands that would wrap themselves around her own. Her own green eyes looking up at her. A husband who would look at her like she was the sun and the moon. Mara had got there first. The husband – Jack, a chief inspector in the police force. The baby. Imogen studied the outline of the diamond, feeling the weight of it multiplying with the future it promised, wanting that child so badly that it felt like a two-day hunger.

Imogen looked at the clock – 11.30 p.m.

She wondered distantly if she should get up, if some warm milk might help, pump her body full of tryptophan, quiet her seemingly relentless brain. She could take a sleeping pill, had a prescription in the drawer for times like this – seemed that there had been innumerable times like this, when her mind would swim and swim, and sleep would just drift ever further away. But then she might not wake, even though the alarm was set and it usually roused her. And she had clients back-to-back all day tomorrow, and if it didn’t go off . . . She looked back at the clock. She would close her eyes, would really try. She really needed to sleep.

Then the phone rang, cutting through Dave’s snores. For a moment Imogen thought it was a dream, that she had in fact fallen asleep. Then came the realisation, like falling off a cliff, that it was real. Her heart began to thunder, because no one calls at 11.30 p.m. with good news.

Imogen pushed the sheets away, swinging her bare feet onto the carpeted floor. Four paces to the phone. Who was dead? Her mother? Her father? Two paces. Dave groaned loudly, turning in a creak of springs. Imogen reached out, gripped the handset.

‘Hello?’ Her voice came out, quiet and small.

There were no words. Just a sound. Ragged breath, something that sounded like a groan.

‘Mara?’ Imogen could hear it in the breath, that little hiccup on the out-breath. Would have known her twin, even in silence. ‘Mara, what is it? What’s happened?’ Listening as her sister sucked in a deep, shaking breath.

‘It’s Amy.’

‘What is? What happened, Mar?’

‘She’s had a seizure. She . . . oh God, Im, it was awful. We’re in Mount Pleasant Hospital. Ward 11. Will you come? Please?’ The words collapsed, disintegrating into a sound, something between a wail and a groan.

‘I’m on my way, Mar. I’ll be right there.’

Imogen hung up the phone, stood for a moment in the darkness. Feeling the floor moving beneath her.

‘What is it?’ Dave’s voice came out of the dark.

‘Amy. Mara said she’s had a seizure. I don’t know, I just . . . I have to go.’ She slipped into jeans, all fingers and thumbs now.

He lay for a second, absorbing. ‘Well, did Mara—’

‘She didn’t say anything else. Just that they’re there, that she needs me to go. I . . .’ Imogen had the sudden thought that she should say something, that there should be more to say to your fiancé when the world had spun off its axis.

She heard him sit up, the movement of bed-springs. ‘Do you need me to go with you?’

Imogen pulled a T-shirt on over her head, her voice muffled by the fabric. ‘You have work. Get some sleep.’

Silence, then a song of creaking springs as he lay back down. ‘All right. Let me know what they say.’

‘I will.’ Imogen tugged on a pair of jeans, balancing awkwardly on one foot, and then leaned in, kissed him quickly, an awkward kiss so that their teeth bumped.

Traffic was light, few cars out on the late-night Swansea streets. Imogen wove through the narrow Mumbles streets, all hills and terraces, out onto Mumbles Road. The sea ran parallel with the road, inky-black. Imogen pressed her foot onto the accelerator, pushing back the growing sense of nausea.

The car park was quiet, just a police car, its blue lights still swirling. Imogen slid the car into a space, running across the tarmac, past the police car, her flip-flops flapping against the ground. Up the stairs, past an elderly security guard, standing – arms folded, legs akimbo – against the door of the adjacent ward, a rapid knock that hurt her knuckles. Amy Elliott-Lewis. I’m her aunt. She threw the words at the intercom. A buzz, a click, and she tugged on the door handle, trying not to slip in her inconsequential footwear.

Her sister stood, a statue on grey linoleum.

Beyond her, a wall of white, the doctors buzzing around the bed, bees around honey. Their voices piano-wire tight, movements quick. Imogen could see the urgency, in their backs, the turn of their heads. And there, at the centre of them, Amy’s tiny figure, smaller now than she had been just a few hours before, her body dancing to an awkward beat, arms flailing. A noise coming from her that Imogen had never heard before, an animalistic cacophony of grunts. The smell of urine.

Imogen grasped Mara’s arm. Her twin didn’t look at her, didn’t once take her eyes off her child, as if the world had narrowed down for her now, vanishing into this one tiny figure. Mara’s arms were wrapped tight around her stomach as if she were in pain. She was keening, a low moaning sound that tore at Imogen’s heart.

Imogen pulled her sister into her, trying to keep the fear from her voice. ‘It’s okay, Mar. She’s going to be okay.’

I PLUNGE THROUGH
the water, unnaturally blue. The sunlight cascades through it, sending a kaleidoscope of colour spiralling down to the tiled floor. Pull my arm back, over my head, angling my hand, slicing it back into the water. Stroke, stroke, breathe. A shoal of bubbles litters the water ahead of me. I can’t make out Aden’s feet, but I know he’s there. I can feel the way his body changes the flow of the water, picking me up in its current. We take it in turns to lead, geese flying south for the winter, sharing out the drafting. Stroke, stroke, breathe. My arms ache, the muscles pull across my chest. The bubbles vanish, and I know that Aden has turned, is starting back, but I don’t have time to look for him, because now I’m at the wall and it’s my turn, so I flip, tumbling in a tight turn, press the soles of my feet against the tiles and then I’m off again, returning whence I came.