“That’ll be a straight twenty-five,” the driver says.
Grace opens her purse. No notes, only coins.
“Will you take a card?” she asks.
“Machine’s bust. Cash only I’m afraid.”
“I…I haven’t got it,” she says. “I went shopping with my debit card and never thought to draw any cash from the ATM.”
“How much have you got?”
“A fiver at the most, all in change. I’m really sorry.”
The driver’s face curdles with anger and he looks as if he is about to rip into her when Grace has an idea.
“Wait!” she cries, and roots in her bag, pulls out one of her old business cards and scribbles on the back of it with a biro.
“I promise to pay … what’s your name?”
She leans between the front seats of the cab to read the driver’s operator’s licence. “David Green. Nice to meet you, David.”
David Green only grunts.
“I promise to pay David Green twenty pounds, plus generous tip.” She adds the word ‘very’ and underlines it three times, signs and dates her declaration and offers him the card.
“You have my solemn oath I will pay you. Give me your card so I know where to send it.”
Even though Green has heard this promise more times than he’s had macaroni pies and cans of Irn Bru, and so far it had come to nothing, he nonetheless exchanges cards with her.
“You’re a star, David,” she says as she leaps from the car. “Oh wait!” She rips her watch from her wrist and thrusts it through his open window. “Take this … as collateral. It’s designer, rose gold and worth far more than what I owe you.”
He takes the watch, looks at it closely, sees the name on the dial and looks at Grace with suspicion.
“Very nice,” he says. “If it’s real.”
“It is,” she says. “One hundred percent genuine, you have my word. I still have the receipt.” She considers. “In fact, you know what, keep it anyway, have it valued, sell it, pawn it, I don’t care. It’s yours. And don’t worry, I’m still going to pay you. You have my word on that too. Now I have to go. I really do.”
She carries her “Bye!” with her as she sprints for the barrier and Green, a rich man now if he did but know it, puts the car into gear to roar off back to town.
Chapter 39
The soldier on duty at the barrier holds up his hand, bringing Grace’s mercy dash to a halt. “I’m sorry. There is no visiting on a Friday afternoon.”
“I know,” says Grace, out of breath. “I tried to get here earlier, but I had very little notice, I had to get a taxi and the traffic was awful. Please, I have to get in. It’s really important–”
“I’m sorry, miss. No admittance without exceptional leave.”
“This is exceptional. Please … can you ring reception? Or find Simon Gibbs? He’s a Charge Nurse. He knows me.”
“I’m sorry. Excuse me a sec.”
A large white van has pulled up at the barrier. The guard acknowledges its presence with the signal for ‘give me a minute’ before turning back to Grace.
“Now then, miss–”
But she is nowhere to be seen. He looks around. She appears to have vanished without a trace. The driver of the van is waving his documentation out of his rolled down window, eager to keep to his schedule. The guard examines the paperwork, hands it back, makes a note of the van’s registration number and the time on a clipboard, gives the driver directions to the service area at the back of the building and sends him on his way … oblivious to the van’s extra passenger.
Taking advantage of the men’s exchange, bemoaning Aberdeen Football Club’s pathetic performance against league cup hopefuls Inverness Caledonian Thistle the previous evening, and shielded from the camera posted over the security booth by the vehicle’s high side, Grace opens the van’s sliding cargo door and slips inside, curling herself into a tight ball beside a pile of boxes, heaving the driver’s discarded hi-vis coat over her huddled form.
The armpit lining stinks of stale sweat, like it’s never been washed, and the smell of diesel fumes coming in through a hole in the floor turns her stomach.
The trip only takes a few minutes, but it is rough – bouncing over the speed bumps without slowing, swinging round corners like he’s on rails, going forwards, jolting to a halt and then thrust into reverse.
Finally the van stops, the engine goes off and the driver gets out. Grace waits until she’s sure he’s gone inside before easing the door open, hopping down, and hurtling around the side of the building, using shrubbery as cover as she makes her way toward the Main Reception.
Only this time the glass doors don’t open at her approach. She tries stepping forward and back into the beam of the magic eye. Nothing. Shut tight. She cups her hands over her eyes and peers through the glass, recognises the woman shutting down the computer and tidying up the desk, and drums her knuckles on the glass.
Private Susan McGuire whirls around at the sound of the frantic rapping, sees who it is and pushes a hidden button under the desk. The doors slide apart and Grace all but falls through them.
“There’s no visiting on a Friday, Grace. You should know that by now. Doctors’ rounds. How did you get in?”
“Snuck in. Service van. I have … to see Colin,” Grace pants, almost doubled over with a stitch in her side.
“Snuck in? Oh crap. You’ll have been picked up on the CCTV. The heavy mob will be here any minute–”
“Don’t care. Have to see Colin.”
“Not possible. He’s–”
“Had treatment … ECT, I know, and something’s gone wrong.”
Susan stares at her. “How did you know about that? We’ve only just called–”
“There’s no time to explain things that can’t be explained. Please, Susan, I need to see him now right now, before it’s too late–”
A pounding on the door interrupts, and both women turn to see who is causing the noise. The said heavy mob has arrived. Grace’s heart skips a beat.
“Don’t let them in.”
“I have to.”
Susan presses the override button and the doors slide aside again to admit a pair of burly soldiers, all official in fatigues and shiny boots, their Tam O’Shanters set at a rakish angle, blue feathers standing upright from their regimental coat of arms cap badges.
Hands hover over holstered sidearms ready to do a Quick Draw McGraw as they head straight for Grace, who squeals with fright.
“Susan!”
“Hands where I can see them,” barks Soldier Number One, glowering at her.
Grace’s hands fly up, fingers spread.
“Name?”
“G-Grace. Grace Elizabeth Dove. Flat 6, Tierney House, Ferryhill–”
He only asked your name. Stop babbling you silly bint.
Susan McGuire tries to put herself between the scared rigid trespasser and the huge man in uniform. “It’s alright, guys. She’s no risk. I can vouch for her.”
Number One ignores her and thrusts out his hand. “Give me your bag.”
Grace looks to Susan, who nods. “Do it.”
She takes the strap from around her neck and holds out her small black bag at arm’s length. Number One snatches it and takes it to the reception desk, unzips it and tips out the contents.
Under the unwavering glaze of Number Two, Grace watches as he picks through her possessions. Tissues, lipstick, purse, keys. He finds her visitor’s pass and puts it to one side. He then opens her purse and goes through the card section, looking for any official form of identification.
“Driver’s licence?” he says, without looking at her.
“I don’t have one, I don’t drive,” says Grace, her voice frightened into a tight squeak.
He picks up the visitor’s pass, examines the photo on it, looks at Grace and back to the photo.
“Date of birth?”
She tells him, adding a superfluous ‘Sir’ for good measure.
“Wh
at are you doing here?”
“I–” She licks her lips, her mouth suddenly very dry. “I came to see a friend,” she says. “He’s sick and it’s really important that I see him, and the man at the gate, he wouldn’t listen. I didn’t have a choice. I had to sneak in–”
“She is who she says she is, and her reason for being here is valid,” interjects Susan McGuire. “Even if her methods are questionable.”
“Questionable?” Number Two glares at Grace. “They’re downright sus-pi-cious. You’re looking at arrest for trespassing, breaking and entering into a military facility–” He bends down, putting his face close. “Contravening the Official Secrets Act. Did you know treason is still a hanging offence?”
Grace’s eyes go wide. “What!? I didn’t! I just–! Susan, do something! Don’t let him shoot me!”
“Nobody’s going to be shooting anybody.” Susan McGuire pushes herself between a now very pale Grace and Number Two, slaps him hard on the arm and hisses at him.
“God’s sake, Tony, back off will you? Can’t you see you’re scaring her? There was no need for that, so just cool it, okay.”
Small Susan McGuire may be, but she’s the one with the balls to put this big man firmly in his place, and when Number One smirks, she rails on him too, giving him a look of such singular coldness it could have curdled milk. The smirk quickly fades and he looks to his boots.
She turns to Grace, speaking very quietly and calmly. “It’s alright, Grace. We’ll have this sorted out in just one minute if the Keystone Kops here will let me make a phone call. Why don’t you just take a seat over there and leave this to me, okay?”
“Okay.”
Grace wobbles unsteadily to the chairs, keeping the soldiers on the periphery of her vision, lowers herself into the nearest and sits like a garden gnome on a rock, hardly daring to breathe in case one of the guards objects to it, reaches for his pistol and puts a bullet in her.
No guns are drawn. Instead Soldier Tony gathers up the contents of Grace’s handbag while Susan McGuire makes a short urgent phone call.
A few minutes later a familiar face pushes its way through the swing doors of the corridor leading from the suite of treatment rooms.
No greeting from Charge Nurse Simon Gibbs, no preamble, just a sharply pointing finger and the dishing out of orders.
To the pair of soldiers standing guard over Grace, “You two, bugger off.”
To Susan: “This never happened.”
To Grace: “You. With me. Now.”
Grace hurries over to stand close by his side, keeping him between her and the armed men, using him as a shield in case they feel the need to argue the case and pull their weapons.
They don’t, choosing instead to give way to Gibbs’ more senior rank with a snappy, “Yes, Sir.”
They stroll out of the foyer and into the afternoon and Susan McGuire locks the door behind them.
With the tension fractured and quiet normality resumed, Gibbs leads Grace at a brisk pace down a brightly lit corridor, towards an area of the building she has never been in before.
“What the sodding hell did you think you were doing, Grace,” he says as they walk. “Trying to break in to a military facility for Christ’s sake? You got a death wish or something?”
Grace struggles to keep up with him. “I didn’t have any choice. It was a spur of the moment thing. I saw a chance. I took it. I’m sorry.”
“You do realise they could have shot you, don’t you?”
“They wouldn’t though … would they? I’m a civilian.”
“Most terrorists are.”
“Terrorist–”
“Luckily for you I outrank both those numpties, for the time being at least, or you’d be well and truly in the mire.” He pushes open one of a pair of double doors. “In here.”
Chapter 40
Colin McLeod lies on a trolley bed in this unfamiliar room, whey pale and as still as marble.
His tousled curly mop has been close cropped making his cheekbones appear more prominent, his face more angular, giving him a gaunt haunted look. From the waist down, over the bony flanges of his hipbones, he is covered by a white sheet, which makes a sudden dip to the mattress midway down his thighs. Above the sheet, the puckered pink and purple scars and random scattering of black shrapnel tattoos stand out livid against skin the colour of yoghurt.
Over his mouth and nose there is a clear plastic mask plumbed into the wall by a fine tube, feeding oxygen to each shallow breath, the prominent ribcage in his rake thin chest barely rising and falling.
A device like a clothes peg is attached to the middle finger of his left hand, connected by a thin cable relaying the steady beat of his pulse to a monitor which translates it into a gentle rhythmic beeping, and if not for the tracer lines dancing over the monitor screen like some macabre video game, he might well be mistaken for one already dead, a cadaver ready to be shipped to the morgue for cold storage.
The sight of this fragile helpless creature before her forces tears to well in Grace’s eyes, blurring her vision. “Oh, Jesus! Colin.”
“This is what we were afraid of,” says Gibbs from over her shoulder. “Anaesthesia is always a risk, particularly if a body is as physically compromised as Colin’s. They go to sleep, but they just don’t have the strength to wake up again.”
He dismisses the nurse who has been attending to Colin’s comfort. “Go and get a cup of coffee. I’ll take over here.”
When the nurse leaves, Gibbs gives the door a push, ensuring it is closed and the three of them are alone in the room.
“The DNR order?” asks Grace. “Has it been implemented?”
“Not exactly. It’s a fine line we’re treading at the moment, monitoring his condition but not actively doing anything for him. The oxygen is for support only because he’s breathing on his own. If he stops breathing, we won’t intubate, and if his heart stops, we won’t do any CPR.”
There will be no snake hissing air down his throat, no electric shock to restart his heart.
Grace lays her hand on Colin’s brow. Despite its ghastly paleness and waxy feel it is warm to the touch. There is still hope.
Gibbs clears his throat. “Sorry about … out there. There was no need for them to be so heavy handed. They wouldn’t really have shot you though. Too much paperwork involved.”
Grace sits up, wipes her eyes, swallows down the hard lump in her throat. “They were just doing their jobs. Thanks for rescuing me.”
“Got to hand it to you, though, you were pretty brave to sneak in like you did. I wouldn’t have had the balls.”
“I didn’t really have a choice. The man on the gate wouldn’t let me in. I begged him to, but he wouldn’t listen. You won’t get into any trouble will you?”
“You let me deal with that.”
She lays her palm against Colin’s newly shorn head. “I think I’m too late. I can’t find him.”
“Keep trying.”
“I am, but what if he’s gone for good? What if the ECT has put him into a coma and he’s gone too deep?”
“It is a possibility. You know how ECT works, how unpredictable it can be.”
She did. Electricity passing through the brain caused massive, simultaneous excitation of vast numbers of neurons, and the inhibitory mechanisms were overwhelmed – essentially a massive short-circuit.
When the excitation reached the motor neurons of all the body’s muscles, there would be considerable convulsive muscular contraction, like in an epileptic grand mal seizure, the muscles contracting so powerfully that tendons could be torn from the bones, the bones themselves may be broken, teeth chipped and broken, and sometimes breathing could be interrupted long enough to cause anoxia.
“Lack of oxygen to the brain, with every possibility of some kind of damage, even death,” she murmurs.
“Yep,” Gibbs says, and sighs. “You know, when you think about it, when you know what’s happening, it’s a wonder anyone survives ECT unscathed at all.”
&
nbsp; Grace rests her hand against Colin’s head, closes her eyes, and for the first time in her life, prays.
God, if you’re listening, give him back to me. I’ll take good care of him. He’s been through so much, to Hell and back already, give him another chance. Don’t let it end like this.
Gibbs puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. “There are things you need to know, Grace,” he says. “Are you with me? Are you listening, because it’s important?”
She nods. “Yes.”
“I know it’s been next to no time, and nothing is for certain yet,” Gibbs says, “but we have to plan for the worst. We’ve called in a specialist Neurologist, who also happens to be one of the Medical Directors of this facility. He has over twenty-five years experience and knows what he’s talking about. He’ll give Colin the once over and if he decides that the worst has happened and Colin has fallen into some kind of coma, and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any improvement any time soon, he–”
Grace turns to face Gibbs. “He what?”
“We’re not geared up to treat such cases here, so more than likely Colin will be transferred out to a more suitable facility.”
“Transferred? Where to?”
“There are several long term care facilities for neurological cases. The nearest one is in Newcastle, but there’s no guarantee he’ll go there. It depends on where they have room. He could end up in Sussex.”
“Sussex? Oh God.”
“I know. It’s a terrifying prospect for everyone involved. That’s why we have to make sure there is no cause for them to send him anywhere, and you and I both know that his best chance, his only chance, of staying here with us is for you to go to where he is, to where he’s hiding, and get him back. Drag him by the scruff of the neck if need be.”
“But I don’t know where–”
The pressure on her shoulder increases as Gibbs gives it a little squeeze. “Remember what it was like before you came, when we were at a total loss and nothing we did for him worked? And then you waltzed in here all bright and breezy and full of sass with your ginger beer and buns? It was like he’d been sprinkled with pixie dust. You broke through whatever barrier he’d put up against us. But now it’s gone up again, probably higher and stronger than before, so it’s no idle threat when I say time isn’t on our side. If you can’t do anything, can’t get through to him, if he doesn’t show any signs of coming round, there’s every chance that by this time tomorrow Colin McLeod will be on his way to Newcastle, or somewhere further afield with his DNR still in place and the very high probability that neither of us will see him alive again. If you want Colin to live…” Both his hands are now pressing firmly on her shoulders. “Can-you-help-him?”
In The Garden Of Stones Page 28