‘Don’t worry. You got at least twenty seconds to get out of its way!’ Gareth howled.
Maggie stood in between Jack’s legs, pressing around his nose and cheekbones. He sat with his head back, gripping the arms of their dining chair and desperately trying not to push her away because of the pain he was in. His eyes were blackening and wouldn’t stop watering, and his nose was swollen and wouldn’t stop bleeding.
‘I don’t think it’s broken.’ Maggie glared down at him as though he was the one who’d done something wrong. ‘You’ve reported them, right? You can’t let them get away with attacking you. We get so many police come into the ED, and paramedics now as well. It’s disgusting, Jack. You have to take a stand against this sort of violence.’
Jack put his hands on Maggie’s hips, in an attempt to reassure her.
‘It was my fault, Mags,’ he said.
She misinterpreted his meaning. ‘Oh, don’t tell me this is down to your newly discovered past! Did you go in all gung-ho, all “Harry Rawlins”?’
Jack stood up. ‘No, I didn’t!’ he protested.
She didn’t believe him. ‘Jack, you don’t belong in that world. You’re a good, kind man — not a gangster. They survive by having no heart, nothing to lose. You... You have so much to lose.’ Maggie instinctively put her hand to her belly. ‘Please, Jack, I can’t stand the thought of you putting yourself in danger. You’re not a fighter, you’re a smart man who’s always used words rather than fists. I don’t want you coming home like this ever again, you hear me? No more fights, Jack, please.’
Jack couldn’t stand any more of this.
‘I tripped over a stairlift!’ Maggie stopped talking. ‘And I fell down a flight of stairs. Nobody hit me. I’d rather you’d think I’m an idiot than a thug — but if you repeat what I just said to anyone else, I’ll leave you.’
She burst into giggles.
The next morning, Jack looked at his face in the wing mirror of a parked car. His nose was still very painful. Even the breeze blowing in his face made him wince. He called Laura.
‘How did you get on with Dougie?’ she asked.
‘It’s not him. I’m about to go and see Rachel Yarborough—’
Laura laughed. ‘She’s blind,’ she reminded him. ‘She can’t possibly be our forger.’
Jack corrected her. ‘She’s got glaucoma. I asked Mags and she said that, if it’s not too far developed, she’d be perfectly capable of close work.’
Within seconds of being inside Rachel’s home, however, it was obvious that her glaucoma was seriously bad. Her furniture was sparse so as not to cause an obstacle course, the décor clean and her TV was like a cinema screen.
‘If I have the contrast right up, I can see some things. Not details. Tea?’
Jack declined, not wanting to put her out, but she insisted.
‘I’m not useless, Mr Warr.’ As she made the drinks, she talked. ‘Dougie Marshall, eh? How is the old bastard?’
Jack watched in awe as Rachel made a pot using a push-button kettle that poured exactly the right amount of hot water, and mugs with talking sensors attached to the sides. To see her wander about her home, you’d never guess that she was partially sighted. In fact, if it wasn’t for the living room clock announcing the time on the quarter hour, Jack would never have guessed this home had been modified at all.
‘He was a genius back in the day. Sharp as a tack, wily as a fox — that was our Dougie. The only time he ever went inside was when that stupid kid of his was caught forging betting slips. Dougie owned up to that one for him, thinking they’d never send a dying old man down. Got three years. You can’t get a licence to run a betting shop if you’ve got a criminal record, see, so Dougie had to go down for Gareth, in order to secure both their futures. Dougie didn’t mind prison — within a week, he’d forged a medical referral and got a cushy time in the hospital wing. What he did mind was people thinking he’d forged Gareth’s terrible bloody betting slips — very shoddy workmanship. Gareth’s got no style. You met him?’
‘Briefly,’ Jack said. ‘Mrs Yarborough, I’m wondering if you can suggest any old-time forgers who might still be active in the area.’
‘If by “old-time” you mean anyone mine and Dougie’s age, then no. We’re the last ones. I gave it all up years ago, way before my eyes started to let me down, on account of being a terrible liar. If I ever got questioned by the police, I was bound to give myself away, so I quit while I was ahead. Dougie worked a good twenty years longer than me. Great liar, he was. That’s why all the big names trusted him.’
‘Names like Harry Rawlins?’
‘There’s a blast from the past! He did do a bit of work with Dougie, yes.’ Rachel smiled as she remembered Harry. ‘He was a master. And we were his willing servants. If you did right by Harry, he did right by you. He liked Dougie because he didn’t look like a genius. He hid in plain sight. What the coppers saw was a fat fucker in a betting shop — what Harry saw was an artist.’ Then Rachel said something quite unexpected. ‘Can I touch your face?’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Jack said when he’d got over his initial surprise, ‘but my nose is a little sensitive at the moment.’
Jack fitted right in at the hospital; no one gave his face a second look. It was 6.30 p.m. and Maggie was thirty minutes away from starting her night shift. Jack was enjoying doing nothing except eating a beef sandwich and watching Maggie eat a tuna salad. All he wanted to do was sit, relax and enjoy the company of his lovely, beautiful, pregnant, soon-to-be wife. Maggie had other ideas.
The Antenatal Unit was, of course, empty, but Maggie’s pass got her into any area of the hospital. She opened a wardrobe at the back of the room and got out an ugly, tan-coloured vest with a padded front. She held it up for Jack to put on. Maggie zipped him in.
‘Comfy?’
‘Not remotely.’ He scowled.
‘That’s what it feels like to be pregnant.’
‘Jeez, Mags. How are you going to carry this lump round?’
Jack put his hands in the small of his back and pushed his hips forwards, arching. He puffed out his cheeks and then blew, making his lips ripple in a silent raspberry. He started to walk around the room. He bent his knees, widened his feet and waddled.
‘Look, Mags, I’m you!’
As Jack moved with more and more exaggerated waddles, Maggie ran at him, laughing, calling him a cheeky bastard. He dodged her a couple of times, but the weight of the vest became too much and eventually he collapsed onto a yoga mat, exhausted. Maggie sat astride him and strained to lean down over his padded belly to kiss him. She couldn’t get anywhere near his mouth, which made them both laugh.
Sitting astride Jack, looking down at him in his pregnancy vest, with his two black eyes and swollen nose, Maggie had never felt so happy.
‘I love you, Jack Warr. I can’t wait to be Maggie Warr.’ Then her hormones took over and she started to cry. ‘Me and you know so much about pain, Jack. Promise me we’ll protect our baby from it.’