He took the few steps towards the ensuite with one arm resting round her shoulders, his other hand groping the wall. He had lost a considerable amount of weight; his tall frame looked rake thin. Anna turned on the shower as he rested against the tiled sides, and she got a good soaking before she was able to help him stand beneath the water jets.
Only now had Anna the opportunity to see the terrible scars to his body. One ran from his right shoulder-blade, crossing his chest and reaching almost down to his waist. The other ran from the middle of his right thigh over his kneecap, almost down to his shinbone. He must have required hundreds of stitches.
‘Bit like a patchwork quilt, aren’t I?’ he joked, as she soaped his back and helped him wash his hair.
They had quite a struggle to get him back to the bedroom and into his pyjamas, and he then lay back exhausted. She felt such compassion and such love that she wanted to weep, but she kept up a bright and steady chatter, setting the alarm and preparing to take her make-up off.
By the time Anna was ready to get into bed, he was asleep on top of the duvet. She had to ease one side open and slide in. She turned the lights out, feeling exhausted herself.
Twice during the night he had to have some more painkillers before she had him finally tucked up beside her. He had hardly said another word, as if even talking pained him. She lay awake beside him for a long time, assessing just what she had taken on. She had always known that it wouldn’t be easy; however, it had never really dawned on her exactly how difficult it was going to be.
‘This is going to put us to the test, isn’t it?’ he said softly, as if he knew what she was thinking. She was surprised; she had thought he was sleeping. He raised his arm for her to snuggle closer to him.
‘I suppose a fuck is out of the question?’ he asked, and she could hear him smiling.
‘Right now it is, I’m too tired — but you won’t get away with it for too long.’
He laughed. ‘I won’t wait for long; I need to see if everything is in working order. At least the bastard missed my dick!’
The following morning, Anna helped him dress before she went to work. She left him sitting in the lounge, watching breakfast TV with a tray of eggs and bacon. He seemed in a better frame of mind and smiled as she waved a kiss goodbye.
‘I won’t be late. Any special orders for dinner?’
‘Blow job would be nice.’
She pulled a face and walked out.
At the station, Harry Blunt was having an argument with Frank Brandon, as usual. This time, it was a bet on what had been the fastest trial from the time of arrest. Blunt insisted it was thirty-six days, but Brandon was adamant it was forty-seven. After a few phone calls, Blunt held out his hand for a twenty-pound note.
Murphy had pleaded guilty at the plea and directions hearing. He was still held at Wandsworth; the trial date had been set and counsel appointed to represent him. Harry, as usual, went into a fury at the waste of public money, but the full show had to continue: it was the law. A law, Harry felt, that should be reviewed. With all the evidence and the admission of guilt from Murphy, he reckoned Murphy should just go before a judge and receive his sentence there and then. ‘Better still, give the son of a bitch a lethal injection! Get rid of the dross of humanity, instead of allowing them to clog up every prison.’
He was about to launch into another favourite topic of conversation, the prison system, when Brandon told him to shut up; they’d all heard it before.
‘How’s Langton doing? I heard he’s left Glebe House,’ Brandon asked.
He’d be furious that news had got out already about his release, Anna thought. ‘He’s doing really well,’ she said.
‘He’s a bloody marvel,’ Harry interrupted, and then went into another tirade. ‘Do you know how much my pal got, for being knocked out and kicked like a football? Poor bastard, he was on full pay for just six months; then they cut it down to half pay for a further six months, and then the fuckers cut the pay off altogether! All he could claim was twenty quid per week from the Police Federation. Twenty quid! You can’t buy a week’s groceries with that. It’s fucking disgusting. Poor bastard can’t even remember his own name.’
Brandon nodded — actually agreeing with Blunt! ‘I’ve got private medical insurance, mate.’
Harry pursed his lips. ‘Well, I bloody haven’t — not with two kids and a mortgage.’ He turned to Anna. ‘Has Langton got private insurance?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, I hope so — he’s gonna be out for months. Will he be claiming disability pension?’
‘He’s not disabled,’ Anna said brusquely.
Brandon parked his backside on the edge of her desk. ‘Friend of mine, he was a triathlete, right? Knocked off his motorbike, paralysed from the waist down. He went before the Chief Medical Officer. I mean, he was all right upstairs, understand? Just his legs got crushed. He’s earning good if not better money now, doing a non-operational job over at Hammersmith.’
Anna chewed her lips; between the pair of them, she was beginning to get really furious. ‘No way will he be disabled, nor, I can assure you, is he mentally screwed up either, so just shut up, the pair of you. You’re like two old women.’
Brandon shrugged and returned to his own desk, but she caught the look between him and Harry, as if they knew she was lying.
Langton was sitting at the bar in the kitchen, as he found the high stool more comfortable. She had bought tuna steaks and microwave chips and was tossing the salad as he opened a bottle of wine.
‘Do you have medical insurance?’ she asked.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just Harry Blunt was talking about some friend of his.’
‘What, hang-’em-all-Harry?’ he said, grinning.
‘He was saying today that there shouldn’t be a trial if someone has pleaded guilty and there is strong evidence to prove it.’
‘What, actually just hang them?’ he said, taking out the cork.
She laughed. ‘He’s such a gossip — kept on about disability pay and how little an officer gets.’
‘Talking about me, were you?’
She put down the salad tongs. ‘Well, they asked how you were.’
‘Oh yeah, and what did you tell them?’
‘That you had made a remarkable recovery and no way would you be claiming any disability.’
‘It’s going to be a few months, you know,’ he said, pouring the wine.
She sat beside him. ‘So, do you have medical insurance?’
‘Yes. I took it out after my first wife died, mainly because I loathed the bloody hospital she was taken to, though she didn’t last long enough to see the place. I just thought to myself, if anything happened to me, no way was I going to end up in a bloody National Health ward; probably die of something I picked up from the floors.’
‘That’s good.’
He turned towards her. ‘Don’t talk about me, Anna.’
‘I didn’t; they just asked me how you were.’
‘And you come back with all these queries about private medical insurance and disability pensions!’
‘I just said that you were recovering!’
‘Don’t even say that, okay?’
‘Yes, all right! So, you want salad?’
After dinner, they sat in the lounge and Langton brought out a notebook.
‘I’ve got a driver and a car at my disposal,’ he began by saying, ‘so it’s not going to inconvenience you.’
‘I don’t mind driving you around.’
‘Well, you can’t when you’re at work, so this is what I’ve organized so far.’
Anna looked down his list. He had a personal trainer booked for every other day. He’d apparently wanted a session every day, but had been told that he needed a day in between, so the muscles could acclimatize to the workout. He had therefore arranged physio sessions on the days between the workouts, plus a massage three times a week, as well as swimming, saunas and steam baths.