We were able to drive up to the front door without Tariq reporting any signs of life. Good, they’d been following my instructions. Secrecy was the best defence.
As long as we’d evaded pursuit — and Jamal, who’d both been watching the road behind us through the periscope, assured us that we had — then we should be safe, for a time at least.
Lee popped the hatch and climbed out, and a few minutes later a gang of boys had gathered to help me out.
I was home.
John had coped well with the journey. He was still unconscious but he didn’t seem to be in any discomfort and his breathing and pulse were strong. When I looked up after checking him over I saw Lee watching me anxiously. Just for an instant I could see the frightened boy hiding behind the brutal façade. I gave him a smile of reassurance.
“He’ll be fine,” I said. But I was lying. I needed to get him into surgery again as quickly as possible, and this time I wouldn’t have Sue to help me.
The boy relaxed, the mask came back down. Lee nodded briskly. “Good. Let’s get you both inside.”
We’d left my wheelchair behind in our rush to escape, so I made an undignified entrance, carried between Lee and Tariq past a sea of excited children, standing around the main entrance hall. Their murmuring faded away to shocked silence when I passed through. I tried to smile and put a brave face on it, but I was a sallow-cheeked, hollow-eyed wreck. I cursed the staff for not keeping them away. I had planned to clean myself up and make a dignified entrance at dinner; now that was blown to hell. I’d just have to make the best of it, but I knew that morale would suffer.
I couldn’t worry about that now, though. I began issuing instructions for the creation of an operating theatre.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I RUBBED THE sticking plaster that covered the cotton wool patch on the crux of my arm and wondered whether my light-headedness was a result of my ear injury, blood loss following the transfusion, or stress.
The sun was just rising above the horizon as I sat on the grass in the Fairlawne gardens, trying to calm myself and reflect on the events of the last twenty-four hours. So much to take in. Matron had been working on my dad for over half of it, all through the night without a break.
I heard the soft crunch of wheels on gravel approaching from behind. The sound changed as the wheelchair was pushed on to the grass. It came to a halt beside me and I heard someone walking away. I didn’t look up, just sat there staring at my feet.
“If you’re talking, I can’t hear you,” I said. “You’ll have to speak up, I’m basically deaf.”
“I’ve done all I can,” said Jane eventually. “Your blood made all the difference. If he lives through the day, I think he’ll be fine. But he’s in bad shape.”
“I know. And thanks.” I looked up at her and smiled.
Her eyes were deep sunken with big brown rings around them and bags beneath. Her hair was all gone, shaved clean, and the left side of her scalp was covered by a large white dressing, which marked the site of her surgery. She was pale and emaciated, gaunt and wrecked, huddled in a wheelchair without even the strength to push herself from place to place.
“Jesus, Matron, you look like shit.”
She laughed at me and said: “Look who’s talking!”
“I didn’t recognise you at first.”
“And I thought that your dad was you. He sounds like you. Or you sound like him, whatever. Through the glass, in silhouette, I was sure it was you. When I thought you’d been shot…” She left the sentence hanging.
We sat there in silence for a while, watching the sun rise behind the trees. Then I told her my story, everything that had happened from the moment I’d walked away, all those months ago. She listened patiently and never asked any questions, letting me tell it straight.
When I’d finished she reached down and ran her fingers across my scalp.
“I’m glad you’re back, Lee. I missed you.”
I didn’t meet her eyes, nervous of what I’d see there. I wouldn’t admit it to myself, but if I looked up and all I saw was maternal affection, I think that would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. So I kept staring at my shoes, not wanting to know yet what it was she might feel for me. Better to leave it undefined for now. There was still so much to do.
“So where is everyone? What happened here?” I asked. And it was her turn to fill me in. As I listened to her tale I grew more and more angry at myself. Angry and ashamed.
“I should never have left,” I said when she finished. “If I’d been here…”
“The same things would have happened, but there’d have been more shooting, probably,” she said. “As it is, everyone’s safe.”
“Not Rowles and Caroline.”
“No, not them. We have to decide what we’re going to do about that.”
“I have a few ideas,” I said.
“But look at us, Lee. What chance do we have against Blythe and his army? A crippled matron, a deaf schoolboy and an Iraqi — did he say he was a blogger?”
“Yeah.”
“An Iraqi blogger, some guy we hardly know and a man with three bullet holes in him. It’s not exactly a task force.”
“We have to do something,” I insisted.
“Yes, we do. We have to hide. Get ourselves well, build up our strength. Bide our time. Come up with a plan.”
“And while we’re doing that, they secure their position, terrorise the populace, establish martial law across the south of England. No,” I said forcefully. “They have to be stopped now. Because once they start setting up bases across the country they’ll be too widely dispersed to fight. Our only chance is to take them all out in one fell swoop, while they’re still all collected in the one place.”
“Oh well, if that’s all it takes,” she mocked, “I’ll call the mothership and get them to nuke Salisbury Plain from orbit, shall I? I want Rowles and Caroline back as much as you do, more so, probably. But there comes a point where you have to cut your losses. We can’t win this one, Lee. We just can’t.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I felt the anger rising inside me as she spoke. I stood up and leaned over her.
“What happened to the Matron I knew, huh?” I spat furiously. “The woman who’d do anything to protect the kids in her care; the woman who’d stop at nothing to ensure the safety of others; the woman who stood up to Mac when no-one else would; the woman who showed me what true courage is? What happened to her? You don’t even look like her.”
I walked away in disgust, knowing even as I did so that I was out of order, being cruel and callous when I should have been kind and caring. But I couldn’t help it. I was brim full of fury that had nowhere to go, so I took it out on her.
If she shouted after me, I didn’t hear.
JANE
“HERE, TAKE THIS.”
The voice made me jump. I hadn’t heard anyone approaching. I wiped my eyes and looked up to see Tariq offering me a handkerchief. I smiled gratefully and took it, blowing my runny nose and wiping my eyes as the young Iraqi sat in the spot Lee had vacated a few minutes earlier.
“I saw him walking away,” he said gently. “He looked angry.”
I nodded.
“He is a very angry boy, I think,” he continued. “You should not take whatever he said personally. He is young.”
I snorted. “And how old are you, exactly?” I asked, not unkindly.