The Friend

Chapter 3

For Danny, walking through the William Harvey Hospital felt very much like Groundhog Day. Callie had been in here for a month now and Danny had made the same trip just about every day since. Today – as always – he walked with his head down, following the same endless polished floors that reflected the blur of different coloured uniforms as they hurried in every direction, spreading the thick smell of bleach and antiseptic as they went. The Intensive Treatment Unit was on the second floor. He took the stairs, he liked to anyway, but it would also avoid the confined space of the lift, despite heeding Marty’s advice to take a second shower.

And then there was Callie.

His daughter always seemed the same too. The same bed in the same space. The ITU was made up of five areas: Callie was in the third, first bed on the left, furthest from a window that was sealed shut to ensure the ITU was stuffy to the point of oppressive. Callie was in the same position too: laid out on her back, her eyes closed, her face expressionless, with the same mechanical hiss and whirr as a machine assisted her breathing through a tube that parted her lips to reach deep into her throat. Another tube ran alongside it too. Danny had asked a lot of questions when he was first presented with the horrific image of his daughter, to be told that she needed much more than just assistance with her breathing. She was also being fed a sedative to keep her asleep, an analgesic for pain and drugs to minimise the risk of long-term liver damage. Since that first terrifying image, additions had made it even more terrifying. Another tube now fed her through her nose, her wrist trailed another that monitored her blood pressure, while she was also connected to a dialysis machine via her groin. The final intrusion was a catheter that left a bag of urine visible, hanging down from under the bedsheets. They had told Danny that he would get used to seeing her like that but a month down the line and it still hit him every time.

He felt the same cold, clammy touch from her skin as he took hold of her hand.

‘Hey.’ Sharon’s arrival made him jump. Her voice seemed strained, but still instantly recognisable to him from across the bed – as it should be after fifteen years of marriage. Long-suffering, she would be called if he was to believe what he’d heard recently. He could hardly argue. They’d had tough times: extra-marital affairs, addictions, depression – all his. But they had come through every one. He might have accepted that his marriage was going to fail at some point, that he was going to be out of the family home, but he had always assumed that it would be down to something he had done, his fault, which would also make it something he might be able to fix. Instead something else had torn them apart. Someone else. The stranger who had silently manipulated and abused his daughter, the stranger who had forced her into a desperation so strong that she would seek to take her own life with a handful of painkillers. Painkillers. He hadn’t even been able to say the word out loud. The doctors had also detected a toxic amount of Paracetamol in her system. They suggested this might have been her first choice to effectively overdose but explained that it could take time and she might have lost patience. He could barely imagine what could have left her feeling so desperate. There had been a police investigation; Callie was a victim of online grooming, she had been blackmailed to send pictures. It had all come out a few weeks before she had tried to take her own life. Callie wasn’t the only victim – a number of her friends were involved too. It was a difficult time, of course it was, but he had no idea just how huge the impact had been on her. His confident, popular, sassy daughter – reduced to this. Being kept alive by a series of tubes.

He assumed the police investigation would ramp up when Callie was rushed in but all they could provide was more questions than answers. Still there were lots of missing pieces. The name of her abuser being the most obvious; a sense of justice was another.

Danny kept hold of his daughter’s hand as he greeted his wife. ‘I didn’t think you came in this early?’ he said.

Sharon was carrying coffee, the brand matching what he had passed at the entrance.

‘Well, I was able to get the school run taken off my hands, so I thought …’

‘You thought what?’ She had two cups: Danny was now aware that she had come here with the intention of speaking to him after weeks of doing anything to avoid it.

‘Marty told me you were heading over after your meeting so I had an idea of what time you might be here.’ She put one of the cups down on the table at the end of Callie’s bed, pushing it an inch towards him.

‘You two have been talking a lot just recently,’ Danny said, and his wife reacted with a warning look.

‘We’re both worried about you.’

‘Don’t waste your energy on worrying about me. Save it all for her.’

Sharon took hold of Callie’s other hand. She had stayed the opposite side of the bed. He watched as she gently straightened out Callie’s fingers like she was trying to massage some life into them.

‘Do you ever wonder if she dreams in there? You see it in the movies, don’t you … people in comas dreaming. I can’t stop thinking about it, if Callie can dream she can have bad dreams too … It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?’

‘This whole thing’s a bad dream.’ Danny gently pushed Callie’s fringe where it had fallen over her eyes. She was such a pretty girl, gentle features but with a real spark to those eyes. Just like her mother.

‘I can’t bear it, Danny, the thought that she’s having bad dreams too. I like to think of her as just sleeping, resting so she comes back stronger. I hate to think she’s struggling in there.’

‘I know.’

Sharon’s lips twitched like she might be breaking down and Danny had to fight the urge to walk round to her and wrap her in a hug. She was quick to change the subject.

‘How’s your digs?’ she said.

‘Like a football tour stopover in Chernobyl. Only without the lads.’ He forced a laugh. Sharon only managed a smile.

‘Are you staying on tour? Is that your plan?’ she said.

‘Plan!’ Danny scoffed and regretted it instantly. ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing from here, not yet.’

‘Marty was talking about some job opportunity with Dover. Sounds like you’re moving further on with the management side? That sounds good.’

‘I’ve got options, yeah. I’ll need to get my head down.’

‘Are you going to be able to do that?’

‘What do you mean?’ Danny snapped. Again, he regretted it. Sharon stayed calm, of course she did, it was always him that would escalate first.

‘You’ve got a lot going on right now,’ she said. ‘We both have. I’ve been struggling to concentrate on anything, I can tell you that.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Danny said.

‘I’ve been thinking that maybe we can get a loan together, enough to get you the deposit for a flat, you know, somewhere a bit more permanent. I’ve had a look, there’s a few places about that you might like, I can send you the links through …’ She faded out to study him like she was waiting for his reaction.

‘Flats? Sure, send them through. Can’t hurt to look.’ Danny had no intention of looking. As bleak as the hotel was, finding a place to rent was a permanent solution to a problem he had hoped would be temporary. Sharon seemed to relax a little, like maybe they had moved past the part where she might have been expecting a battle.

‘Has anyone spoken to you? About … about the investigation?’ Danny said.

‘Spoken to me? The police, you mean? Not for a while now.’

‘Not the police. There was some guy, he said he was some private investigator, he came to see me at the hotel.’

‘Private investigator? Where would you get the money from for—’

‘I didn’t hire anyone. It’s nothing to do with me, with us even. He was hired by someone separate from all this but he was talking about having answers for us. About whoever did this to Callie …’ Danny’s words petered out. It sounded even more ridiculous out loud.

‘It was in the local papers, Danny, it’s everywhere on social media, everyone knows our business, just like always. It’ll be some weirdo who fancies himself as being part of the story. You didn’t give him any money, did you?’

‘No. He wasn’t asking for money. He said he had answers. That was all he said.’

‘He will … Ask for money, I mean. Sounds like a con artist to me. There’s nothing more valuable to you in the whole world right now than finding out who did this to us, to our daughter. Anyone would know that. Tell him to do one.’

‘I did.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘I don’t know really. Older than me. Nice suit … It was late, I was heading back and I was a little …’

‘Drunk?’

‘I was going to say tired.’

‘But you meant drunk.’

‘I’m an adult, Sharon. I’m allowed to have a quiet drink when there’s nothing else to do.’

‘You’re allowed to do whatever you want. That’s always been your biggest problem.’ She paused to come back softer. ‘Look, I don’t want to argue. I just wanted to see you were OK.’

‘I need to see my boy,’ Danny said.

‘We talked about this.’

‘You talked at me about this.’

‘And you were drunk then, too. You think I want a two-way conversation with a drunk about something as important as our son?’

‘It won’t happen again.’

‘The drinking will. It sounds like it happened last night and that was probably why some suit thought he would chance his arm with you. He saw a weakness and he went for it.’

‘I’m not drunk now. Don’t hold back, Sharon.’

‘You still reek of it.’

‘I just want to see my son. Maybe I drink because you’re keeping me away from the only thing I have left. Did you ever think about that?’

‘I have to think about him. Jamie is all that matters in this conversation. You should have seen him after you left. He’s grown up worshipping his dad, The Beast of the football pitch, the local legend. He’s spent just about every moment of his childhood with a ball at his feet and your name on his back. I really don’t know what he thinks about you anymore. He’s stopped wearing your football shirts, I know that much. You really hurt him.’

‘He’s twelve. I let him down, I know that, but I’m still his dad, I can make it up to him. You can’t keep me away from him for ever, that’s not fair. Don’t make me beg you, Sharon …’

‘I don’t want to talk about this now. Not in front of Callie.’

‘In front of Callie? That’s the best one yet. And not the first time you’ve used her to shut me down either, is it?’ Danny could feel his head throbbing as his anger increased. He still had hold of his daughter’s hand but he let it go. He needed to get out to where there was some air. He suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe.

‘Running away again, are we, Danny?’

‘Just doing what my therapist told me to do. My therapist. The one you drove me to.’ He stumbled when he made it back out into the corridor. His head throbbed. Fresh air was a long walk away. He ducked into a gents toilet to splash some cold water on his face instead.

‘God DAMMIT!’ Water dripped off the reflection that yelled back at him. He always got so angry when he was around her. He knew why: he wasn’t angry at her, he was angry at himself for being so pathetic, for giving her so much material to throw back in his face. And he was angry that he had no control, that he could do nothing about what it was that was tearing them apart.

Danny Evans had never been the sort of man to stand still and do nothing.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.