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‘I’ve just been with an RTA,’ she says. ‘But I’ll check.’
She’s back in a second. ‘He’s been taken up to the Edith Cavell ward. That means they don’t think he’s seriously injured.’
‘Thank you.’ Judy is pelting along the corridors, wondering for the hundredth time why hospitals are so confusing. She takes several wrong turns before arriving at the– locked– doors. ‘Police!’ she barks into the entry phone.
Cathbad is in the bed nearest to the nurses’ station. He’s sitting up and drinking a cup of tea.
‘Hallo, Judy,’ he says. ‘It seems I’ve had quite an adventure.’
Judy bursts into tears.
Nelson has trouble taking in Lucy’s story. They are sitting in the ‘Friends’ café which is, to all extents and purposes, closed. There’s a grille over the counter and the chairs are stacked on the tables. But Lucy persuades someone to open the door and even takes time to collect coffees from a machine. Nelson drinks his without noticing the taste.
Underground, rescue, tunnels, escape.
‘Leo Ballard is in custody,’ says Lucy. ‘Apparently he’s not making much sense.’
‘Do I know you from somewhere?’ says Nelson. ‘Somewhere before this.’
Lucy smiles and her face changes completely.
‘My maiden name was Downey.’
Lucy Downey. The worst, and best, experience of Nelson’s career. A girl who went missing aged five and turned up again, aged fifteen, alive but having suffered a terrible ordeal. The parents never blamed him although he blamed himself. He should have found her earlier and he might never have found her if it hadn’t been for Ruth. He still remembers the reunion, Lucy huddled in a police jacket, the sound she’d made when she’d seen her mother again. It brings tears to his eyes, even now.
‘We moved away,’ says Lucy. ‘To Devon, where my mum was from. I needed a lot of help at first. I couldn’t go to school. Couldn’t socialise. My parents were great, though, and I saw a fantastic therapist. Eventually I went to college and did my A levels, a few years late, went to uni and became a police officer. It was all I ever wanted to do.’
‘Why?’ says Nelson. He can’t imagine what it would be like to be kept a prisoner for ten years but he’s not sure it would have given him a taste for a career in law enforcement.
‘You saved me,’ says Lucy with another of her sudden smiles. ‘You and Ruth. You saved me. I wanted to save people.’
‘You said Downey was your maiden name,’ says Nelson. ‘Are you married then?’ He doesn’t know how old she is, but she looks younger than his daughters.
‘I married my university boyfriend,’ says Lucy. ‘It was a mistake. We’re separated.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Another dazzling smile. ‘It was an experience. I want as many experiences as I can get.’
‘You’re in the right job then,’ says Nelson.
‘Don’t cry,’ says Cathbad. ‘I’m going to be all right. The doctors think all of it– the fainting, the flashbacks, the memory lapses– are all part of an inner ear thing linked to Long Covid. They’re going to do an MRI scan to make sure but they think antibiotics will sort it out.’
‘I thought you were dead,’ says Judy. ‘I thought you’d gone off somewhere to die.’
‘I did think I was going to die,’ says Cathbad. ‘I thought I had a brain tumour. I’d looked up all the symptoms. Always a mistake.’
‘Is that why you made us go to mass that day?’ says Judy.
‘Yes,’ says Cathbad. ‘Old habits and all that. I thought I should have a blessing. I didn’t realise that blessings were all around me.’
‘I went to Walsingham to look for you,’ says Judy. ‘I was on the wrong track. I kept thinking it was some sort of pilgrimage. Ruth went to St Mary’s Houghton-on-the-Hill. Even Nelson sent someone to St Etheldreda’s.’
‘Well, time spent on pilgrimage is never wasted,’ says Cathbad, with a grin. He looks so much like his old self, despite the bandage round his head, that Judy almost cries again but laughs instead. A nurse, obviously sensing imminent hysterics, offers her a cup of tea.
‘I’d love one,’ says Judy. She can feel her professional self re-emerging. ‘What happened with Leo Ballard?’ she asks Cathbad.
‘The frustrating thing is that I still don’t remember all of it,’ says Cathbad. ‘I know I went to Tony’s for a reason, but I can’t remember what it was.’ He looks troubled again.
