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I made a sound that was halfway between a sob and a laugh. ‘Not necessarily,’ I said, as they slammed the ambulance doors shut on the man who was my whole world.
And that’s when I started to cry.
40
The next eight hours will live on in my nightmares for the rest of my life. After days of uncertainty, knowing that Finn was somewhere in the vast hospital labyrinth – even though they wouldn’t let me see him – ought to have been a comfort. But the grave expressions on the faces of the medics warned me it was too early to feel relief. It seemed like good news when they told me they wouldn’t be taking Finn into surgery straightaway, until they then explained this was because he was neither stable nor strong enough to undergo an operation.
Inspector Graham stayed with me for longer than I expected. I’d imagined he would simply drop me at the hospital doors, but he surprised me by insisting on accompanying me into the building. He asked more than once if there was anyone he could call to be with me, but I shook my head. Dad and Hannah had wanted to come straight to the hospital the moment I’d phoned them, and it had been almost impossible to deter them. My refusals had sounded clumsy and ungrateful, and I’m not sure either of them fully understood my reasoning, when even I could hear it was flawed. But I’d begun this journey being the only one who had kept faith, the only one who had never once stopped believing in Finn and his love for me. And it felt important somehow that I completed it alone. ‘Okay, but I’m coming tomorrow,’ Hannah had said, finally hearing the determination in my voice. ‘And don’t even think about trying to dissuade me.’
Dad understood better, perhaps because of Mum. In the final days, even a crowbar couldn’t have prised him away from his solitary vigil at her bedside. ‘Just promise you’ll call me if you change your mind, Gemma. Even if it’s the middle of the night, just call and I’ll be there.’
I was sipping yet another cup of unpalatable vending-machine coffee when Inspector Graham got reluctantly to his feet.
‘I’m sorry, Gemma, but I really have to go.’
To be honest, I was secretly relieved because his guilt had sat on the hard plastic seats alongside us like a palpable presence. I had a feeling Inspector Graham would be blaming himself for not having believed that Finn was missing long after I had eventually forgiven him.
He ran a weary hand across a jaw that sounded scratchy with stubble. He looked tired.
‘When does your shift end?’ I asked.
‘About three hours ago,’ he said with a rueful smile.
Perhaps forgiving Inspector Graham would happen sooner than I thought.
Before leaving, the policeman bent down and pressed something into the palm of my hand. I unfurled my fingers and stared down at my car keys as though I’d never seen them before. How distraught does a person have to be, I wondered, to forget they’d abandoned their car miles away, in the middle of nowhere?
‘You’re in the hospital multi-storey, on Level 2,’ he said, turning to go and then pivoting on his heel to face me again. He held out his hand, and I was perhaps slower than I should have been placing my own within it, for a handshake that felt an awful lot like an apology.
‘Keep me in the loop. Let me know how he’s doing.’
I wasn’t sure if that was a friendly request or an official command, so I simply nodded and watched him stride towards the exit.
*
At around seven o’clock that evening, a doctor I’d not seen before strode up to the desk and asked something of the two women sitting behind it. I didn’t like the way their faces turned grave as they listened to what he had to say. They both scanned the waiting area, and I willed their gaze to pass me by. But it didn’t. The elder of the two women raised her arm and pointed to where I sat. By the time the gowned surgeon had crossed the distance between us – quickly and decisively, as though every second counted – my heart was thumping uncomfortably against my ribs and my palms felt slick with sweat.
‘Miss Fletcher?’ the doctor asked unnecessarily. It was surely obvious I was the person he was looking for, as no one else had paled to the colour of chalk or swayed on their feet as they leapt from their chair.
‘What is it? Is it Finn? Has something happened?’ I asked stupidly. He said nothing and I could feel the world slipping from beneath me.No, no, no. Please, not that.
The doctor cast his gaze around the largely deserted reception area and, in a surprisingly mellifluous voice, said, ‘Shall we talk over there?’ He inclined his head towards a corner of the room, beside an overflowing noticeboard and a fire hose. It was an inauspicious spot to hear something that could change the course of my life.
‘As you know, we have been monitoring Mr Douglas’s condition very closely over the last few hours,’ he began with absolutely no preamble, ‘in the hope of delaying his surgery for as long as possible, until he’s more stable.’
There was a ‘but’ coming. I felt sick as I waited for it to fall like a swinging axe.
‘But,’ continued the surgeon, ‘we have reached the decision that we cannot afford to delay any longer.’
‘He’s strong enough now for an operation?’ I asked, my voice squeaky with hope.
The doctor’s eyes looked troubled, and I didn’t like the expression that flitted across his face.
‘These situations are always a matter of weighing up the best possible outcomes. To begin with it was best to try to allow Mr Douglas—’
‘Finn,’ I interrupted. The man saving Finn’s life should at least call him by his name.
‘Finn,’ corrected the doctor gently. ‘We wanted to address Finn’s severe dehydration before subjecting his body to further stress, but I am afraid the situation has taken a critical turn and we now need to balance the risks of delaying against the risks of surgery.’
