Authors: Cari Hunter
“Hi.” Sanne walked to the side of the bed. Then, for want of a better opening, “You suit the non-bandagey look.”
It was such a daft thing to say that it made Josie smile. She touched the bristle of new hair. “Apparently, I’m a brunette. I didn’t remember until Helen let me have a mirror.” Her fingers approached the edge of a sutured wound but stopped just short. “I thought they’d cut it for the surgery, but it was him, wasn’t it?”
There was no point in lying. Sanne needed to gain her trust. “Yes, he cut it. We’re not sure why.”
Josie nodded, swallowing repeatedly as if something was blocking her throat. For a while she kept her eyes fixed on the door, but when she seemed sure they wouldn’t be interrupted she turned back to Sanne. “No one will tell me much or talk to me about this shit. They keep bringing me stuff—books, magazines, fucking Sudoku—but all I can think about is Rachel and what he might be doing to her. And then I think, what if she’s dead? What will I do then?”
She started to cry, rocking back and forth in her effort to keep quiet and avoid alerting the medics. Sanne sat on the bed and took hold of her hand, and Josie clung on as if it were the only thing keeping her from going under.
“I should never have run.” Her breath hitched between her words. “I should’ve stayed with her.”
“You didn’t even know she was there. You did what anyone would have done in those circumstances. You got the hell out when you had the chance. Do you think she will blame you for that?”
Josie coughed and sniffled. Sanne freed up their hands to pass her a tissue.
“She might.” Josie wiped her face, but she was becoming more composed, and her expression softened. “She’s terrible for holding grudges.”
“Well, I don’t think she’ll hold on to this one.” Mindful of her deadline, Sanne fished out her phone. “Josie, we brought someone in for questioning tonight. Do you feel up to looking at his photograph?” She chose her words carefully. Ned had been arrested for assault, not on suspicion of kidnapping.
Josie studied the image for a long time, tapping the screen to reawaken it when it timed out. Sanne surreptitiously watched the monitors, but they registered no signs of distress, and Josie’s face gave nothing away. Eventually, she allowed the screen to shut itself down and handed back the phone.
“I don’t think I recognise him.” She gave a derisive laugh. “But I wouldn’t take my word for it. A friend of mine sent me a text this afternoon, and Helen had to remind me who she was. I had a stroke after I woke up that first time. Did they tell you that?”
“No, no one told me that.” Sanne had guessed, though. Josie was using her right hand for everything, her left lying in a stiff claw on the bed sheets. It was little wonder that she was vacillating so wildly between anger and grief. It was a miracle she was functioning at all.
“Will the physio help?” Sanne asked, aware how intently Josie was gauging her reaction.
Avoiding pity and shock appeared to be a sound tactic. Josie slung her bad arm across her lap and slowly unfurled her index finger. “Better than nothing, right?”
“Damn right. That’s bloody impressive after one session.”
A smile seemed to catch Josie unawares, and for a couple of seconds Sanne glimpsed the young woman who had written postcards about falling into bogs and being chased by cows. The smile didn’t last, but it was reassuring to know that that person was still in there.
“You should probably go,” Josie said, covering her left hand with her right. “You must be busy.”
Sanne thought of the report she had yet to start, the fourteen-hour shift that awaited her the next day, and the sixteen-hour one she was coming to the end of. Then she looked at Josie, who was determinedly studying the bed sheets.
“Do you want me to stick around for a bit?” she asked.
Josie nodded.
Sanne shrugged out of her coat and arranged it over the back of her chair. “I have to warn you though,” she said, taking a bar of Dairy Milk from her bag and snapping it into chunks, “I’m crap at Sudoku.”
“Me too. I think I was better at concentrating before I whacked my head. Well, I must have been, because I have a degree in classics from Edinburgh University. First class, apparently.”
“Clever clogs.” Sanne offered her a piece of chocolate, holding it patiently as Josie struggled to take it in her left hand. She managed to curl her fingers around the chunk, but then gave up and used her good hand instead.
“Dr. Maxwell says it will all come back to me in time. The swelling in my brain is getting better, and most of the early things are there. They’re just jumbled.”
Sanne settled in her chair and crossed her legs at the ankles. “Did you meet Rachel at university?” she asked.
Josie’s face brightened at the mention of Rachel’s name. “Yes. She was studying environmental sciences, but we’re both cinema geeks, so we met through FilmSoc. She works for the National Trust now, and I’m a curator at the National Museum in Edinburgh. Have you ever been there?”
“No, I’ve not.” Sanne had never really been anywhere. She could have afforded to travel abroad now, but staying at home seemed kinder to her mum. Woe betide her if her mum ever worked that out, though.
“You should come for a long weekend. We could give you a tour. Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park is—” Josie stopped suddenly, realising what she had said. She bowed her head, her fingers screwing the bedding into a knot. When she continued, her voice was little more than a whisper. “Helen sounds just like her. Their voices, their accents, they’re so similar. I can close my eyes, and it’s as if Rachel’s here in the room with me. Helen was reading to me earlier, and I fell asleep thinking everything was fixed, that you’d found Rachel and she was fine. I didn’t ever want to wake. I couldn’t bear the thought of coming back.”
She looked up, and Sanne almost recoiled from the raw anguish on her face. There was nothing Sanne could say that wouldn’t sound trite or falsely hopeful. She rested her hand on Josie’s arm and sat silently for a while, listening to someone humming off-key in the next room and to the gradual deepening of Josie’s breathing as she began to fall into a doze.
Half asleep, Josie fumbled with the sheets. Sanne straightened them for her, pulling the blanket under her chin. Josie turned on her side and opened bleary eyes.
“Sanne?” Her voice was slurred with drowsiness.
Sanne leaned closer. “What’s the matter?”
“Please don’t tell Helen what I said.”
“I won’t breathe a word of it, I promise.” Sanne stroked a hand through the short fuzz of Josie’s hair.
“She’ll think I’ve given up on Rachel, and I haven’t. I
haven’t
.”
“Neither have I.” Sanne couldn’t speak for the rest of her team, but she could speak for herself, and that seemed to be good enough for Josie. With Sanne’s hand still on her forehead, her eyes drifted shut.
Never sure when she would be home, Sanne had an automatic light timer in her living room, but, pulling up at the rear of the cottage that night, she wasn’t surprised to see another lamp burning in her study. She parked behind Meg’s car and drew her collar closed before making a dash through the rain to her back door. The first thing she spotted as she untied her boots was the bottle of calamine lotion sitting in the middle of her table.
“Very funny.” She stuck out her tongue as Meg peeked around the kitchen door.
“And you’re very late.” Meg held out her hand for Sanne’s coat. Her hair was still damp from the shower, her hands warm where they touched Sanne’s clammy skin, and she smelled like fresh summer herbs. Sanne closed her eyes and rested her head on Meg’s shoulder.
“How was she?” Meg asked quietly.
“Up and down. I stayed for an hour, in the end. The doc chased me out when she finally fell asleep. I can’t imagine what it must be like for her. I don’t think I want to imagine.”
“Shh.” Meg silenced her with a soft kiss, her lips making the barest contact.
Sanne pressed closer, feeling Meg’s lips part and the tip of her tongue flick out. Smiling at the unspoken promise, she cupped Meg’s face with both hands. “I need a shower.”
Meg turned her head so she could kiss Sanne’s left palm. “Need me to doctor anything?”
“No.” Sanne blew out a breath, pushing away her exhaustion and the day’s stress. “I just need you.”
It was a very quick shower, just enough to wash off the sweat of the chase and the grime of the alley. She found Meg sitting in the centre of her bed, wearing pilfered pyjamas and fidgeting like a toddler with a sugar rush. Meg’s wide eyes followed the towel as Sanne dropped it to the floor.
“You seem to have forgotten your clothes,” she said. She was obviously flustered, which amused the hell out of Sanne.
“Yeah, I think someone pinched them.” Sanne climbed onto the bed and knelt in front of her. “Do you have any idea as to who the culprit might be?”
“Uh, no?” Her breathing quickened as Sanne popped the first button on her pyjama top, but when Sanne went no further, she changed her plea. “Maybe?” That earned her another button, and she squirmed, apparently in no mood to play hard to get. “Okay, okay, it was me.”
“Well, that was my easiest interrogation ever.” Sanne kissed her forehead. “Please don’t ever commit a crime.”
“I won’t. I promise.” Meg shook her head fervently, groaning when Sanne’s mouth met hers. There was nothing tentative about this kiss, and Sanne dealt with the rest of the buttons as she felt Meg nip at her bottom lip. She opened the shirt wide and used one finger to trace a line from the hollow of Meg’s throat down to her belly button. Meg squeaked, her body jerking in response to Sanne’s knuckles brushing over the sensitive skin of her abdomen.
“Gets you every time,” Sanne whispered.
“Yeah, yeah.” Meg lay back and attempted to wriggle out of her pyjama bottoms in a series of graceless and increasingly convoluted manoeuvres. Mesmerised by her complete lack of coordination, Sanne watched her effectively hobble herself.
“Bugger.” Meg laughed as Sanne kissed each of her knees in turn and then freed her legs. With a contented sigh, Meg let them fall open, pulling Sanne down on top of her and kissing whatever came within easy reach.
The touch of heated skin against hers made Sanne shiver in anticipation. She played her hand across Meg’s chest, her fingers following a familiar path that took in a pale birthmark, the rippled scar from an emergency appendectomy, and the ticklish bit on top of Meg’s clavicle. Beneath her, Meg shifted restlessly, urging her lower, so she dipped her hand between Meg’s legs and kissed her when she gasped.
“Oh, Jesus.” Meg raised her hands to Sanne’s breasts, teasing the nipples into peaks as Sanne entered her.
“That’s very distracting,” Sanne murmured, slowing the movement of her fingers until Meg whimpered in protest and dropped her hands back to the bed. Wasting no time, Sanne slid back into her. “Like this?” she asked, smiling at Meg’s vigorous nod. In the lamplight, Meg’s face was damp with sweat, her eyes heavy-lidded as she guided Sanne’s pace. When they kissed, Sanne tasted salt and mint toothpaste, before moving her mouth to join her hand, and tasting only Meg.
“Bloody hellfire!” Meg’s head hit the pillow with a thud, and her toes curled into the sheets.
Her yelp was enough to make Sanne pause and look up. “Such a pushover,” she said, feeling Meg’s legs shake as she laughed.
“
Please
stop talking.” Meg’s tone held more than a hint of desperation.
Sanne grinned and for once in her life obeyed her doctor’s orders.
*
With timing honed by years of shift work, Sanne woke five minutes before her alarm and cancelled it to stop it from disturbing Meg. Sensing the movement, Meg shuffled closer, but the furrow creasing her brow disappeared as her sleep deepened again. Sanne tucked the sheets around her and crept reluctantly from the bed.
She ran the shower hot, letting the water pound her muscles while she tried to work out which were stiff from sprinting after Ned and which were aching because of Meg. Right on cue, the bathroom door opened.
“Oh God, you broke me,” Meg said, limping to the toilet.
Sanne shut off the water before the toilet flush could turn it into a trickle. “If you’d like to make a complaint, I can give you an address.” She grabbed her towel and began to rub her hair. “It’s number five, You-Bloody-Started-It Road.”
Meg cackled and came over to plant a wet kiss on Sanne’s lips. Then, as if regretting her haste, she kissed her far more thoroughly.
“No.
No
. I’ll be late…”
Sanne’s resistance got lost somewhere in the midst of the tongue circling her breast and the fingers slipping between her legs. Unable to do much but stay on her feet, she allowed Meg to steer her back into the shower. The water was already warm when Meg turned it on again. Sanne shuddered with pleasure as it cascaded onto her and Meg trailed kisses down her torso.
“I’ll be in so much trouble,” she whispered, raising her head into the spray and trying not to hyperventilate. She felt hands spread her legs wider, felt a heat between them that wasn’t from the water, and gave up thinking about anything but what Meg was doing to her. Within minutes, she came hard and fast, her hands sliding down the glass as she searched for something to grip on to.
Meg caught her, keeping her steady until the tremors stopped and then cradling her to the floor. She reached for a discarded flannel to dry Sanne’s face.
“I think I might need to learn self-restraint,” she said.
“Where would the fun in that be?” Sanne curled against her. She didn’t want to move, didn’t want to open the shower door and let the day back in. Instead, she entwined Meg’s fingers with her own and wondered how long it would be before the water ran cold.
*
With most of the detectives following leads or interviewing, the EDSOP office was quiet for once. The rain pattering on the window and the rhythm of Nelson’s four-forward, two-back typing were the only sounds breaking the peace.
Chewing the last bite of her late lunch, Sanne straightened her spine to ease out a kink and sent another completed report to the printer. Although she would have preferred to observe Ned Moseley’s interview, she had spent most of the day in Halshaw, finishing the enquiries there, and had resigned herself to watching the recording in her own time. At the desk opposite, Nelson dry-swallowed two painkillers and squinted as if the light hurt his eyes.