He was just washing his hands in the kitchen before sitting down to the meal his mother had organised when he saw her mobile lying on the windowsill by the sink; he had left it there the night before, intending to do something about it, but then had gone to sleep in front of the TV and forgotten all about it. Probably the best thing was to trawl through the numbers, see if he could find one he could ring. Most of the names obviously meant nothing to him; he had looked for “Mum” and “Dad” and even “work” and “office” and found nothing. And then he saw “Jonathan” and remembered that was the name of the chap she’d been with; it was a start, anyway.

He walked over to the back door and stood looking at the yard, thinking about Abi as he called the number: her amazing legs and her huge dark eyes with all those eyelashes-bit like the cows’ eyelashes, he thought, that long and curly-and her dark hair hanging down her back. She’d been nice, really nice, and very, very sexy; not the sort of girl who’d find him interesting, though, and hardly likely to fit into his life.

A woman’s voice answered the phone: a pretty, light voice.

“Hello?”

“Oh, good afternoon,” William said. “I’m very sorry to bother you, but I think you might know someone called Abi…”

CHAPTER 16

Luke was waiting for Emma in the Butler ’s Wharf Chop House, just below Tower Bridge; she was late. Unlike her, that-very unlike her. He’d tried her mobile, but it seemed to be dead; he hoped she was OK.

She’d been a bit funny when he’d told her about Milan. He’d been surprised; he’d thought she’d see it as an opportunity. Lots of girls would, having a boyfriend working in Milan, with all-expense-paid trips over there whenever she fancied them. Milan was one of the shopping capitals of the world, for God’s sake.

Of course, she’d miss him; and he’d miss her. But… it was such a brilliant opportunity for him. Anyway, he was planning to make her feel really good later, with what he’d bought her. There was no way she wouldn’t be pleased with that…

He ordered another Americano, went over and got a paper from the rack by the door. The front-page news was a bit boring: Afghanistan. He turned to the inside page and saw a bird’s-eye view picture of a pileup on the motorway. He was about to give that a miss too when he read, “almost all the casualties were taken to St. Marks, the new state-of-the-art hospital in Swindon, where medical staff worked tirelessly all afternoon and through the night.”

“Blimey,” said Luke, and folded the paper, starting to read it intently.

“Hi, Luke.”

It was Emma, smiling, but pale and tired-looking. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and had no makeup on; she usually made more effort. Still…

“Hi, babe.” He kissed her. “Come and sit down.”

“Thanks. I’ll have one of those, please.” She indicated the coffee.

“I’ve just been reading about the crash. So that’s why you didn’t ring me last night. It was obviously a big one. Says here it was the worst this summer. God, Emma…”

He sat looking at her in silence; she smiled.

“You look rather… impressed.”

“I feel it. Definitely. Yeah. My little Emma, involved in a thing like that. Were you actually… you know… doing things? Operating and so on?”

“Of course I was! What did you think I was doing, reading a magazine?”

“No,” he said, “no, of course not. It just sounds… so bad.”

“It was so bad. It was awful. Lots of casualties, loads of injuries, people’s lives wrecked forever. Anyway-sorry not to have rung you.”

“That’s all right, babe; I can see why now. You look tired.”

“Thanks,” she said. “That’s exactly what I need to hear.”

“Well, you do. You can’t help it. I’m sorry for you.”

“Well, good.”

She looked at him, and the great blue eyes filled with tears; she dashed them away, smiled determinedly at him.

“Sorry. Got to me a bit. You know, I might like a drink.”

“Course. What d’you fancy?”

“Oh… glass of white wine. I’ll just… just go to the toilet. See you in a bit.”

Luke looked after her thoughtfully; she seemed in a very odd state.

“Tell you what,” he said when she came back, “why don’t you go back to the flat, have a kip before tonight? I’ve got us a table at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester; you want to be able to enjoy that, and I’ve got something to do this afternoon-thought we could do it together, but I can manage…”

Emma stared at him. Such thoughtfulness was not quite his style. Then she leaned forward and kissed him.

“Oh, Luke,” she said, “you’re so sweet. And you’re right: I am very tired. That’d be lovely. I’d really appreciate it. Thank you.”

Talking to Abi had become a priority-before the police started taking statements. They had to get their story straight: why they’d been together, and on the M4, what they’d seen, how they thought it might have happened. And Laura was going to have to know; important the story was watertight for her too. He’d been working on it: Abi was just a colleague, from the conference; he’d never met her before, just giving her a lift to… where? Maybe not London, maybe just Reading, somewhere like that.

He’d tried to raise her the night before, had walked down the road away from the house, praying Laura wouldn’t see him. There had been no reply, her phone clearly switched off. He didn’t leave a message: too risky. And again this morning, while he’d been out on his bike; still no reply. It was now six p.m. and he was beginning to feel frantic. Maybe he should e-mail her; she had a laptop in that little flat of hers, supplied by the office, as there was so much weekend work; but her housemate, Sylvie, might see it. He’d met her once, hadn’t liked her at all. He wouldn’t trust her an inch. Just the same, he had to talk to Abi soon…

Patrick always said afterwards that the worst thing, in a way, was not knowing what he could and couldn’t remember. Going through the barrier, certainly; calling on God to keep the trailer from jackknifing-He’d failed him there, all right-and then a long, long confusion, a swirling mass of pain and fear, and a complete inability to move. He seemed to be in some kind of a vice, and every time he struggled to get out of it, the pain got worse. It was unimaginably dreadful, that pain, like a great beast tearing at him; after a while it seemed better to stay in the vice without struggling And then after a long time, there seemed to be people with him, one trying to get at his hand, saying, “This’ll help you, mate; just hold on,” and he wondered how his hand could be of any use when his whole body had been rendered useless. And then he had swum off somewhere, where the pain was removed from him, although he could still feel it in some strange way; and then there was a long blank when nothing seemed to happen at all. He remembered some angel smiling down at him, holding his hand, an angel with long blond hair and huge blue eyes. She’d said he was just going into the theatre, and he’d wondered why on earth anyone should think he was up to watching a play in the state he was in; after that he couldn’t remember anything much at all, and he certainly couldn’t have told you how much time had passed, but he seemed to be surfacing somehow into something very uncomfortable-and then as he opened his eyes to see what it looked like, there was Maeve, smiling at him.

“Sweet Jesus,” she said, and, “No, no, darling,” he said, “not Jesus, no, it’s me, Patrick.”

And then he felt completely exhausted and went back to sleep for quite a long time.