‘I’ll be fine,’ I say. And then, forcing myself on, because I know if I don’t say it I’ll regret it, ‘Will you – can you come back?’

‘I’m going back to London in the morning,’ he says. ‘But it’d be nice to keep in touch.’

There’s a pen on the chart, and he pulls it off and scribbles his number on the only bit of writable surface around – the side of his coffee cup.

‘You were right,’ he says, as he puts the cup carefully on my bedside table. ‘Water would have been preferable. Bye, Leo.’

‘Bye.’

The door swings slowly shut behind him and through the narrow glass hatch I watch his silhouette disappearing down the corridor. And it’s strange for a person who lives alone, for someone who’s been craving solitude since I came here, but suddenly I feel very lonely … and it’s a very foreign, peculiar feeling.

25

I’M EATING SUPPER when a knock comes again. It’s not visiting hours. so I’m surprised when I look up and it’s Nina sliding round the door with a carrier bag. She puts her fingers to her lips.

‘Shh. I only got in by pulling the old “Don’t you know who I am?”’

‘Did you tell them you were Salma Hayek’s cousin again?’

‘Purlease! She’s not even Brazilian.’

‘Or a doctor.’

‘Quite. Anyway, I said I’d be quick so here you go.’ She throws down a bag on the bed. ‘I’m afraid they’re not exactly haute couture. In fact you’re lucky they’re not pastel velour. But I did the best I could.’

‘They’re great,’ I say thankfully, riffling through the anonymous grey sweats. ‘Honestly. The only thing I care about is that they’re not open at the back and logoed with “Hospital Property.” Truly, I really, really appreciate it, Nina.’

‘I even got you some shoes – only flip-flops but I know how grim the hospital showers can be, and I thought at least then if they kick you out at short notice you’ll have something to walk in. You’re a six, right?’

‘Five, actually – but don’t worry, six is brilliant. Here,’ I pull off her cardigan and hold it out, ‘take this.’

‘Nah, don’t worry. Keep it until your own stuff turns up. Do you need money?’

I shake my head, but she pulls out two tenners anyway and tosses them onto the locker.

‘Can’t hurt. At least then if you get sick of hospital food you can grab a panini. OK, I’d better go.’

But she doesn’t. She just stands there, looking down at her short, square nails. I can tell she wants to say something and – with uncharacteristic nervousness – is holding back.

‘Bye then,’ I say at last, hoping to jolt her into speaking, but she just says, ‘Bye,’ and turns for the door.

Then, with her hand on the push-panel, she stops and turns back.

‘Look, what I said, earlier – I didn’t mean—’

‘What you said?’

‘About James. About the motive. Look, I didn’t really think you’d ever … Fuck.’ She thumps her fist gently on the wall. ‘This isn’t coming out right. Look, I still think it was an accident, and that’s what I told Lamarr. I never thought this had anything to do with you. But I was just worried, OK? For you. Not about you.’

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, and swing my legs out of bed. I walk uncertainly over to her and give her a hug.

‘It’s OK. I knew what you meant. I’m worried too – for all of us.’

She smooths my hair, and then I drop my arms and she looks at me. ‘They don’t think it was an accident though, do they? Why on earth not?’

‘Someone loaded that gun,’ I say. ‘That’s the bottom line.’

‘But even so – that could have been anyone. Flo’s aunt could have done it by mistake and been too scared to admit it to the police. The police keep banging on about the clay pigeon shoot – was the ammunition properly secured, could anyone have got unsupervised access to a live round. They obviously think the cartridge came from there, or that’s what they’re trying to prove. But if one of us wanted to kill James, why the fuck would we lure him out to the back of beyond to do it?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. My legs feel tired and wobbly from the effort of standing just for this short conversation and I let go of Nina’s arm and walk shakily to the bed. All this talk – of guns and bullets – it’s giving me a strange, queasy feeling. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘I just think—’ Nina starts, and then she stops.

‘What?’

‘I just think … Oh screw it. Look – whatever unmentionably awful thing happened with you and James, I just think you should tell them. I know—’ She holds up a hand ‘—I know it’s none of my business and I can fuck right off with my unsolicited advice, but I just think, whatever it is, it’s probably not as bad as you think, and it’ll just look a whole lot better if you tell them now.’

I shut my eyes tiredly, and rub at the bloody bastard itching dressing on my forehead. Then I sigh and open them. Nina is standing there, hands on hips, looking an odd mix of belligerent concern.

‘I’ll think about it,’ I say. ‘OK? I will. I promise.’

‘OK,’ Nina says. Her lower lip is stuck out like a child’s, and I know if she still had it she would be clicking the ring she used to have there against her teeth. I remember the sound of it during exams. Thank God she took it out when she qualified. Apparently patients didn’t like seeing a surgeon with holes in her face. ‘I’ll get going. Take care, Shaw. And if they kick you out at short notice, call me, OK?’

‘I will.’

I lie there after she’s gone thinking about her words, and thinking about how she’s probably right. My head is hot and itching and words like bullet and spatter and cartridge are clattering around inside, and after a while I can’t bear it any longer. I get up, walk slowly across to the bathroom with my old-woman gait, and click on the light.

The reflection that greets me inside is, if anything, worse than yesterday. My face feels better – much better – but the bruises are blazing from purple through to yellow and brown and green – all the shades a painter might use to paint the Northumberland landscape, I think with a twisted smile.

But it’s not the bruises I’m looking at. It’s the dressing.

I begin to pick at the corner of the tape, and then, oh the relief, off it peels with a kind of delicious tearing pain as the tape takes off the small hairs at my temples and hairline, and the dressing itself plucks at the wound.

I’d expected stitches, but there aren’t any. Instead there’s a long, ugly cut, held together by small strips of tape and what looks like … Can it really be super glue?

They’ve shaved a very small semicircle of hair at the edge of my scalp, where the cut snaked beneath the hairline, and it has started to grow. I touch it with my fingers. It feels spikily soft, like a baby’s hairbrush.

The relief. The relief of the cold air on my forehead and the itch and pull of the dressing gone. I throw the bloodied pad into the bin, and walk slowly back to the bed, still thinking of Nina. And Lamarr. And James.

What happened between me and James has nothing to do with any of this. But perhaps Nina is right. Perhaps I should come clean. Maybe it would even be a relief, after all these years of silence.

No one knew. No one knew the truth except me, and James.

And I spent so long nursing my anger at him. And now it’s gone. He’s gone.

Perhaps I will tell Lamarr when she comes in the morning. I’ll tell her the truth – not just the truth, for everything I’ve said so far has been the truth. But the whole truth.

And the truth is this.

James dumped me. And yes, he dumped me by text.

But what I’ve held onto all these years, is the reason why. He left because I was pregnant.

I don’t know when it happened, which out of all those dozens, maybe hundreds of times, made a baby. We were careful – at least we thought we were.