The nurse comes back on the line to say Margo must rest now. ‘She’s in good hands,’ she tells us. ‘You can take your time.’ She asks me if Margo has any allergies or illnesses and says she’ll give her some paracetamol for her headache. She needs a little more information about Margo’s general health and so on. I dutifully answer her questions instead of butting in with my own.
It takes us an hour and a quarter to get there and they are the longest minutes of my life. In that time, every possible scenario runs through my head. Margo fainted, fell and banged her head. Then someone found her and took her to hospital this morning. Margo got lost on the way to Holtleigh and has been wandering around all night. She is dehydrated and has a headache. The rest of the scenarios are darker and even more disturbing and I do my best to block them out.
Ash is waiting for us in the foyer of the Ladywell Unit, where the children’s ward is located. He’s wearing an old Pink Floyd T-shirt that was once black, but has been grey for years. It’s his DIY T-shirt and it has holes in it and paint stains on it. He has clearly dropped whatever he was doing and raced here with Olly and Iris.
‘She’s in the Caroline Thorpe ward – the children’s ward, on level two,’ he says, pointing towards the lifts.
‘Cheers, Quentin,’ Daniel says and rushes in the direction Ash is indicating. Briefly, I’m annoyed. Even now, with his daughter lying in a hospital bed, my partner persists on calling my ex-husband by a name he knows full well Ash despises. But my irritation evaporates instantly. It’s automatic. A habit. It’s nothing.
I start to follow Daniel, but Ash grabs my arm and restrains me. I snatch my arm free and whirl round to face him, annoyed with him now, but then I see the look on his face.
‘I’ll catch you up,’ I call after Daniel, and to Ash: ‘What is it? Tell me!’
He gets straight to the point. ‘Yvonne Knoll brought Margo in. She was still here when I arrived with Olly and Iris.’
‘What? How?’ My brain is working overtime, trying to fill in the blanks. The Knolls live in Brayworthy, where my mother-in-law lives. And Margo’s friend Ellie. ‘Did Yvonne find Margo?’
Ash nods. ‘They have some sort of annexe, next to the main house, apparently, that they use as an Airbnb rental.’
‘Yes. A summerhouse.’ I remember Yvonne pointing it out to me through one of the upstairs windows as she gave me her grand tour of Hilltop House. ‘Are you saying Margo was in the summerhouse at the Knolls’ place?’ Ash nods again. ‘What on earth was she doing in there?’
‘According to Yvonne, she found Margo in there early this morning. She said she was very surprised. Margo didn’t seem well, so she drove her to hospital and then rang Iris. That’s all I know.’
Late this morning? Margo must have been inside the house when I was sitting in my car outside looking in, before driving to Mrs Duffy’s house.
I look into Ash’s eyes. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me,’ I say.
‘No, there’s not, I promise. But I’m pretty sure there’s something she didn’t tell me.’
I swear under my breath, an insult directed at Yvonne, as Ash takes my arm again and leads me to the lifts. Whatever happened to Margo, it wasn’t one of the scenarios my overactive imagination conjured up on the way here in the car.
Ash accompanies me to the children’s ward on level two.
‘Thank you, Ash,’ I say, as we reach the heavy swing doors.
‘No problem. You all right?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got this from here,’ I say so he doesn’t feel he has to hang around and wait. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’ I stand on tiptoe to give him a quick peck on the cheek, but he pulls me into a hug. I close my eyes and hug him back. The familiar scent of him calms me for a second or two before I snap back to reality. ‘Thanks again,’ I mumble into his shoulder, then I break away and push open the doors into the children’s ward.
I hear Daniel as I walk briskly along the corridor and follow the sound of his voice. Margo is awake. Someone has raised the head section of the bed and she tries to smile when she catches sight of me approaching, but it looks more like a grimace. Olly is holding one of her hands and Iris, on the opposite side of the bed, is holding the other.
I find a spare chair at the empty hospital bed opposite Margo’s and carry it over, putting it down next to Iris’s. She inches her chair closer to Margo’s head to make more room for me.
Margo’s not alone in the ward, there are three other kids, but only one of them has someone – her mother, perhaps – with her. I glance at my watch. It’s almost 3 p.m. and well within visiting hours, according to the sign I saw on the swing doors into the ward, but there are now four of us crowded around Margo’s bed. I don’t know if there’s a limit on the number of visitors a patient can have.
‘What do you mean, you can’t remember?’ Daniel asks Margo, as I sit down. The apprehension in his tone is almost palpable.
Margo’s face crumples, as if she’s being scolded. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy. I don’t remember.’ Her speech is a little slurred. ‘I wanted to ring, but I forgot to take my charger to Ellie’s. The battery in my mobile was dead.’
That explains why I couldn’t locate Margo with the Find My app.
‘It’s OK, darling,’ Daniel says. ‘No one is angry with you.’
‘Hi, honey,’ I say to Margo, bending over to give her a peck on the cheek. ‘How are you feeling?’
She gives a long sigh, as if she’s fed up with answering this question. ‘A bit better. Still dizzy. My arms and legs are heavy.’
Daniel fills me in. ‘She can’t remember much of last night.’
