‘What?? But I …’Five thousand?He hesitated. He knew what he’d do with the money, even if taking it wouldn’t be right. ‘If we get the new inquest, which I guess is what you want, and you’re happy with my work, there are a group of listeners to my radio show who would welcome a payment. I would hand it over to them.’
‘Wow. Okay.’
As they came into Sidmouth and the phone signal reconnected, his mobile beeped so much it almost jumped out of his hand.
‘We have to slow down, I think,’ she said. ‘Look – bad traffic.’
‘Bad traffic in Sidmouth?’ he said thoughtfully. In high summer, or during the folk festival, maybe. But not now, not at the start of the season.
They crawled along, past the entrance to Thirdfield Terrace. Edward ducked forward to see the apartment Kim was so attached to. It sat at the top of the white-painted block, looking down onto the cricket green. It would be, he thought, a lovely location.
He remembered the couple’s conversation he had overheard from underneath the car. The odd use of ‘parachute’ – what was that, a code?
Wendy said, ‘Look.’
When he took his eyes off Thirdfield Terrace and sat back up, he saw the police cordon. ‘They’ve closed the promenade,’ he said. ‘They never do that.’
‘Maybe that’s why my phone keeps vibrating.’
He looked at his. Twenty-one text messages had suddenly arrived in his inbox. ‘I have to go left,’ he said. ‘Can you drop me off?’
‘At least tell me what you found.’
She was desperate to know. But he was focused on the chaos being caused by the cordon. For a moment, the line of traffic was completely stationary. ‘I can’t get closer to the radio station in the car. I’ll have to go around the back on foot. I need to see what’s happening. I’ll call you, I promise.’
‘You found something? Something helpful?’
‘I think so, Wendy,’ he said, wondering if this was the first time he had called her by her first name. Edward stretched his legs and straightened his back. He bent again, just as the car moved forwards slightly, and when he saw Wendy he wondered if she was about to cry. Her gaze was fixed ahead, and he saw her jaw was clenched and her lower lip trembled.
‘One more thing.’ He was leaning through the passenger window, going with the fractional forwards movement of the car by performing a kind of grapevine.
‘Anything.’
‘Did your husband’s mother or father suffer from Motor Neurone Disease?’
She looked at him, dumbstruck, and then looked back at the road. Her mouth opened but no words came out.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time they got to the hospital, Nina just looked like an exhausted child asleep in her father’s arms. They had driven themselves – they could not wait for an ambulance. The choice had been between the A&E at Exeter, a half-hour drive, and the Victoria, only ten minutes away, which had a Minor Injury Unit. They rushed to the Victoria. Gabriel broke every speed limit and every red light. A weekend morning gave them the chance to avoid traffic. At the hospital the reception area was clear, but it was so quiet they waited five minutes for the duty nurse to return from what seemed to be a tea break.
Gabriel was holding his daughter tightly, as if he might squeeze the life into her. Andrea had sat in the back of the car with their daughter lying across the back seat. She had been too limp to go into the booster chair. ‘Gabriel, her forehead is burning,’ she kept saying.
The nurse took one look at the child from behind her desk and ran around it to see more closely. ‘You need Exeter.’
‘Please,’ said Gabriel, and Andrea burst into tears. ‘You must have someone. She collapsed!’
The nurse was close to the child now. ‘Foam at the mouth?’
‘Yes!’ said Andrea and Gabriel at the same time. There was only a thin line of white on Nina’s lips now.
‘We are worried she ate something she shouldn’t have,’ said Gabriel. From her handbag Andrea produced the sealed freezer bag with the two tiny ampoules.
The nurse, short and strong, with red eye make-up, took the bag and held it to the light. ‘These just look like vitamin gels. Did she pick them up somewhere?’
‘The pizza parlour yesterday. The one on the seafront where—’
The nurse interrupted Gabriel. ‘The crash?’ He saw her name badge now: MERCY AKUA. ‘Poor thing, poor all of you.’
