Grace thought for an instant. He knew from the map of the farm that he’d pretty much memorized where the pigsties were located. His agreed strategy with the Gold and Silver commanders had been, from the instant the firearms risk was neutralized, to have officers cover all the likely places where someone might make a dash for it on foot or on a quad bike. There were several points of escape over the lanes bordering Appletree Farm with access into neighbouring fields. He had discounted the area beyond the pigsties because of dense hedgerows behind and around them, effectively boxing them in – as well as concealing them from anyone on the ground.

  A male running from a barn behind the farmhouse? From the intel, and confirmed by Gecko, the only people living in the farmhouse were Terry Jim, his wife and her daughter, Darcy. Could this be Terry running towards the pigsties where he’d been keeping the girl prisoner?

  He looked around for someone to send over to intercept the man, but all the frontline Public Order officers and dog handlers were pouring into and around the house. ‘Norman,’ he said urgently. ‘Follow me!’

  Grace sprinted across the farmyard, around the back of the house, and then following the map from memory, around the rear of a large, open-sided wooden barn. A good two hundred yards or so ahead of him, in the rapidly increasing daylight, he now clearly saw a hunk of a man in tracksuit bottoms and no shirt, running like hell.

  Grace ran like hell, too, after him. For several seconds he heard the rasping of Potting’s heavy breathing right behind him, then, at some point, it fell away, but he didn’t notice. He was focused on one thing only. Shirtless man. Heading towards the pigsties. Towards a distressed woman trapped in one of them.

  A dark thought was forming, but he pushed it away, focusing all his energy on reaching the man. Whatever he was doing, this man was not, in the middle of a raid, on a chivalrous mission.

  The low buildings of the sties were now just a short distance ahead, framed by the tall hedges. Shirtless man was making for the left hand one. Grace, sprinting over the uneven and muddy ground, was narrowing the gap between them but it was still a good hundred yards.

  Then, right in front of his eyes, the man disappeared.

  Vanished, seemingly into thin air.

  Fifteen seconds later, Roy Grace, his lungs bursting from the exertion, approached the spot where the man had been. And as he reached it, oblivious to the foul stench, he saw a five-foot-tall concrete wall to his left, and rows of sties, all occupied, to his right.

  Then he heard a pitiful, rasping cry, from behind the wall. A woman’s voice in a foreign accent. ‘Help me, help me, please help me! Oh God, please help me!’

  Then a scream.

  Then silence.

  Grace jumped at the wall, grabbing the rough top of it with both hands, and hauled himself up, then peered over the other side in utter shock.

  108

  Friday 2 April

  His eyes stinging from some invisible, acrid, rising gas, Roy Grace was looking at a deep pit, enclosed by walls, in which the shirtless man now confirmed as Terry Jim was standing a good eight feet below him, waist high in brown slurry. He was bent over and holding something – or, Grace realized with horror, someone – below the surface.

  He put his phone down on the rim of the wall, and without hesitating or thinking to call for backup, he launched himself off the wall, down at the man, hitting his bare, flabby skin with such impact the man fell sideways, momentarily disappearing beneath the slurry. As he did so a young woman’s head, covered in stinking brown slime, broke the surface; she was choking and gasping for air, looking barely alive.

  Grace took a stride towards her. Almost instantly, something with the force of a sledgehammer struck Grace’s face, hurling him sideways. Somehow, despite the pain and shock, he had the presence of mind to close his eyes and mouth before he hit the surface and plunged beneath it, the heavy weight of his stab vest dragging him to the bottom.

  Then an instant later he felt his shoulders being pressed down, pinning him, beneath the surface, to the floor of this vile pit. He tried desperately to move, to throw himself sideways, but he could not break the grip. Fighting panic, his chest tightening from lack of air, he knew had to get to the surface, had to get his head above this and he only had seconds, only a small amount of air in his lungs. He was shaking, his ears popping, every last drop of air sucked into the vacuum inside his collapsing lungs. His body was contorting. He was starting to lose consciousness. Could not hold on much longer, only seconds, seconds.

  His chest tightened more. More. He was starting to convulse and his ears began to ring, which he knew from experience was a sign that he was losing consciousness. Any moment he would not be able to hold it any longer, his mouth would burst open and he’d start gulping in whatever was there.

  Fighting. Fighting. Fighting. He thought of Cleo, Noah, Molly, Humphrey as if they were all standing above him, smiling at him. Saying goodbye.

  He was shaking, near delirious; had to let go now.

  No. No.

  In one final desperate movement he jerked his right knee up hard, going for his assailant’s groin, and felt a reaction above him, the grip loosened a fraction. Then he forced his right arm up, hard, and felt the bony contours of the man’s face. Somehow found his nose, formed two fingers into a V and pushed them up the bridge of the nose as far as he could and into the soft tissue of his eyeballs, ramming his fingers as hard as he could, knuckle deep, as if he was trying to push through the eyes and into the skull.

  The weight was instantly gone from his shoulders. He rolled over, pushed himself up with his arms, staggered to his feet, feeling air on his face. He spat, then gulped the rank air in, gratefully, simultaneously opening his eyes which were stinging and fogged with the slurry. He fleetingly saw the terrified girl, then Jim, fists raised, roaring like a crazed bull, lunged at him. Grace sidestepped. Bogged down by the density of the liquid, both of them seemed to be moving in slow motion. Jim turned, grabbing Grace by his shoulders again, his face bursting with rage.

  Grace knew what was coming. Typical of the dumb brutality of a man like Jim. And he pre-empted it by head-butting him first. His neck jarred but, albeit fleetingly, he felt a sense of satisfaction at hearing the crunch of broken nose and the yelp of pain. He could feel the grip on his shoulders tighten but this was more for Jim to stay upright, as his knees buckled, than it was to attack further. Grace was also sure that with what he knew was a now broken nose, Jim wouldn’t be able to see properly through his tears and was likely choking on blood as well as slurry. But it was only a brief respite and he needed to take advantage of it while the man was momentarily incapacitated; he’d seen enough broken noses to know that loss of sight and balance would be only temporarily compromised.

  He stepped sideways and threw an elbow at Jim’s forehead but the quagmire of slurry didn’t allow the momentum that a move like this would usually deliver, and his attacker was able to hold onto his vest at the shoulders, which partially blocked the blow. Then Jim’s hands, like steel vices, clamped around his neck. Starting to crush it. ‘You meddling pig, you’re in the shit now, you’re in it proper. But you should be happy, this is your natural environ—’

  Before he could finish, there was a massive explosion of slurry right beside them, showering them both in the muck, then Norman Potting had leaped onto Terry Jim’s back, arms around his bull neck, grunting with exertion, trying to choke him. Jim released his hold on Grace, turned and tried to rid himself of the officer clamped to his back, but Potting was holding on for all he was worth. Jim flailed and grunted as he desperately fought to shake the officer loose, bucking like a rodeo bull, with blood still streaming from his nostrils and the gash on the bridge of his mangled nose. Potting was trying to tighten his grip, but the resistance of the slurry on his legs, coupled with how slippery it was on his arms, meant his grip failed and he fell off Jim’s back to one side. Almost before he realized he was met with a massive winging punch that sent him stumbling, then tumbling sideways into the mire.

  Grace knew he was no match for this former bare-knuckle fighter in strength, his only chance was to outwit or outmanoeuvre him. Jim was already lunging at his neck again with his massive, tattooed arms. He shot his arm out, in between Jim’s, and struck his palm hard against his mess of a nose, instantly hearing the moan of pain. He held his palm firmly in place, knowing if Jim pushed forward it would only hurt him more. But he also knew that aggression often overrides logic. As he did so, he kicked out as hard and fast as his leg would move through the liquid, at where he thought Jim’s left knee was. And struck something. Jim stumbled, momentarily, back. Towards the terrified girl, who stood, frozen, as Norman Potting threw himself again at Jim’s back, giving him a hard punch in the nape of his neck.

  Jim jerked his head half-round. Then, startling both Grace and Potting, the girl sprang at Jim, bit his left ear and hung on with her teeth.

  Jim screamed in pain, trying to break her free. But she kept on gripping with her teeth, as he tossed and shook her wildly, but her teeth were clenched shut and she was making a deep, almost inhuman growling sound. Terry Jim then suddenly seemed to calm, and grabbed her head, holding her in place while eerily laughing at Grace and yelling, ‘You think this is the first time I’ve been bitten?’

  Grace knew that bare-knuckle fighters often resorted to biting if they were in trouble in fights, he’d seen enough half-eared criminals in his time to realize they weren’t barbershop injuries.

  ‘Let’s see how hard she can bite with a crushed skull,’ Jim yelled, and lurched sideways towards the sheer concrete wall, as if he was trying to slam into it – the only thing between his head and the wall was hers, which he was gripping in place.

  Potting, realizing what was happening, hurled himself between them and the wall, grabbing Jim’s wrists. Grace, seizing his chance, again struck Jim in the nose as hard as he could. He screamed again as blood spurted from his face. Jim’s hands released Rosalind as he reached to cradle what remained of his nose, but Grace struck him again in the same place, knowing the boxer was pained, bewildered and unable to see.

  Moments later, once out of his reach, the girl spat the chunk she had taken of the man’s ear into the mire. Jim, looking bewildered and unsteady, roaring in pain and anger, put a hand to the bloodied pulp that was the front of his face, then to his ear which was gouting blood, as if not knowing which to tend to first.

  Almost simultaneously there were shouts above them. Grace and Potting glanced up. As did Terry Jim. Four Public Order officers in full riot gear were perched on the rim. One jumped down, secured the girl with a rope and they hauled her up to two colleagues.

  Jim looked at them. He had stopped screaming. He just stood, wobbly, dumb with pain and defeat.

  Grace shouted at the girl. ‘What is your name? Are you Rosalind Esche?’

  She nodded at him, bewildered and crying.

  He turned back to Jim. The man was looking around, as if sizing up his chances for making a break. He balled his fists menacingly.

  ‘You all right, boss? And sarge?’ the officer asked Grace and Potting.

  ‘Do I look all right? Covered in pig shit?’ Grace replied.

  ‘Very fitting,’ Terry Jim snarled. ‘Go fuck yourselves.’

  ‘Nice to see you again too, Terry,’ Norman Potting replied, slurry dripping from his clothes and down his face. ‘But tell you what, I’m really not impressed with your swimming pool.’

  109

  Friday 2 April

  Although Dr Shah, as well as Dr Pallant, had urged Chris and Katy to try to get on with their lives as much as possible over the coming days that Bluebell would be in a coma, they both wanted to stay as close as possible to their daughter.

  They’d arrived at the hospital prepared, bringing a rucksack containing their laptops and chargers, as well as water, sandwiches and a stash of energy bars. They both had some urgent work they needed to do and planned to hunker down in the Relatives Room so they could be close by if needed. They hoped no one else would be coming in this room today, but Shah had offered to find them an empty office if that happened.

  Shortly after 10 a.m. Shah, in scrubs, stethoscope around his neck, entered with a pale face. ‘I’m going off shift to get some sleep,’ he said. ‘Dr Bob Hurst will be taking over for me until I come back this evening – he will come and see you shortly.’

  ‘Any change in Bluebell since earlier this morning?’ Chris asked.

  Shah, with the air of someone under siege, looked almost too exhausted to manage a smile. His voice, attempting to sound breezy, came out as if someone had forgotten to turn the speaker volume more than a few notches up from mute. ‘There is no change, but as I said earlier, the good news is that Bluebell is still with us, that she has made it through the night.’

  ‘That’s good news?’ Katy said, her voice weak.

  The registrar raised his hands apologetically and Chris, momentarily, felt defensive for him.

  ‘Darling,’ he said. ‘Dr Shah is doing all he can for Bluebell.’

  ‘I know, I know!’ she said, looking beaten. ‘She made it through the night. What are we supposed to do, Dr Shah?’

  Shah looked directly back into her eyes. ‘I was speaking via Zoom throughout the night, with Dr Willoughby. Of the one hundred advanced rabies patients he has treated in the past eighteen years, across America, thirty-two per cent made it through to this point. So, we should regard this as extremely positive. Your daughter is a fighter.’

  ‘And a survivor?’ Chris asked.

  ‘We can only hope,’ Shah said, and clasped his hands together. Not in a gesture of prayer but in an act of friendship.

  They walked along the ICU ward, passing beds with young children who Katy tried to avoid looking at. But out of the corner of her eye she saw one little girl, no older than Bluebell, looking very sick and completely bald. She shuddered, thinking, God, life deals some people shitty hands.

  Dr Shah held open the curtains surrounding Bluebell’s bed and, as Katy followed her husband through, she was wondering why it was just Bluebell who was curtained off. Did they only curtain off the ones who were dying, to avoid distressing everyone else on the ward?

  Then the shock of seeing her daughter, again, eyes closed, completely encased in apparatus and motionless, was too much and she turned away, letting out a long, agonized moan.

  Chris folded his arms around her, holding her tight but at the same time looking over her shoulder at their daughter. Thinking about all they had been through to create her. All the failed IVF treatments, all the heartbreaks.

  And, finally, they had made Bluebell.

  And now she was trapped somewhere, in some narrow corridor between life and death.

  Dr Shah was pointing at a battery of electronic graphs on the wall behind Bluebell. Her brain scans and all the other monitoring equipment. Chris studied in particular the faint peaks and troughs which, Dr Shah had said, were the most important signs of Bluebell’s brain activity.

  Shah pointed at one continuous, steady electronic graph. ‘This is a good sign,’ he said.

  ‘In what way?’ Katy asked, optimism rising in her heart.

  ‘It means your daughter isn’t aware you are here.’

  Katy looked at him incredulously. ‘And that’s good?’

  ‘It means that what we are trying to do, to save Bluebell’s life, is possibly working. If we have managed to shut her brain activity down to the point where she doesn’t even recognize her mother or father, then maybe we have stopped the rabies virus’s ability to effectively mastermind its destruction of your daughter’s internal organs.’

  Shah pointed at the green line on an oscilloscope. It was almost flat, but not quite. ‘This is what we want. If there were big spikes, peaks and troughs, it would be bad, because it would indicate normal brain activity. If it was a completely flat line, that would not be good, either.’

  ‘In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo,’ Katy murmured.

  Shah frowned.

  ‘It’s a poem,’ Chris explained.

  ‘OK,’ the registrar said, looking none the wiser. ‘Michelangelo spent years on his back painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.’ He looked at Katy for confirmation. For some explanation. For some relevance. But, he knew, he was gone. He would soon be out of here, all he could think of at this moment was his bed, fifteen minutes’ walk away.

  He smiled with tired eyes at Chris and Katy and said, ‘Poetry. Nice.’

  He looked like he was about to fall asleep on his feet.

  110

  Friday 2 April

  ‘Well, get you two lovebirds, all cosied up, eh!’

  Roy Grace, wearing a hospital gown, looked up from his chair in the Emergency Department of Eastbourne District General Hospital at a breezy Glenn Branson.

  The DI stood in the doorway, immaculately dressed, directing his big, impish grin from Roy Grace to Norman Potting, also in a gown, their chairs a short distance apart in the small, otherwise empty examination area. ‘I won’t get too close, gather you’re both a bit wiffy!’ He sniffed and feigned wrinkling his nose.

  ‘Actually, we’ve been hosed down, showered in disinfectant, and we are now smelling deliciously fragrant!’ Roy said, his voice rasping, his throat feeling like it had been stripped raw from the acid fumes.

  ‘Just think of us as a pair of roses,’ Potting said.

  Branson looked at each of them and frowned. ‘I’m trying hard, Norman, but you’re not making the cut, either of you. You’re just not doing it for me, not as roses. A nice pair of porkers, maybe – oink-oink!’