Nurse Brenda seemed happy with that answer. ‘Well done. And how are you feeling now?’

  ‘Like I’ve been spun around in a tumble drier.’ That made Brenda chuckle as she clipped an oxygen monitor on to Sophie’s finger. ‘But apart from that, I’m okay. Everything still feels like it’s working.’

  ‘That’s what we like to hear. Right, deep breath…’

  She was sounding Sophie’s chest now and then she ran through a whole load of other tests.

  Sophie had only been in hospital twice in her life that she could remember. The first time was when she was about five, and Erin accidentally hit her on the head with a shovel when they were helping their dad clear snow from their driveway, and the second time was when she broke her nose playing hockey.

  Of course, she’d been there plenty of times when Mum was sick too. She and Erin would take turns going to the chemo sessions, and they’d do everything they could to keep Mum amused and make the time go quicker.

  ‘All right there?’ Nurse Brenda asked, as if she somehow knew that Sophie was letting her mind go back to a dark place.

  Sophie pulled back from the memories, whispering, ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’

  Brenda picked up the iPad again. ‘Okay, now that I know you’re in no imminent danger, let me get some details. Your full name?’

  ‘Sophie Smith.’

  ‘Date of birth?’

  ‘The twenty-ninth of March, 1997.’

  Brenda paused, grinned. ‘Oh my goodness, that’s the same day as my youngest daughter, although she’s two years older.’

  Sophie had absolutely no idea why that made her feel a little better, but it did.

  Brenda carried on with more questions.

  When Sophie gave her address, the nurse paused. ‘Are you just here visiting? Do you have friends or family in the area?’

  Sophie winced as she instinctively shook her head. ‘No, I’m just on…’ She paused. How to explain it? I’ve come all this way to track down my ex-boyfriend to see if he’s still in love with me, because, two years ago, he asked me to marry him and I said no, then left and didn’t come back. That just about covered it. Instead, though, she went with: ‘I’m on a weekend break. Just being a tourist.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ Brenda seemed genuinely sympathetic. ‘Not the best start. Is there anyone from home that you’d like us to contact for you?’

  Sophie immediately said no. The last thing she needed was her dad and sister charging all the way up here. The shock and fear would kill her dad and he’d been through enough.

  The nurse moved on, taking more details, and then resuming her physical examination, asking a load more questions about the bump to her head. ‘So you lost consciousness?’ ‘Do you know how long for?’ ‘Any problems with your vision now?’ ‘Light-headed?’ ‘Pain?’

  And on the questions went until Sophie decided that Nurse Brenda now knew her better than some of her own family.

  ‘Right, that’s us for now,’ the nurse eventually said. ‘I’ll have a word with the doctor, and she’ll come in to see you and I think we’ll probably do a head and shoulder X-ray just to rule out any damage. Since you lost consciousness, even though it wasn’t for long, we’ll probably keep you in overnight for observation, especially if you don’t have anyone up here that you can stay with and that can keep an eye on you.’

  Sophie’s first thought was that she really wished she hadn’t paid upfront for the hotel. Her second was that staying here overnight was going to lose a whole day of trying to track down Ash, but she wasn’t exactly in a position to argue.

  Brenda pinged off her blue Latex gloves and dropped them in a tall white bin with a foot pedal. ‘Right then, Sophie, you sit tight and I’ll be back shortly.’

  ‘Brenda, just one more thing…’

  The nurse stopped to let her go on. ‘Can I ask how the taxi driver is doing?’ A memory was niggling at her. Someone shouting ‘clear’.

  Sophie saw a visible change in the nurse’s expression. ‘Erm, I’m not sure. I know they were working on him when he came in. I’ll check for you and let you know. You just rest up and try not to worry about a thing. You’re going to be fine.’

  There was something in her tone that told Sophie that the same didn’t go for the angry man who’d been driving the taxi.

  7

  ALICE

  The driver that had been sent to collect Alice and take her to the hospital could barely make eye contact with her. Wasn’t a surprise, really. Either he didn’t know what to say because he wasn’t great in difficult situations like this, or he’d met Larry and hated him just as much as most people did these days. In fact, as far as she could surmise, and only based on their earlier conversation, her husband’s fan club only had one member and that was Sandra in the taxi office.

  Alice remembered being shocked when Larry had got his taxi licence and gone to work on the roads, but the bottom line was that he needed to earn money. He was pretty much unemployable. He’d been stripped of his pension and his earnings. His legal bills had taken every penny of profit from the sale of their house and left them with crippling debts. They were flat broke. Alice had managed to find the two cleaning jobs, but Larry had nothing, except a favour he could call in from the owner of the taxi company he had pulled strings for when he could still get permits granted and contracts awarded.

  In some ways, the job made sense. All charges against him had been dropped, so he had no criminal record, something that would have disqualified him from many positions, including driving taxis. It was an occupation where he didn’t have a direct boss, so he didn’t have to break a habit of a lifetime and bow down to authority. He didn’t have to spend all day with judgemental co-workers because he operated alone. And physically he’d changed so much over the last two years, gained more than fifty pounds, grown his hair, stopped shaving, that most people didn’t recognise him, so he wasn’t faced with customers dragging up his past.

  If the driver was expecting her to be in floods of tears and falling apart though, then he should be reassured that she was holding it together, sitting in the back seat, still in her favourite lilac dress and pale pink cardigan, just watching the world pass by as they made their way towards the city centre, then veered off to Glasgow Central Hospital.

  She knew this hospital well. It was where both her parents had passed away. It was where her son had been born. And, once upon a time, when her husband was one of the most recognisable politicians in the country, she’d been the head of the fundraising committee, a voluntary team that worked on supplementing the hospital’s budgets.

  Bygone days.

  The lunchtime traffic was relatively light, so they made it there in less than twenty minutes. At the hospital doors, she offered to pay, but the driver, ten out of ten for decorum and manners, told her that there was no charge, then mumbled something about telling Larry that everyone at the company was rooting for him and wishing him a swift recovery. Alice politely thanked him and went on her way.

  At the Emergency Department reception, she explained that she was here to see her husband, who had apparently been brought in after a car crash this morning. When she gave her name, and the name of her husband, the receptionist’s eyes widened. Obviously someone who watched the news.

  Alice didn’t flinch, but she recognised the irony. In her previous life as the wife of an esteemed politician, she’d have been treated like a VIP here. Now she was a cleaner from a less than salubrious area of a run-of-the-mill town, and she was far prouder of the person she was now than the person she’d been back then. She refused to let anyone else’s energy, judgements or opinions pierce her shell. When you’d been through as much as she had, when you’d reached the lowest point it was possible to go, when you’d been dragged into someone else’s disgrace and publicly shamed day after day, none of this stuff mattered.

  ‘I’ll just call through and let the team know you’re here, Mrs McLenn.’

  She took a seat in the waiting room, next to maybe ten people waiting to be seen. A few of their ailments were visible, but most were not, although they all shared similar fed-up, anxious or irritated expressions. In previous days, Alice might have started a conversation, or made eye contact and smiled to make a connection or give some comfort, but not now. She just stared straight ahead until the double doors to her left opened and a tall man in a white coat who she recognised straight away, strode towards her.

  ‘Mrs McLenn? Alice?’ He held his hand out towards her, and the gesture was so unexpected that for the first time she felt a chink of emotion dent her armour.

  ‘Hello, Richard.’

  Doctor Richard Campbell was the former head of the Emergency Department, back when it was called Accident & Emergency and Alice had helped to raise funds for a children’s playroom where little ones could be kept amused while waiting for treatment or consultations for themselves or their family members. It was one of the most rewarding projects she’d been involved in and on the day they’d opened it, Richard had insisted that she cut the ribbon. Alice had enlisted the help of two little boys who were there with their gran, waiting while their mother’s head injury was stitched. After the ceremony, Alice had taken the family to the canteen to make sure they ate, then checked on the mum before she left and watched the woman’s relief that her children were fine. That was all most mothers really wanted, wasn’t it? No matter the age of their children, they just wanted them to be fine. Alice could relate to that all day long.

  ‘Sorry to be meeting again under such awful circumstances,’ Richard said. ‘Please, come into my office.’

  He walked quickly, and Alice kept pace with him, through the double doors, along the main corridor of the department, with cubicles on either side, which Alice was fairly sure would be full. They always were. This was one of the busiest EDs in the city, although it seemed relatively calm today.

  He stopped at a white door, with a sign on it that she didn’t catch, before he opened it and let her go in first. ‘This isn’t actually my office. I’m up in the ICU now, but I’m down here covering because the ED chief, Cheska Ayton, has gone to America, and we haven’t appointed her replacement yet. Please take a seat.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Alice did as he suggested, then waited for him to speak.

  Instead of going behind his desk, he pulled a chair over and sat next to her. ‘Okay, let me tell you where we are. Larry was brought in earlier after a road traffic accident on the M8. I believe he drives a taxi now?’

  Alice nodded. ‘A red Skoda.’ She had no idea why she’d felt the need to give that information, but if Richard Campbell was surprised, he didn’t show it.

  He went on, ‘When the paramedics reached the scene, he was unresponsive, and they immediately realised he was in cardiac arrest. The police tell us that an eyewitness in another vehicle saw his head fall forward right before his car went out of control. The paramedics resuscitated him at the scene, but he arrested again on the way here. Thankfully, they were able to resuscitate him a second time. They got him here and they took him straight into surgery. I just called up when reception said you were here, but the team are still working on him. That’s as much as I know for now. You’re very welcome to wait here, or I can show you to the family room. Here might be a bit more private.’

  She appreciated the gesture, and she knew that he meant well. What he was really doing was protecting her from the negative reaction that her name, her husband and her past could evoke, but she didn’t want to be an imposition or get special treatment.

  ‘The family room will be fine. In fact, is the prayer room open?’

  The renovation of the prayer room had been another of her projects when she was on the fundraising committee. It was a non-denominational room of peace, somewhere that people of all religions could go to connect with whatever god they worshipped. Alice wasn’t religious, but she found solace in the peace of a church, a temple, a chapel – anywhere that allowed her to sit in quiet reflection.

  ‘It is. I can show you there and I’ll keep you posted just as soon as I know more.’

  She nodded gratefully, and wondered if he thought it strange that she wasn’t crying, anxious, devastated or begging for reassurance. She couldn’t do any of those things – again, not a good enough actress. Hopefully, if he thought her reaction was strange, he’d put it down to shock, or frozen terror. It was neither. She’d trained herself to be numb for so long that she didn’t know how to be any other way. And even if she did, none of those reactions would be the ones that came naturally to her. Not where her husband was concerned.

  They left the office, and if people in the department – patients or staff – nudged each other or raised an eyebrow because they recognised her as she walked beside him, she didn’t see them. Living her life with blinkers on, just staring straight ahead, with no peripheral vision had become her speciality.

  The prayer room was empty when she got there. Richard left her at the door, with kind words. ‘We very much appreciated everything you did for us here, Alice. I hope you know that.’

  Again, his sincerity and his kindness dented her emotional shell, but didn’t quite pierce a hole. The last two years had made it impenetrable.

  She sat in the closest seat, at the end of the back row, and bowed her head in the calm silence, trying to sort out the tangle of thoughts and memories that were roaring in her brain.

  That Alice McLenn, the one who had dedicated her life to public work, was a different person. Back then, the work had made her feel valued, given her purpose and the fulfilment that came from making a genuine difference to other people’s lives. That satisfaction and her time with her son were the only bright spots in a life she hated, so she was grateful to be of use, even if it was only as a sidekick to her husband. She already despised him with every fibre of her being, and marriage to him was only bearable because he spent most of his time working in London. She’d thought about leaving him a thousand times, but he’d made it quite clear what he’d do if she tried. He treated her with general disdain, and his son with barely disguised disinterest, except in public, where he played the family man because it won him votes and popularity points. That happy image was crucial to his career and he wasn’t going to let her wreck that. He’d threatened to ruin her if she left, to seek custody of their son, to make her life hell and she knew, without a single doubt, that he had the power and the malice to do it.

  Alice had never had the courage to test that, because she’d feared he’d win. He was a different person then too. Important. Respected. Charismatic. Successful. He was also volatile, aggressive, dishonest and cruel, but the public didn’t see that side of him. He reserved that for colleagues who’d fallen out of favour and for his enemies. That’s who Larry McLenn was then. And he’d been that man of importance for over two decades before a covertly filmed video uncovered his true personality, agreeing to take a bribe while boasting that he would bury anyone who got in his way, because he was untouchable.

  Turns out he was almost right. The charges hadn’t stuck, because the treachery was exposed before he actually accepted the cash, but the disgrace had welded itself to them all.

  He’d been fired almost immediately, and the story had run on TV, online and in newspapers for weeks. All the while, the public made two crucial assumptions. The first was that he’d done it before. They were right. A police investigation found unexplained bank transactions going back years. Only the skill and cunning of the highest paid lawyers in the city had managed to keep him out of jail by alleging entrapment, making claims of deep fake recordings and countering with a barrage of appeals over technicalities and errors in the case.

  The second assumption was that Alice was either in on it, or at the very least, turned a blind eye. They were wrong on both counts. She’d had no idea. But in the court of public opinion she was guilty as charged.

  That Alice, with the fine clothes and the fake life and the superficial friends, had lost everything and gained a whole pile of shame, embarrassment, humiliation and disgrace.

  And now?

  Now, she was a cleaner who was proud of the fact that she earned an honest wage for an honest day’s work.

  Now, she spent hours every day wearing a tiny splash of expensive body lotion and living a life of anonymous solitude, putting on nice clothes and eking out joy in the simplest of ways in the hours that she was alone.

  Now, she had no contact with her son.

  And she was still the wife of Larry McLenn, former MP, who’d disgraced his office, betrayed his family and burned their lives to the ground. They’d gone from a lavish home and a privileged, respected existence, to poverty, isolation and shame. And every single day since then, Larry had lived in rage and petulance, and Alice had lived in quiet determination that she would one day escape from him.

  Now, she prayed to any god who would listen that that day had come.

  8

  RORY

  Rory was still trying to process the words that had come out of Julia’s mouth. ‘I want a divorce.’

  That was one way to cut right through the small talk. He actually felt like he’d been punched in the gut and was winded, so it took him a moment to find his words. The whole time, Julia stared at her coffee in front of her, not even giving him the grace of eye contact.

  ‘You honestly mean that?’ he asked eventually.

  She nodded slowly. ‘I do. I’m sorry, Rory.’

  ‘Why now?’ was all he could get out.

  She shrugged and he could see her discomfort. ‘I’ve been spending a lot of time in London with my sister over the last couple of months…’

  Two things struck him about that. First of all, she didn’t even particularly like her sister. She’d always said she was overly judgemental and prone to snobbery. And, secondly, he’d been squeezing his six-foot-four frame into the single bed in Albie’s spare room for the last few weeks when he could have been stretched out in his own bed, in their Victorian duplex in Park Circus. He’d only stayed away from their home out of respect because she’d said she needed space. Also, if he were honest, because the townhouse had been Roger and Arabella Fieldow’s wedding gift to them, so it had always felt more like her place than his.