All That Is Lost Between Us (14 page)

Callum shrugs. ‘I'm not sure – she's keeping her feelings close to her chest and won't talk to me or her mother. She wanted to go to school this morning and we let her, although I'm not sure we should have – I've been worried sick about her ever since I dropped her off.'

‘What did she say to the police?'

Callum hesitates. ‘I wasn't there. But Anya told me she didn't see much, it all happened very fast.'

‘So, she couldn't give a description of who was driving?'

‘No, the car came at them from behind, Liam, there wasn't any time.'

‘Jeez, Cal, we need to catch this bastard, and Georgia's our best chance. I'll call her this afternoon and see if she can remember anything else.'

Liam stares out into the distance, his jaw tight. Callum grimaces at the thought of Georgia being interrogated by her emotional uncle.

‘She's already spoken to the police, Liam – and I think they plan on coming back later as well. Perhaps we should give her a bit of space . . .'

Liam leans towards his brother. ‘Cal, do you know how critical every hour is, following an incident like this? The longer it goes on, the more the leads drop away, and the less everyone cares. Take a good look at Sophia, for god's sake. Don't you want to do everything in your power to get the scumbag who did this to your niece? Isn't that a little more important than everyone being well rested?'

People are beginning to watch them. Callum puts his hand out to pat his brother's arm, saying, ‘Of course, of course,' but Liam jumps back as though he's been scalded.

‘Just don't. DON'T. I'm so
bloody
angry, and all we're doing is sitting here waiting for Sophia to wake up. I've called everyone I can think of but all they'll tell me is that they're working hard, and I'm to be with my daughter and family. I'm a policeman, Cal – this is what I'm trained for – but when it happens to my own child it turns out that all I can do is sit on my hands. Christ!'

Callum sees an elderly lady sipping tea close by flinch at the sudden volume increase. He's uncertain of what to say. Being the younger brother, there had been a pattern in place by the time he became aware of it, and it has continued throughout their lives. Callum can't recall any time he has been called on to play comforter to Liam, not even when their father died. They had both spoken clearly and calmly at the funeral, but Callum had gone home after the burial and broken down in Anya's arms. He never knew if Liam had done the same.

As Liam sits rigid in front of him, Callum hunts for something to say. He feels awkward that he is the lucky one, his daughter intact except for one or two grazes. While he is grateful that it wasn't worse, that both kids are alive and Sophia will recover, he knows that it's too much to ask Liam to see any kind of solace in this at present.

‘What shall we do about Mum?' he asks, picturing his mother in the care home, oblivious to what is unfolding in the family. Oblivious to most things, nowadays.

‘I'll try to pop in later, but I won't tell her yet,' Liam says. ‘She's so confused, it'll just frighten her. I'll fill her in on all the mountain rescues instead,' he says with a wry smile. Their mother has a habit of confusing them. She has done it since they were boys, but whereas she used to be able to correct herself quickly, these days she can have entire conversations with one son pretending to be the other. Liam finds it amusing, but Liam handles most of life's difficulties with irreverent humour. Callum is envious of this trait – his mother's slow degeneration is nothing but depressing to him.

‘Is there anything else I can do?' he asks eventually. ‘Any practical jobs I could help with?'

Liam sighs. ‘Can you go and check on Arthur – if he's hungry he's probably barking and driving poor Mrs Fletcher mad.'

‘Of course – I'll take him back to my place. Anything else?'

‘Well, could you take Maddie and give her a break? She's been hanging around here with us all day, and I'm not sure it's doing her any good. She can either stay with you tonight, or I can collect her when I pick up some bits and pieces from home later.'

‘That's fine,' Callum says. ‘She can stay with us for as long as she wants – whatever helps – don't worry about that. And I can get things for you from home if you need them.'

‘It should be okay. They're expecting Sophia to come round in the next couple of hours, and once I've seen her wake up I'll go home and take a shower. Then it'll be a matter of trying to get Helene to do the same. Her nerves are shot – she's questioning the doctors about everything, worried they might have missed some other injury. She keeps going on and on about internal bleeding. One of the nurses slipped her some valium last night, I think they just wanted a break from her.' Liam attempts a chuckle, and Callum sees a hint of his boisterous brother. ‘That's why she was dozing when you came in, the drugs finally knocked her out, god bless her. But we'd better get back, I don't want to leave them alone for too long.'

Callum drains the rest of his drink and follows his brother out of the cafeteria, glad that Liam knows the way back through the twisting labyrinth of corridors. When they reach the room, Helene has moved to the edge of the bed and is stroking Sophia's hand. Liam goes across to Maddie.

‘Uncle Cal is going to take you home for a while,' he says. ‘You can either stay there, or if you want to come back, then I'll pick you up when I come home for supplies.'

Maddie looks at Sophia for a long time as though weighing up whether or not to argue. But eventually she nods, gets up and grabs her bag.

After a round of goodbyes, Callum goes across and gives Sophia a peck on the cheek. ‘Georgia sends all her love,' he whispers in his niece's ear. Then he turns to go.

Their way is blocked by a doctor, accompanied by a security guard. As they step into the room, the doctor closes the door gently behind him.

‘What's this?' Liam asks warily.

‘We would like to speak to you about an incident,' the security guard begins, his voice hushed, the doctor solemn behind him. ‘We need to be discreet, so please keep your voices low. Would you mind stepping outside with us for a minute?'

‘I'll stay with Sophia,' Callum offers immediately, and Liam frowns at him, then nods.

The security guard opens the door. ‘You too, Mrs Turner,' he says to Helene, who gives Callum an uncertain glance as she follows them.

Callum watches through the slatted blinds of the interior window as the group huddle together, the security guard talking fast. He shows Liam and Helene something on an iPad, and they both stare at it for a while and then look back at him. One at a time, they shake their heads. Callum sees his brother put a protective arm around his wife as the security guard continues to talk.

Beside Callum, Maddie looks on. The doctor leaves, but the security guard remains with them. Liam says something to Helene, then Helene leans against his chest, seeming to take deep breaths, before righting herself and nodding to him.

They step back inside the room. Before Maddie can ask anything, Liam shakes his head as though he doesn't want to talk.

‘Dad!' she snaps.

He beckons her and Callum outside as Helene goes back to Sophia and takes her hand.

‘Can you explain this to them?' Liam asks the security guard once the door has been gently closed.

‘This is a secure area,' the guard begins, his voice low and guarded, ‘and we seem to have had a breach. A nurse spotted a woman acting suspiciously, so we have just re-watched the security footage.' He shows them the iPad, with a black-and-white photo of a woman paused in a spot Callum recognises as the place they are all standing now.

‘This woman came into the ward last night,' he said. ‘She walked up and down this hallway and stopped more than half a dozen times outside this window. Do you have any idea who she could be?'

He glances between Callum and Maddie, and Callum sees that his niece has gone pale.

Callum stares at the picture. A woman with dark hair tied back, in jeans and a black top. She appears to be a similar age to Danielle, but she is much taller with a slender frame.

He shakes his head. ‘I don't recognise her.'

‘What about this one?'

This time she is caught in profile: a narrow face and thin nose, coupled with a serious, gaunt expression. But there's nothing familiar.

Callum shakes his head again as he tries to process the information, and watches Maddie do the same.

‘We've turned this information over to the police,' the guard tells them, ‘and I'll stay here unless they provide a police presence. Until we know who she is and why she kept loitering here, please be vigilant.'

‘Okay,' Callum says, turning to his brother, finding Liam's expression echoing the confusion of his own thoughts.

T
he sky had brightened for a while during the morning, but another cold front begins to roll in while Georgia is eating her lunch. She has chosen a secluded step in the school grounds, exhausted by the endless speculation about the accident and Sophia. Her reflexes have been on high alert all day, and she has found herself swinging around at every little nudge and bump. It seems like every two minutes someone collides with her. Surely it's not usually like this at school?

Alone, she watches the clouds swell and darken again. She has no idea what the weather forecast is for the rest of today, but this doesn't look good. Phys Ed won't be cancelled, though, since the elements are seen as a challenge rather than an obstacle, and this suits her fine. She is determined to prove to herself and everyone else that she is ready for the weekend race. And besides, there is so much tension building up inside her that she needs to run.

All her fears have been slowly gathering into one hot ball of anger during the course of the morning. So many people in her life seem determined to decide what is best for her while barely consulting her. And, now, to top it all off, that speeding car in the darkness.

How dare they.

These three words maraud through her mind, cornering her terror and bullying it into rage. She is incensed, and she is terrified. She needs to run. Never mind what her mother thinks. What had Leo told her once? That to win races you shouldn't fight your doubts, you should conquer them by strengthening your focus.

You can't put things off forever
, snaps that horrible little gollum in her head. Because she isn't in complete denial. She knows she is close to falling apart, and right now, the race is the best thing she can come up with to hold herself together. It is the finale of four years of effort – and to cap it off, a week ago there had been a big feature on her in the local paper, and Addison's, a local sports company, had got in touch and offered to sponsor her to run in the national championships for the next two years if she could complete her hat-trick of triumphs. Therefore, she intends to cross that finish line first tomorrow, and until then she refuses to think about anything else.

When had things become so complicated? And how much is she to blame? Her part in her own fate is impossible to discern. Sometimes she feels as light as a feather, blown about in circumstances beyond her control. At other times she can hardly get up, the sum of her regrets heavier than all those great slabs of rock along the Cumbrian hillside.

And she has no one left to confide in. Before she met Leo, she had never known what it was like to feel so alone. When he abruptly disappeared from her life he not only extinguished their relationship but so many others too. She couldn't talk to anyone, nor could she stand the silences that moved so swiftly to fill the gaps, cutting her off from everyone she loved.

What would have happened if she had told Sophia about Leo straightaway? If Sophia had not been on holiday when Georgia first met him, she wouldn't have kept him a secret. Sophia would have made her repeat his words, examined his tone, and extracted every possible insinuation from the way he'd pronounced each syllable. Sophia would have wanted to know exactly what he looked like – and Georgia was desperate to describe him to someone, because every time she saw him she found him irresistibly attractive. Sophia would have squealed at her descriptions of his muscles and speculated on the parts of him that Georgia hadn't seen –
yet
, she would have said, and they would have fallen about laughing. But by the time Sophia got back it was all over, and Georgia couldn't bring herself to talk about anything.

Just weeks ago, as she planned her first fell run with Leo, everything had felt so uncomplicated. Back then the ache that ran through her whenever she thought of him was delicious. She had perused the different routes they might try with a precision she rarely applied to her schoolwork. When she settled on Loughrigg she had sent a text suggesting not only a run but a swim in the tarn – and she had counted every minute from the time she pressed send to when her phone buzzed a couple of hours later.

He had replied that he would see her there early on Saturday morning. The plan was made. And after that, all she had to do was wait, and try not to get too lost in daydreams of what it would be like to see him again, and how it would feel to run her hands over his skin, press her mouth against his, and have his arms around her.

She still thinks about him every day, but today the memories are more acute, and even more unbearable. The accident must have done something strange to her emotions, bringing to light things she would rather keep hidden. If it wasn't for sport this afternoon she would consider going home, but she needs to make sure her name stays on tomorrow's team sheet. Much to her dismay her mother had been proved right and she had fallen asleep in Geography a few hours ago, waking to find her head on the desk. Mr Alsop had acted like he hadn't even noticed, which was disconcerting. No one is giving her overt attention today. She wonders what it would take to get a reaction from one of the teachers. The freedom with which she might behave is making her dizzy. Could she light a fire in the classroom, shout profanities from the windows? How far could she go while everyone pretended that she was invisible?