In The Garden Of Stones (41 page)

The trip
only takes a few minutes, but it is rough – bouncing over the speed
bumps without slowing, swinging round corners like he’s on rails,
going forwards, jolting to a halt and then thrust into
reverse.

Finally
the van stops, the engine goes off and the driver gets out. Grace
waits until she’s sure he’s gone inside before easing the door
open, hopping down, and hurtling around the side of the building,
using shrubbery as cover as she makes her way toward the Main
Reception.

Only
this time the glass doors don’t open at her approach. She tries
stepping forward and back into the beam of the magic eye. Nothing.
Shut tight. She cups her hands over her eyes and peers through the
glass, recognises the woman shutting down the computer and tidying
up the desk, and drums her knuckles on the glass.

Private
Susan McGuire whirls around at the sound of the frantic rapping,
sees who it is and pushes a hidden button under the desk. The doors
slide apart and Grace all but falls through them.

“
There’s no visiting on a Friday, Grace. You should know
that by now. Doctors’ rounds. How did you get in?”

“
Snuck in. Service van. I have … to see Colin,” Grace pants,
almost doubled over with a stitch in her side.

“
Snuck in? Oh crap. You’ll have been picked up on the CCTV.
The heavy mob will be here any minute–”

“
Don’t care. Have to see Colin.”

“
Not possible. He’s–”

“
Had treatment … ECT, I know, and something’s gone
wrong.”

Susan
stares at her. “How did you know about that? We’ve only just
called–”

“
There’s no time to explain things that can’t be explained.
Please, Susan, I need to see him now right now, before it’s too
late–”

A
pounding on the door interrupts, and both women turn to see who is
causing the noise. The said heavy mob has arrived. Grace’s heart
skips a beat.

“
Don’t let them in.”

“
I have to.”

Susan
presses the override button and the doors slide aside again to
admit a pair of burly soldiers, all official in fatigues and shiny
boots, their Tam O’Shanters set at a rakish angle, blue feathers
standing upright from their regimental coat of arms cap
badges.

Hands
hover over holstered sidearms ready to do a Quick Draw McGraw as
they head straight for Grace, who squeals with fright.

“
Susan!”

“
Hands where I can see them,” barks Soldier Number One,
glowering at her.

Grace’s
hands fly up, fingers spread.

“
Name?”

“
G-Grace. Grace Elizabeth Dove. Flat 6, Tierney House,
Ferryhill–”

He only asked your name. Stop babbling you silly
bint.

Susan
McGuire tries to put herself between the scared rigid trespasser
and the huge man in uniform. “It’s alright, guys. She’s no risk. I
can vouch for her.”

Number
One ignores her and thrusts out his hand. “Give me your
bag.”

Grace
looks to Susan, who nods. “Do it.”

She
takes the strap from around her neck and holds out her small black
bag at arm's length. Number One snatches it and takes it to the
reception desk, unzips it and tips out the contents.

Under
the unwavering glaze of Number Two, Grace watches as he picks
through her possessions. Tissues, lipstick, purse, keys. He finds
her visitor’s pass and puts it to one side. He then opens her purse
and goes through the card section, looking for any official form of
identification.

“
Driver’s licence?” he says, without looking at
her.

“
I don’t have one, I don’t drive,” says Grace, her voice
frightened into a tight squeak.

He picks
up the visitor’s pass, examines the photo on it, looks at Grace and
back to the photo.

“
Date of birth?”

She
tells him, adding a superfluous 'Sir' for good measure.

“
What are you doing here?”

“
I–” She licks her lips, her mouth suddenly very dry. “I
came to see a friend,” she says. “He’s sick and it’s really
important that I see him, and the man at the gate, he wouldn’t
listen. I didn’t have a choice. I had to sneak in–”

“
She is who she says she is, and her reason for being here
is valid,” interjects Susan McGuire. “Even if her methods are
questionable.”

“
Questionable?” Number Two glares at Grace. “They’re
downright sus-pi-cious. You’re looking at arrest for trespassing,
breaking and entering into a military facility–” He bends down,
putting his face close. “Contravening the Official Secrets Act. Did
you know treason is still a hanging offence?”

Grace’s
eyes go wide. “What!? I didn’t! I just–! Susan, do something! Don’t
let him shoot me!”

“
Nobody’s going to be shooting anybody.” Susan McGuire
pushes herself between a now very pale Grace and Number Two, slaps
him hard on the arm and hisses at him.

“
God’s sake, Tony, back off will you? Can’t you see you’re
scaring her? There was no need for that, so just cool it,
okay.”

Small
Susan McGuire may be, but she’s the one with the balls to put this
big man firmly in his place, and when Number One smirks, she rails
on him too, giving him a look of such singular coldness it could
have curdled milk. The smirk quickly fades and he looks to his
boots.

She
turns to Grace, speaking very quietly and calmly. “It’s alright,
Grace. We’ll have this sorted out in just one minute if the
Keystone Kops here will let me make a phone call. Why don’t you
just take a seat over there and leave this to me, okay?”

“
Okay.”

Grace
wobbles unsteadily to the chairs, keeping the soldiers on the
periphery of her vision, lowers herself into the nearest and sits
like a garden gnome on a rock, hardly daring to breathe in case one
of the guards objects to it, reaches for his pistol and puts a
bullet in her.

No guns
are drawn. Instead Soldier Tony gathers up the contents of Grace’s
handbag while Susan McGuire makes a short urgent phone
call.

A few
minutes later a familiar face pushes its way through the swing
doors of the corridor leading from the suite of treatment
rooms.

No
greeting from Charge Nurse Simon Gibbs, no preamble, just a sharply
pointing finger and the dishing out of orders.

To the
pair of soldiers standing guard over Grace, “You two, bugger
off.”

To
Susan: “This never happened.”

To
Grace: “You. With me. Now.”

Grace
hurries over to stand close by his side, keeping him between her
and the armed men, using him as a shield in case they feel the need
to argue the case and pull their weapons.

They
don’t, choosing instead to give way to Gibbs’ more senior rank with
a snappy, “Yes, Sir.”

They
stroll out of the foyer and into the afternoon and Susan McGuire
locks the door behind them.

With the
tension fractured and quiet normality resumed, Gibbs leads Grace at
a brisk pace down a brightly lit corridor, towards an area of the
building she has never been in before.

“
What the sodding hell did you think you were doing, Grace,”
he says as they walk. “Trying to break in to a military facility
for Christ’s sake? You got a death wish or something?”

Grace
struggles to keep up with him. “I didn’t have any choice. It was a
spur of the moment thing. I saw a chance. I took it. I’m
sorry.”

“
You do realise they could have shot you, don’t
you?”

“
They wouldn’t though … would they? I’m a
civilian.”

“
Most terrorists are.”

“
Terrorist–”

“
Luckily for you I outrank both those numpties, for the time
being at least, or you’d be well and truly in the mire.” He pushes
open one of a pair of double doors. “In here.”

Chapter 40

Colin
McLeod lies on a trolley bed in this unfamiliar room, whey pale and
as still as marble.

His
tousled curly mop has been close cropped making his cheekbones
appear more prominent, his face more angular, giving him a gaunt
haunted look. From the waist down, over the bony flanges of his
hipbones, he is covered by a white sheet, which makes a sudden dip
to the mattress midway down his thighs. Above the sheet, the
puckered pink and purple scars and random scattering of black
shrapnel tattoos stand out livid against skin the colour of
yoghurt.

Over his
mouth and nose there is a clear plastic mask plumbed into the wall
by a fine tube, feeding oxygen to each shallow breath, the
prominent ribcage in his rake thin chest barely rising and
falling.

A device
like a clothes peg is attached to the middle finger of his left
hand, connected by a thin cable relaying the steady beat of his
pulse to a monitor which translates it into a gentle rhythmic
beeping, and if not for the tracer lines dancing over the monitor
screen like some macabre video game, he might well be mistaken for
one already dead, a cadaver ready to be shipped to the morgue for
cold storage.

The
sight of this fragile helpless creature before her forces tears to
well in Grace’s eyes, blurring her vision. “Oh, Jesus!
Colin.”

“
This is what we were afraid of,” says Gibbs from over her
shoulder. “Anaesthesia is always a risk, particularly if a body is
as physically compromised as Colin’s. They go to sleep, but they
just don’t have the strength to wake up again.”

He
dismisses the nurse who has been attending to Colin’s comfort. “Go
and get a cup of coffee. I’ll take over here.”

When the
nurse leaves, Gibbs gives the door a push, ensuring it is closed
and the three of them are alone in the room.

“
The DNR order?” asks Grace. “Has it been
implemented?”

“
Not exactly. It’s a fine line we’re treading at the moment,
monitoring his condition but not actively doing anything for him.
The oxygen is for support only because he’s breathing on his own.
If he stops breathing, we won’t intubate, and if his heart stops,
we won’t do any CPR.”

There
will be no snake hissing air down his throat, no electric shock to
restart his heart.

Grace
lays her hand on Colin’s brow. Despite its ghastly paleness and
waxy feel it is warm to the touch. There is still hope.

Gibbs
clears his throat. “Sorry about … out there. There was no need for
them to be so heavy handed. They wouldn’t really have shot you
though. Too much paperwork involved.”

Grace
sits up, wipes her eyes, swallows down the hard lump in her throat.
“They were just doing their jobs. Thanks for rescuing
me.”

“
Got to hand it to you, though, you were pretty brave to
sneak in like you did. I wouldn’t have had the balls.”

“
I didn’t really have a choice. The man on the gate wouldn’t
let me in. I begged him to, but he wouldn’t listen. You won’t get
into any trouble will you?”

“
You let me deal with that.”

She lays
her palm against Colin’s newly shorn head. “I think I’m too late. I
can’t find him.”

“
Keep trying.”

“
I am, but what if he’s gone for good? What if the ECT has
put him into a coma and he’s gone too deep?”

“
It is a possibility. You know how ECT works, how
unpredictable it can be.”

She did.
Electricity passing through the brain caused massive,
simultaneous excitation of vast numbers of neurons, and the
inhibitory mechanisms were overwhelmed – essentially a massive
short-circuit.

When the excitation reached the motor neurons of all the
body’s muscles, there would be considerable convulsive muscular
contraction, like in an epileptic grand mal seizure, the muscles
contracting so powerfully that tendons could be torn from the
bones, the bones themselves may be broken, teeth chipped and
broken, and sometimes breathing could be interrupted long enough to
cause anoxia.

“Lack of oxygen to the brain, with every possibility of
some kind of damage, even death,” she murmurs.

“Yep,” Gibbs says, and sighs. “You know, when you think
about it, when you know what’s happening, it’s a wonder anyone
survives ECT unscathed at all.”

Grace
rests her hand against Colin’s head, closes her eyes, and for the
first time in her life, prays.

God, if you’re listening, give him back to me. I’ll take good
care of him. He’s been through so much, to Hell and back already,
give him another chance. Don’t let it end like this.

Gibbs
puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. “There are things you need
to know, Grace,” he says. “Are you with me? Are you listening,
because it’s important?”

She
nods. “Yes.”

“
I know it’s been next to no time, and nothing is for
certain yet,” Gibbs says, “but we have to plan for the worst. We’ve
called in a specialist Neurologist, who also happens to be one of
the Medical Directors of this facility. He has over twenty-five
years experience and knows what he’s talking about. He’ll give
Colin the once over and if he decides that the worst has happened
and Colin has fallen into some kind of coma, and it doesn’t look
like there’s going to be any improvement any time soon,
he–”