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remained neutral. No smile or amiable riposte was forthcoming. Simon immediately felt a charge in the air, the hairs on his neck rising with fear. “What is it?”
    Diana leaned down and peered through the car window. Her face showed the strains of a person who has been rehearsing the delivery of bad news. “Simon, I’m sorry. It’s Sarah. We’ve been trying to call you, but we couldn’t get through. Your phone … Why didn’t you have it on? Sarah, she - she collapsed. When she came back from school. They’ve gone to the hospital. She’s very unwell. Your phone was off …”
“Get in.”
Simon wrenched the car into reverse, his expression sharp and cold. Any warmth left from the whisky was gone.
“Which hospital?”
“Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, the ambulance man said …”
    Diana broke off, instinctively grabbing the handle above the passenger door as Simon screeched the Jaguar back down the street-lamp lit road. Back past St Matthew’s, back to the hospital.
    Back in the direction from which he had only so recently come.

Chapter 4

    The car park was beginning to empty at the hospital, visitors reluctantly leaving for the evening. Simon, retaining a doctor’s parking permit, nudged his car at the barriers to the staff car park, impatient for the achingly slow hydraulic arm to raise and let him through. The large car splashed through puddles in the badly surfaced car park, the sheets of rain backlit by the neon hospital sign. Diana and Simon leaped out, oblivious to the rain, and ran towards the main hospital entrance.
    Inside, the vast four-story atrium was quiet, the only sound a squeaking of rubber shoes as porters scurried between lifts. A woman was packing up a second-hand bookstall for the day. She glanced up at the pair, then looked away quickly, embarrassed by the trauma she instinctively knew she was witnessing. At reception, the man in charge nodded a cool greeting. Simon snapped out his question, demanding the whereabouts of his daughter, and the man calmly checked the records.
    “Intensive Therapy Unit, 2nd floor, yellow lift.” Diana and Simon ran off in the direction of the lifts, their wet feet slipping on the smooth hospital floor.

    * * *

    “Why the fuck was your phone off?” Melissa rounded on them in the lobby of ITU, too anxious for preliminaries.
    “I forgot to turn it back on after surgery. I went to see Duncan. I told you.” Simon combed his fingers through his wet hair. “Where is she?”
    Melissa brusquely brought him up to speed. “She’s in there. She has an infection. Her temperature has been up to 106 and her organs were at risk of failing. They’ve got her hooked up to all manner of things and she’s stable. They’re carrying out another Bone Marrow Biopsy now. She’s under anesthetic this time.” She stopped and swallowed. “Simon, she was covered in bruises. All over her legs. I missed it. I fucking missed it .”
    Diana stepped forward and folded her distraught daughter into her arms, nodding at Simon over Melissa’s shoulder. Simon glanced at a set of swinging doors to his right, labeled ‘ITU Bay 4’. A nurse in scrubs shoved through, carrying a kidney dish containing blood-filled vials and assorted clinical detritus. He headed straight for the room, knowing instinctively that his daughter was inside.
    A doctor looked up from the bed where his little girl lay prone, attached to tubes, bags, lines, pumps and monitors. Her bare white hip protruded from under the cover, her skin almost as white as the starched sheet.
    The consultant looked up. “Dr Bailey? We’ve just finished the biopsy. Your little girl is very ill. We’re doing everything we can.”
    Simon stared numbly at the seven-year old, barely recognizable through the clutter of apparatus attached to her face and arms. “We missed it. It’s back and I missed it.” He moved towards the bed, wanting desperately to touch her, but terrified of hurting her, of contaminating her.
    “I’m afraid