Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton

Author:Rosamund Lupton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780748118403
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2012-01-02T17:44:55+00:00

20

Sarah finds the nurse who was with Rowena earlier.

‘The injuries to Rowena White’s hands, do you think they were an accident?’ she asks. ‘I mean, the more recent damage?’

So she’s guessed.

‘You’re Jenny’s aunt, right?’

‘Yes. I’m also a police officer.’

‘Have you got ID?’

Sarah digs in her bag for her warrant card and shows it – Detective Sergeant McBride. ‘My married name,’ she says.

‘OK. I don’t think the injuries were accidental. At least, I can’t see how she could have got them if she tripped. The blisters on the tops of her hands have been damaged too.’

I remember Donald brutally gripping hold of her bandaged hands. Rowena’s quiet scream of pain.

‘Do you know when the injuries happened?’

‘No. But the blisters were undamaged at four thirty yesterday, because I changed her dressings myself. But then I went off shift at five.’

‘Do you know who was on after you?’

‘Belinda Edwards. I’ll find her for you.’

Ten minutes later, Sarah is with Belinda, the briskly competent nurse who showed Donald to Rowena’s room yesterday. She carefully checks Sarah’s warrant card.

‘It was after her father visited,’ she says.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m not saying it was him. But I spoke to her when I arrived on my shift and she was fine, cheerful even. Her father came to see her shortly afterwards, about five fifteen. He wasn’t with her long. When he’d gone, I went in to give her her usual drugs. She and her mother were distressed. Rowena was trying not to show how much pain she was in, but it had clearly increased. I took the dressings off her hands and saw that the blisters had burst on both hands.’

‘She told you she tripped… ?’ Sarah asks.

‘Yes, and that she put her hands out to save herself. But that wouldn’t explain the damage on the tops of her hands too. I asked a doctor to examine her and she gave him the same story.’

‘Do you have Rowena’s past medical record?’

‘We’re not computerised yet – well, not successfully, so I’ll have to chase up the hard copy from records.’

‘And can you get Maisie White’s, her mother’s?’

Belinda’s eyes meet Sarah’s and an unspoken accord passes between them.

‘I’ll chase that up for you in the same way,’ she says.

‘Thank you.’

‘We’re concerned about the infection risk,’ Belinda says. ‘So she’ll be remaining with us for a few days yet.’

* * *

Sarah is going to go to the police station. Jenny and I go with her towards the exit of the hospital. I don’t want Jen to go outside.

‘We need to know everything in case we’re the ones who have to put it all together,’ I say to her. ‘Can you stay here in case Donald comes back? We need to watch him too.’

Giving her a job to do, as I used to years ago – sifting the icing sugar so she wouldn’t mind that it was me taking the cake tins out of the too-hot-for-children oven.

‘You’re sure it doesn’t hurt you?’ she asks.

‘Hardly at all.’

She looks at me, unconvinced.

‘Apart from colds, I’m actually very resilient.

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