One Bad Turn by Sinéad Crowley

Author:Sinéad Crowley [Crowley, Sinéad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784293444
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
Published: 2017-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

‘You could have punctured a lung!’

‘Well, I didn’t, did I?’

The response came out narkier than he had intended, but the pain in his side was relentless, and Flynn didn’t feel like being nagged, not even by someone he respected as much as Claire Boyle. In fairness to his sergeant, though, she must have understood how he was feeling because she didn’t snap back, just buried her face in her phone, flicking through old texts, while he lowered himself gingerly onto the chair that had been wedged in next to her hospital trolley.

After waiting to make sure he was settled she looked up at him again.

‘What are you doing here, anyway? By the look of you, it’s you should lying here, not me.’

Flynn gave a small shrug, careful to move only his shoulders and keep the rest of himself as still as he could.

‘They’re sending me home. There’s nothing more they can do with a cracked rib apparently. Painkillers, home to rest and no mountain-climbing for a few weeks. I’m as well off in my own place anyway. Sure, what would I be doing in here only taking up a bed? And I hate hospitals.’

‘You and me both.’

Boyle flung out a hand and tugged at the thin curtain that was separating her little space from the rest of A and E.

‘I feel totally useless, stuck in here. I mean, I wasn’t even injured, not really. But the doctor who checked me over got called away on an emergency and they say I can’t leave until he signs off on me. That was hours ago. I’m going mad, lying here.’

Flynn began a sigh, then changed his mind rapidly as pain shot though his torso. Instead he exhaled, with a wince. He’d change the subject. That should take his mind off it. ‘So how’s the little one? Did they keep her in?’

‘Anna?’

Boyle’s face relaxed into a smile.

‘She’s fine, thank God. They let Matt take her home an hour ago. She was exhausted, but she wasn’t injured. Wet, hungry and upset, but other than that, grand. Tell you what, though. I can’t imagine what she must have been thinking all that time.’

Flynn looked away as his sergeant’s eyes filled with tears. He shifted awkwardly on the chair, raging that his own phone had run out of juice ages ago and he had no small screen to fiddle with. After a moment, though, he heard a hard cough and deemed it safe to look up again.

Boyle’s eyes were bright, but mercifully dry.

‘So, yeah, thanks for asking. She’s grand. They gave her a full going-over. No harm done. Please God, she’s so young she won’t remember anything either. I just want to get home and— Sir!’

They both started as the curtain twitched and the tall, broad-shouldered figure of their boss, Superintendent Liam Quigley, edged into the narrow space. The area felt positively claustrophobic now, but not even the pain in his side could stop Flynn leaping to his feet and offering the older man his chair.

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