don’t you see? You’re looking after a child, you’re running a household, you’re holding down a job…’
She dumbly nodded her acquiescence, a large tear forming in her eye and then sliding, plumply, down her cheek.
‘You’ve lost so much weight,’ Beede struggled, valiantly, to redirect his anger, ‘you’re so thin. I mean you look like you might just…just blow away.’
Elen shrugged (what did she care about that?). ‘Dory’s still exercising,’ she murmured, trying – and almost succeeding – to maintain her fragile equilibrium. ‘He’s really, really trying. And it’s so…so unbearably sad, somehow. He’s doing the breathing – the yoga breathing – which is all very positive and empowering and everything…’ she paused again, ‘but there are just so many repercussions which he doesn’t know about – which he can’t know about – and I don’t honestly feel like I can tell him – kill off that little bit of…of hope. But the more control he believes he has, the worse it becomes for everybody else. The less he goes under…I don’t know…when he does go…’ she bit her lip, ‘it’s just so much more terrible. I mean the consequences…And if the police get involved again…’
She shrugged, helplessly.
‘Dissolve a tablet into his tea,’ Beede instructed her, ‘or whatever he drinks before bed. That’s the most difficult time, isn’t it? The REM? When everything’s in transition? He’ll get to sleep much quicker. It’ll be deeper. And that’s bound to take the pressure off.’
‘Oh God,’ Elen clenched her hands together. ‘If only it were that simple…’
‘Try, at least,’ Beede cajoled her. ‘Think about Fleet. Your main priority has to be the boy. And yourself, obviously…’ he paused, frowning, ‘I’ve let you down recently. I can see that now…’
He scowled. ‘We’ve been short-staffed here for a while. I’ve been taking too much on. And then there’s this whole Monkeith situation. I seem to have become…’ he shrugged ‘…horribly enmeshed in the whole thing…’
A look of fleeting interest crossed Elen’s face. ‘Well it’s certainly a good cause,’ she gently chivvied him, ‘and so tragic. He was only eleven. Dory knows the godparents. He’s been doing some leafleting for them.’
‘I know,’ Beede’s voice sounded just a fraction sharper than before, ‘it was actually Dory who recommended me to them.’
‘Oh.’
Elen struggled to let the implications of this news sink in.
‘But I can play around with my rota here at work…’ Beede leaned over and grabbed a photocopied time-table from his desk, ‘juggle things around a bit. I’ve certainly got some holiday owing. I can try my best over the next few weeks to keep up with him during the day again. And then you can have a rest. A proper rest. Believe me, things’ll look ten times brighter after a couple of good nights’ sleep.’
‘But if he finds out…’ Elen covered her mouth with her hand and stared at him, over her fingers, almost in panic. ‘He’s grown so suspicious. So paranoid. If he has any kind of inkling…’
‘I know. I know.’
‘And if he realises that we met up earlier…’
Beede stiffened. ‘The trick is not to deny anything. If the worst comes to the worst, say you took Fleet out to do some shopping, that you stopped at the restaurant, that I was there with my son…’
‘That’s true,’ she nodded, ‘you were.’
She nodded again.
‘The critical thing,’ Beede continued doggedly, ‘is that you need to get some rest – you both do; you and Dory – otherwise neither of you will be able to function properly.’
Elen patted her eyes with the tissue, then unfastened her hair to try and disguise their blotchiness.
‘And as I said before,’ Beede persisted, ‘there’s Fleet to consider…’
‘It was such a surprise,’ she said softly, changing the subject (exchanging one son for another), ‘to see Kane there this morning.’ ‘I know,’ Beede grimaced, ‘apparently he goes there all the time. I had no idea.’
‘I hadn’t seen him in so long…’ she smiled, vaguely. ‘Not since…Well, since Heather…’
Beede tipped his head, momentarily at a loss, then his brows lifted. ‘But of course – you would’ve met him as a boy…’
‘He…’
Elen began to say something, then suddenly checked herself. ‘He had a…’ she gesticulated, vaguely, ‘on his arm. He had a burn. He showed me.’
Beede frowned. ‘On his arm?’
‘Yes. He said he got it in the desert. In America.’
‘I don’t actually…’ Beede slowly shook his head, then something struck him; a memory ‘…Yes. He does have a burn there. He got sunstroke as I recollect. It was very severe…’
He still wasn’t quite following her.
Elen touched her own arm, ruminatively, in exactly the same place. Beede frowned, perplexed. ‘Did he mention it for some reason?’
She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could answer, they were interrupted by a quick knock. A member of staff thrust an impatient hand into the office, proffering an invoice. Beede scrambled up and followed them outside. A terse conference took place, and then they headed off, Beede cursing, towards the storeroom.
When he returned to his cubby (five minutes later) Elen had gone. On his blotter she’d scribbled, ‘Danny – Thanks. And SORRY. See you later. Godbless.
E.’
He ripped the page out, turned it over, sat down, picked up a pen in one hand and the phone receiver in his other. He pressed it between his cheek and his shoulder and he dialled the line for Casualty, then waited. As it rang he quickly wrote: Eva Barlow. He stared at it for a moment then scratched it out. Eliza Barlow (his next attempt). He crossed this out, too.
He frowned, gazing out into the middle distance, racking his brains to remember the proper name of the client Elen had mentioned with the malfunctioning pace-maker.
‘Liz? Lizzie Brownlow?’
He grimaced.
‘Damn.’
He slammed down the receiver.
‘Damn.’
He leaned back in his chair, ruminatively.
‘Cunning,’ he eventually murmured, ‘two names I would’ve remembered. But the nickname on top…’
He threw down the pen.
‘That
