Say You're Sorry Part 61

"Diazepam."

"How much?"

"Unknown."

"How long has she been unconscious?"

"Thirty minutes, maybe longer." I point to the tube. "I've done a nasotracheal intubation and a gastric lavage. She needs activated charcoal to absorb the rest."

"We can take it from here, sir."

Drury appears at the top of the stairs. Ashen-faced. Tortured by what he's witnessed. Two colleagues are dead. A kidnapped girl is alive. It doesn't feel like a victory.

On the night we were taken, I left Tash at the church while I went to Emily's house and told her that we were running away. In the winter Reverend Trevor leaves the small door open at the side of St. Mark's of a Sat.u.r.day night so that paris.h.i.+oners who arrive early on Sunday morning don't have to wait in the cold for the curate to unlock the door. I left Tash lying on a pew, curled up like a kitten.

It was well after midnight when I got back. The funfair had closed down and the rides were being dismantled or folded up like Transformer toys. Scaffolding pipes were loaded onto trucks and canvas tents rolled into tubes.

Tash wasn't where I left her. I thought she must have found somewhere warmer in the choir stalls or under the baptismal font. It was scary walking through the darkened church, but I couldn't risk turning on the lights, so I lit one of the prayer candles and tried not to spill hot wax on my hands.

I walked towards the main doors and that's when I saw George. He was sitting straight-backed in a pew. Tash was asleep with her head on his thigh.

George held a finger to his lips, not wanting to wake her.

"h.e.l.lo, Piper," he whispered.

"How do you know who I am?"

"You're the runner," he said, stroking Tash's hair. "She's sleeping. She told me what happened. I've been waiting for you."

"Why?"

"We have to go to the police station. We have to tell them what happened."

"Tash didn't want to tell anyone."

"I made her change her mind."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I've come to help."

He was wearing black combat trousers and dark boots laced to his s.h.i.+ns. A dark s.h.i.+rt was visible beneath his waterproof jacket. I thought he looked like someone official-like a soldier or a police officer-except for his jacket, which was old and stained.

Sliding Tash's head from his lap, he sat her up, leaning her head against his shoulder.

"My car is outside," he said. "Here, help me lift her."

I reached down and took Tash's arm, but that's when his hand slipped over my mouth and nose, stopping me in mid-breath, squeezing. His other arm wrapped around my chest, pinning my arms and lifting my feet from the ground. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't run.

"Shhhhhh," he whispered. "Sleep now, Princess. You'll be home soon."

50.

They let me ride in the ambulance with Piper. Although she is unconscious, her vital signs are stronger. They can put her on dialysis and clean her blood. She'll recover. She'll see in the New Year and meet her new baby sister.

Seated on a side bench, my knees touching the stretcher, I sway through every corner of the journey to hospital. I can see a face reflected in the chrome, but it doesn't look like me. My body is shaking. I don't know if it's the Parkinson's or the cold or something more elemental. I killed a man. I took a life.

Piper's eyes flutter open, wide with shock at first. She recognizes me. Relaxes.

"h.e.l.lo," I say, holding her hand.

She can't answer because of the oxygen mask.

"You're safe. We're going to the hospital."

Her fingers squeeze mine.

Her other hand reaches for her mask. The paramedic wants her to keep it on. Piper insists. She mouths the word. I lean closer and hear her whisper.

"Tash?"

"I'm sorry," I say. "Tash didn't make it home. She died in the blizzard, but she helped us find you."

Piper squeezes her eyes shut and a tiny marble-like tear rolls down her cheek and stops at the edge of the mask.

This was always going to be the hardest news and it will hurt her more than anyone imagines-a survivor's guilt and a sense that the world has moved on without her. There is n.o.body left who understands what she's been through.

51.

It's after midnight when I arrive at the cottage. The key is under the third brick beneath the foxglove plant. Letting myself in, I use the glow of the Christmas lights to navigate along the hallway, trying not to make a sound.

In the sitting room, I slump onto the couch and close my eyes. Too exhausted to get up the stairs, too wired to sleep.

"h.e.l.lo."

Julianne is standing at the doorway. She's wearing flannelette pajamas, which she buys a size too large because she says they're more comfortable. The trousers hang low on her hips and the s.h.i.+rt is unb.u.t.toned to reveal the shadow between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"I heard the news," she says. "Is she going to be OK?"

"Yes."

"They said a man was shot."

I nod.

My hands are shaking. I look into her eyes and something small and delicate shreds inside me. I feel the tears coming. I try to hold them back, but she sits beside me and presses her face to mine.

I sob.

She soothes.

"I killed a man."

"You saved a girl."

Her arms are around me now, hugging me like a child.

"When I was holding that gun, all I could think about was Charlie. I could picture when Gideon Tyler kidnapped her; how helpless I felt, how completely and utterly useless. I remember you standing in this room, unable to look at me. I couldn't think of anything to say to you. I couldn't make it better. I couldn't share your pain because I knew that if I took your sorrow and anger and added it to mine it would f.u.c.king bury me... I'd never survive."

"Don't torture yourself, Joe."

"That was the beginning of the end for us. I knew it. You knew it."

"Charlie is fine. I'm fine. You have to stop punis.h.i.+ng yourself." She strokes my hair. "I think you should talk to someone."

"Who?"

"A professional."

"You think I should see a therapist."

"Yes."

"Are you seeing one?"

She nods. "It's helping."

"Who?"

"I'm not saying. You'll tell me there's someone better."

I try to laugh because I know she's right. We sit like this for a long while, listening to the silence, enjoying each other's warmth.

"How was Christmas?" I ask.

"Postponed." She points to the Christmas tree, where brightly wrapped gifts lie unopened beneath the lower branches. "We decided that we didn't want Christmas without you so we put it off until tomorrow... or I should say today."

"What about Santa Claus?"

"Oh, he came."

"And Emma didn't want to open her presents?"

"Oh, she did. It almost killed her, but she wanted you here." She lightly kisses my lips. "We all did."

Julianne slides her body away from mine and stands, pulling me upwards. "To bed with you."

"Let me sleep here."

"No."

She leads me upstairs, pausing at the open door to Emma's room where we watch our youngest sleeping, surrounded by stuffed animals and her gloriously imaginative paintings.

Then we pa.s.s Charlie's room, which has a sign on the door banning entry to little sisters and anyone below a certain height. A height chart is helpfully provided.

Julianne doesn't stop outside the guest room. Pulling me onwards, she takes me into the bedroom we once shared and helps me undress. When I try to speak, she puts her finger over my lips and draws me to the bed and wraps my arms around her body, across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

I smell her hair. I feel her heart. I listen to her sleeping. I want for nothing.

My name is Piper Hadley and I went missing three years ago on the last Sat.u.r.day of the summer holidays.

Today I came home.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Say You're Sorry is my eighth novel, which is seven more than I ever dreamed was possible. As always, I wish to thank my agents Mark Lucas, Richard Pine, Nicky Kennedy and Sam Edinburgh, as well as my UK and US editors David Sh.e.l.ley and John Schoenfelder. For their hospitality and friends.h.i.+p I thank Mark and Sara Derry, Ursula Mackenzie, Martyn Forrester, Ian Stevenson and the Honey family recently returned to Harare.

I wish to thank John Leece, who earned the right to name a character in the novel thanks to his generosity in supporting the Dymocks Book Bank project to help "at risk" children learn to read.

My long-suffering wife, Vivien, deserves special mention (and a medal) for her love and support. She's my number one fan, my designated reader, my touchstone, my reality check and the person I do this for.

Finally, I wish to thank my readers in the UK, US, Germany, Australia and the many countries in between. I am humbled by the knowledge that my books are bought, borrowed and downloaded. It is a very intimate thing to share a story with another human being. It is a contract. A pact. A promise.

"Do you know how many people have taken me to bed," I tell my wife.

And she says, "In your dreams, Pal."