Chapter 2

TWO

The thick smell of disinfectant hit Joanna as soon as the doctor used his pass to bleep them onto the ward. He nodded hello to the nurses at their station. ‘This is Mrs Woodley. Can you take her in to see her daughter?'

A woman in a darker uniform than the others smiled. ‘Of course. Come with me, Mrs Woodley.'

Following the nurse, Joanna tried not to look left or right at the other patients. The smell of tinned soup and liniment curdled in the air. With each step, a sense of dread descended on her. Joanna had spent more time around a hospital bed than she'd care to remember, but she wasn't prepared to see her only daughter laying in one. The nurse led her into a side room at the end of the corridor and there she was. ‘Oh, Charlotte. My darling.'

Charlotte's bed was in the middle of the room and she lay still, eyes closed, her arms on top of the sheet that was tucked up to her chest. As Dr Doherty had described, the top of her head was bandaged but, other than that, she looked as if she was asleep. ‘Can I touch her?'

The nurse's smile hadn't moved from her face. Maybe for her, this was an everyday scene. ‘Of course. You can see where the wires are, so obviously you need to keep an eye on those. But I'll leave you alone for a while. If you need anything, the nurses' station is outside on the right.'

What she needed was to hold her daughter close. As soon as the nurse was gone, Joanna leaned to kiss Charlotte's soft cheek; she was warm. ‘I'm here now, sweetheart. Mummy's here. We're going to get you better and I'm going to look after you.'

From underneath the bandage, Charlotte's hair curled towards her closed eyelids. Taking care not to dislodge the elastic of her oxygen mask, Joanna moved it away. ‘That's better. You always hated your hair in your eyes, didn't you?'

Charlotte's skin was pale, but that only made her more beautiful. Everyone believes their child is attractive – it's biology – but she knew that Charlotte was stunning; everyone said it. Faces would turn towards the bounce of her wavy long blonde hair and smile at the large blue eyes that glittered in their search for her next adventure. Whatever was good in her and Steve, Charlotte had inherited it. ‘She got the best of us,' he used to say. Even so, they would sometimes marvel at how she came from the two of them. How could they have made something so perfect?

Joanna pulled a plastic chair in close to the bed so that she could hold Charlotte's hand. She brought it up to her lips and kissed it. ‘You need to wake up soon, my love. I know it probably hurts, but you need to wake up so that the doctors can make you better. And then I'll take you home and get you back to normal.'

There were so many tubes going in and out of Charlotte. What did they all do? Were they just giving her medication or actually keeping her alive? ‘I don't know if you can hear me, sweetheart, but I'm here and I'm not going anywhere until you wake up and talk to me.'

She rubbed at Charlotte's arm. Beneath a light suntan and freckles, it was so slim and fragile. Pale and vulnerable on the underside, the bruises were still there, the ones that had caused their argument last week. If only she'd known what was going to happen, she'd never have let her leave the house. She would've held on to her, begged her to stay. Remembering her last words as Charlotte left – You'll realise I'm right – made her wince. She hadn't even said goodbye. No I love you or drive safely or see you soon . Why had she left those words hanging in the air before she left?

More than anything, she wanted to lay down next to Charlotte on the bed and take her in her arms. When Charlotte was small, she hated sleeping on her own. Stay with me, Mummy. One more story. Sometimes, Joanna would fall asleep next to her, wake up two hours later and then stumble off to bed. Friends would tell her she was crazy. Just let her cry . But she couldn't. And neither could Steve.

Above the bed, monitors displayed digital numbers in various colours. What did it all mean? Were they good or bad? She'd never been good with numbers. It was Steve who would sit at the table with Charlotte night after night, trying to get her to understand her maths homework. Sometimes she would cry with frustration and he would tell her they could leave it for another time. But Charlotte would shake her head. ‘It's not going to beat me.' Steve would smile over her head at Joanna, proud of their daughter's strong spirit. The flip side to that spirit wasn't quite so easy to manage. Even then he'd shrug, ‘She knows what she wants,' before kissing Joanna. ‘Like her mother.'

That was possibly the only way she was like Joanna. Looking at her now, her long hair falling beneath the bandages threaded with bright highlights, she was the image of her father. It was his long eyelashes that rested on her lightly freckled cheeks and if she – when she – opened them, it would be his blue eyes that would look at her. How often had she been at the receiving end of a joke from two sets of eyes like that as they'd mocked her for something she'd said or done? What would she give to see that again. Her heart burned with the pain of it. ‘What are you thinking about in there, sweetheart? You take your time. I'll be here whenever you wake up.'

A gentle knock on the door heralded the entrance of a nurse. ‘Hello. I've come to do Charlotte's obs. I'll be as quick as I can.'

The nurse was young. Maybe only a few years older than Charlotte. Neat and pretty, Joanna welcomed her calm efficiency as a sign that no one was giving up on Charlotte yet. Maybe she had some words of encouragement to offer. ‘Do you always work on this ward?'

Her cheeks squeezed into apples when she smiled. ‘Actually, it's my first day back today. I've been on maternity leave.'

Joanna's heart ached. She forced herself to focus on the nurse. ‘Congratulations. Boy or girl?'

The pride in her voice was unmistakable. ‘Little boy. Ben.'

She returned her focus to the monitor above Charlotte's bed, but Joanna could still see the tears in her eyes. ‘First day back, isn't easy, is it?'

Her smile was grateful and she wiped away the tear that escaped. ‘No. I love my job, but it was tough to leave him with my mum this morning.'

Joanna remembered that feeling well. Tearing yourself in two directions and never feeling you were fully present in either. ‘It gets easier. I promise.'

‘Thank you. That's what my mum said. And she said you always worry about them however big they get. Even when they're twenty-six and having their own babies.'

Joanna looked down at Charlotte. ‘Your mum is right. You will always worry.'

With her thumb, she stroked Charlotte's hand, and her eyes blurred with tears. It had been worry that made her try to get Charlotte to see sense last week. She hadn't wanted to start an argument. She just needed her to understand. It'd been a tough year for both of them, but they'd promised to get through it together.

The nurse smiled. ‘All done, I'll be back in an hour to check again.'

Joanna was desperate for information. ‘Does it all look okay? I mean the checks you've done. Is she going to be okay?'

The nurse was kind but professional. ‘I'm just checking that she's stable. The doctor will be round soon and he'll be able to tell you more about her condition.'

Joanna swallowed, tried to smile. ‘Of course. I understand. Thank you.'

But she didn't understand. If Charlotte was still unconscious, what did that mean? Stable meant nothing. You could be stable but still critical. Hours of watching Grey's Anatomy had taught her that much. In the silence of the room, the hiss of the oxygen machine had a sinister tone. How bad was this? Would Charlotte ever be that same headstrong girl who'd, politely – but firmly – informed her that she was going to ‘live my life the way I want to'?

When Charlotte had first mentioned Freddie Knight-Crossley, it'd been in such an offhand way that Joanna hadn't realised the full extent of the danger.

She'd been dropping her off at the venue for her latest gig. She never enjoyed doing that. It wasn't the driving – she'd been running Charlotte here, there and everywhere her whole life – it was the kind of places she was playing. Rough-looking pubs, or clubs where the door was made of metal, covered in torn flyers and paint, which opened onto stairs down into a cavern of darkness.

Charlotte would laugh at her. ‘You can bring your nose down a few inches, Mother,' she'd said. ‘I know where you're from, remember? I did say that you should drop me round the corner. Then you won't risk anyone seeing you.'

‘It's not that, Charlotte,' she'd half-lied. ‘It's the worry of you being in a place like that. It looks dangerous.'

She could see Charlotte roll her eyes in the rear-view mirror as she'd pulled her keyboard from the back of the car. ‘Well, you might not have to do it much longer. We've got ourselves a roadie. And he's got his own van for all our kit.'

That was the first she'd heard of it. ‘Really? Can you afford to pay someone to do that?'

Charlotte had been at her window now, leaning in to give her a kiss goodbye. She'd shrugged. ‘He doesn't want paying. He said he enjoys it. He likes our music.'

Suspicion had made her sarcastic. ‘And you believed him? Who is he? What's his name?'

‘Why do you need to know his name?'

Always this pushback. When would she understand that Joanna needed to know everything – and everyone – that affected her daughter. Knowledge kept you safe. ‘Why don't you want to tell me?'

Charlotte had sighed. ‘Not that it matters, but his name is Freddie Knight-Crossley. He went to school somewhere frightfully posh in Surrey and he has just graduated and is about to start some kind of MA in business in September. His family has a house the size of a small school on Hutton Mount and the van he drives is blue, I think, some flavour of Renault. Does that make you feel better? I'm going in, Mum. I'll see you later.'

That had not made her feel better. Not at all. What was a boy from a family like that doing driving Charlotte and her band – another two young girls – to their tiny gigs in pubs? For free? After watching her disappear into the dark hole of the door, Joanna had driven home with another worry to add to her portfolio.

A sharp ring cut through her memory. Joanna jumped. She grabbed her bag from the floor beside her chair. The damn phone was so loud. Were they allowed to have them on in here? Heart racing, she scooped the contents of her bag – mints, tissues, lipstick, comb, mirror, receipts, receipts, receipts – onto her lap to try and find the phone to stop its shrill insistence. ‘Where are you?'

At last she found it, just as the call rang off. At least it wasn't making a noise anymore. The number wasn't one she recognised. She swiped the screen to silent in case they called again and slid it on the cabinet by the side of Charlotte's bed.

Bag back on the floor, contents safely inside again, she pulled her chair even closer to Charlotte and picked up her hand. Inside her wrist, the butterfly tattoo that Joanna hated. That'd been another argument. Another time when she'd told Joanna it was ‘her life' and Steve – as always – had failed to back her up. ‘It's just a little tattoo. She's a good kid. Why does it matter what people think? It's not really important, is it?'

How many times had he said that to her over the years? How many times had she replied with ‘but it's important to me'?

Her phone vibrated. Whoever had called must've left a voicemail. When she picked up her phone, she was assailed by the photo on the homescreen. Her, Charlotte and Steve on holiday in Cape Verde three years' ago. When life was good and the worst thing she'd had to worry about was the size of Charlotte's bikini.

She clicked onto the voicemail, but as soon as the message started – Hello Mrs Woodley, this is Lloyds Bank. We've been trying to call you urgently about – she clicked it off. Money problems could definitely wait.

She stared at the family photo on the homescreen until her eyes blurred. That had been a wonderful holiday. Charlotte had just finished her A levels and they'd taken her away as a surprise. She had a holiday booked with her girlfriends for after their prom but was thrilled to have the opportunity to get a tan before wearing the expensive full-length dress they'd bought for her. Unlike Joanna's friends' daughters, she'd agreed with her dad that buying second-hand from a charity shop or eBay was the way to go for something she would only wear once. But Joanna had insisted. ‘I want you to find something you really want. And I'm looking forward to seeing you try them all on.'

‘But it's so much money, Mum.'

‘That's okay, I've got the money saved already.'

Charlotte had given a little shrug. ‘Okay, that'll be fun. When shall we go?'

That afternoon, watching her beautiful daughter twirl around the dress shop in ballgowns of every colour, had been one of the loveliest days they'd had together. They could have had so many more days like that if she'd stayed home with Joanna instead of moving into that sterile executive apartment in Stock with Freddie bloody Knight-Crossley.

There was a soft knock on the door and another nurse stepped into the room. ‘Mrs Woodley? There's a police officer here and they'd like to talk to you about what happened to your daughter.'