Beneath the Bleeding by Val McDermid Page B

you’re seriously ill, Bradfield Cross is where you want to be.’
    ‘Tell me about it,’ Tony said wryly.
    ‘You’re not ill,’ Carol said briskly. ‘You’re just a bit more damaged than usual.’
    He pulled a half-smile. ‘Whatever. I’d still bet that Robbie Bishop will be walking out of here ahead of me.’

Tuesday
    Sometimes being right was no pleasure at all, Elinor thought as she stared at the lab report. This was definitely one of those times. The test results were incontrovertible. Robbie Bishop had enough ricin in his system to kill him several times over.
    Elinor paged Denby, asking him to meet her at the ICU. As she crossed the covered walkway that linked the labs to the main hospital, she couldn’t avoid the sight of Robbie Bishop’s fans, their patient vigil rendered pointless by the piece of paper she held in her hand. According to one of the women in admin who had been holding forth in the staff canteen that morning, the hospital had been inundated with offers of blood, kidneys and anything else that might be donated to help Robbie. But there was nothing anyone could give Robbie now that would alter the fate in prospect.
    As she approached the ICU, she folded the report in half and shoved it in her pocket. She didn’t want any of the security staff to glimpse its contents as they checked her ID before allowing her into the unit. The tabloids had their spies everywhere; the least shecould do was to ensure Robbie’s last hours were as dignified as possible. She cleared security and crossed the reception area, spotting Martin Flanagan slumped against the end of a sofa. When he saw her, he jumped to his feet, eagerness and anxiety chasing the exhaustion temporarily from his face. ‘Any news?’ he asked, his flat Ulster accent lending the simple question an incidental air of aggression. ‘Mr Denby’s just gone in. Did he send for you?’
    ‘I’m sorry, Mr Flanagan,’ Elinor said automatically. ‘There’s really nothing I can tell you right now.’
    His face collapsed in on itself again, hope disappearing with her words. He dragged his fingers through his silver-streaked hair, a beseeching look on his face. ‘They won’t let me sit with him, you know. His mum and dad are here, they get to be with him. But not me. Not now he’s in there. I signed Robbie when he was just fourteen, you know. I brought him on. He’s the best player I’ve ever worked with and he’s got the heart of a lion.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it, you know? Seeing him brought so low. He’s been like a son to me.’ He turned his face away from her.
    ‘We’re doing all we can,’ Elinor said. He nodded and dropped back on to the sofa like a sack of potatoes. It didn’t do to get emotionally involved, she knew that. But it was hard to see Flanagan’s pain and not feel connected.
    Being in the ICU was one of life’s great levellers, she thought as she walked into the dim space with its bays crammed with equipment. Here, it didn’t matter whether you were a household name or a nobody. You got the same total commitment from thestaff, the same access to whatever means it took to keep you alive. And the same restrictions on visitors. Immediate family only, and they could and would be unceremoniously shunted to one side if necessary. Here, the needs of the patient were paramount, and here the medical staff ruled supreme, if only because the patients were in no fit state to question them.
    Elinor headed straight for Robbie Bishop’s cubicle. As she drew near, she could see the couple sitting on the left of the bed. A man and woman in their middle years, they were both clearly in the grip of the tension that comes with abject fear. Their focus was fierce and aimed exclusively at the figure wired to the machines. For all the notice they were taking of Thomas Denby standing at the end of the bed, he might as well be invisible. Elinor wondered if they had grown so accustomed to seeing their son from afar that