Keep Me Alive by Natasha Cooper

burrowing into her flesh, she heard someone calling her name.
    ‘Inspector Lyalt! Inspector! Inspector Lyalt!’
    At last, she managed to force her eyes fully open. Someone with short dark hair was hanging over her. The picture fizzled at the edges and bent out of shape, then reformed.
    ‘Guv,’ he said, still urgently. ‘Can you hear me?’
    ‘Yes.’ She ran her tongue around her mouth. It felt as dry as sandpaper and tasted horrible. No wonder her voice hardly worked. Her mind swooped. She tried to talk. This time the sound was better. ‘Yes?’
    ‘You’re in hospital.’
    She began to remember. The worm must be part of a drip. This was serious, then. ‘What happened?’
    ‘They think you’ve been poisoned.’
    Memories of a night with Jess and buckets and panic came back. Then there were the ambulance paramedics, whose certainty and kindness had blessedly soothed Jess. They had wrapped red blankets around Caro and strapped her into a
stretcher. The sensation of security had been unlike anything she’d ever felt.
    ‘Who are you?’ she asked now, feeling as though her tongue was the size and texture of a steak.
    The face hanging over her moved back. It looked hurt.
    ‘Pete,’ said its owner. ‘PC Peter Hartland.’
    ‘Of course. Sorry.’ Caro lifted her hand to rub her eyes. ‘Not myself. Why are you here, Pete?’
    ‘To see you. And to ask whether you ate or drank anything when you were interviewing Daniel Crossman.’
    Concentrating was hard. Like lifting the biggest weights in the gym. The time before the pain seemed dim and unreal. Trish was there. And a leaky rubbish bag. Jess was upset.
    ‘Crossman?’
    ‘Think back.’ Pete’s voice was panicky. ‘You went to see him and his wife. Don’t you remember?’
    ‘About Kim?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    She could feel his breath on her hot face as he exhaled. He was much too close. He’d been eating cheese and pickle.
    ‘Well done,’ he said, blowing into her nostrils again. She blinked. ‘Did you go into their flat, guv?’
    ‘Yes. It was cold. The sun doesn’t reach it. Very clean. The baby was crying.’
    ‘Did you eat anything, or drink anything while you were there? A cup of tea maybe?’
    ‘Tea?’ It had been strong, and the darkest, hottest thing in the flat. The tannin had scraped at her tongue. She hadn’t known what to do with the cup, holding on to it while Crossman tried to frighten her out of his flat and his life, just like he’d done to this boy, and to everyone else who’d tried to help the child. ‘Yes. Why? Did he do this?’ Her hand moved protectively to her stomach.
    Pete Hartland disappeared. There were voices, quiet but
furious. Caro tried to lift her head to see what was happening. Someone in a strange uniform – white with buttons down the front – took his place.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ The voice was male and foreign but kind.
    ‘Horrible.’
    ‘Are you in pain?’
    Caro felt a laugh forming, but it was too much effort to let it out, so she just tried to explain about the grinding in her back and the clenching in her gut, and the way all her muscles felt as though she had been racked.
    The nurse started tidying her up, smoothing the sheet that had rucked up under her and flattening the pillows. Then he did something to the transparent bag at the end of her drip and added a note to the card at the end of her bed.
    ‘What happened to Hartland?’
    ‘He is gone. He should not have been here, disturbing you with questions. He was told not to.’
    ‘He said I’d been poisoned.’
    ‘You have food poisoning. That is all. We think it was the sausages you cooked the night you were brought in here.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because you had a friend eating with you, who has also suffered.’
    ‘Trish? Is she here?’
    ‘No. Her case was less serious.’
    The world was swimming around Caro again. She was being sucked under. As she went down, she heard herself say, ‘Tell Pete.’
    It was so urgent that he should