‘I’m going to be honest with you, Jo, I think you’re more than just a reactive blink. I think you’re still in there, that you understand everything that’s being said to you.’ She studies the patient’s glassy eyes, the pale, slightly clammy skin. ‘I want to try something. It’s just between you and me. I promise I won’t mention it to anyone else for now.’
Nancy wonders what, if anything, is happening inside Jo Deacon’s head. Are her thought processes the same as before she had the stroke? Does she speak out loud inside her head and answer Nancy’s questions? All she can do is assume that this is the case, assume Jo can hear everything she tells her.
‘OK, I’m going to be straight with you, Jo. They’ve all written you off. You probably know that, right? If you can hear everything that’s being said around you, you’ll already know that things are pretty serious.’
Nancy pauses. It’s important she says exactly the right thing.
‘But I’m not judging you. Not yet. It’s important you understand that.’ Nancy glances over at the door and moves her face a little closer to Jo’s. ‘But I need to know the facts. I’ll let you into a little secret, Jo. I’ve worked out a way we can communicate, you and I.’
She watches the patient’s face for the slightest flicker of a reaction.
Nothing.
‘I don’t know if you know what happened to Evie Cotter. You had a photograph in your bag showing Evie at least a couple of years older than when she was taken from her family, so you must know something.’
Nancy pauses, watching Jo’s face for a short time before she begins speaking again.
‘I need you to tell me where she is, Jo,’ Nancy says softly. ‘Whether she is alive or dead, you have to give Toni Cotter some peace. Can you do that?’
There is no reaction.
‘I’ve found a way for you to do it. In order for it to be able to work, you have to be able to blink. Just blink, that’s all.’ Nancy gives an exaggerated blink over Jo’s face. ‘It doesn’t even have to be that big. Just a flicker will do. If you can blink, we can have a conversation. Try now, try to blink.’
Jo’s face remains completely still.
No twitch, no blink, nothing.
‘I want you to take all your energy to your eyes,’ Nancy whispers. ‘Imagine it just like lightning, channelling up from your toes, from your fingers, collecting behind your eyes. Think about your eyelids coming down like shutters. The energy is forcing them closed.’
Nancy glances at the door again.
It’s just before ten and soon the cleaner will be doing the morning ward rounds, mopping the floor with disinfectant to fight the dreaded norovirus that has swept through so many hospitals in the UK in recent months.
‘Just keep practising, Jo,’ Nancy urges. ‘Keep imagining that energy sweeping up behind your eyes. I know you’ve blinked before – you can do it again. You can.’
Nancy waits, talking Jo through the process again and again.
Then suddenly, it happens.
Jo blinks. Just the once.
‘Brilliant, you did it!’ Nancy swallows down her euphoria and tries to keep her voice level. ‘You blinked, Jo! You really did it. Now try again. Try again and again until it happens.’
She watches and waits.
By the time Nancy leaves the room, Jo Deacon has blinked three times.
66
Present Day
The Nurse
The following day when Nancy arrives at the ward, there are pressing staffing issues due to a stomach bug outbreak. Everyone has to accommodate additional duties, so it’s nearly midday before she manages to get to Jo Deacon’s room.
‘OK, let’s try something,’ Nancy says. ‘Can you blink, Jo? Just once.’
She can almost feel the intense effort emanating from the patient.
Jo blinks.
‘Fantastic! Now, can you blink twice, please, Jo? Just two little blinks, if you can.’
Again there is a pause while Jo seems to gather energy, and then she blinks. Just once.
Nancy waits, staring down into the glassy, grey eyes.
A minute later, Jo blinks. Twice.
Nancy reins in her excitement. ‘I’m going to ask you a really simple question,’ she says evenly. ‘If you can, you’re going to blink twice to answer “yes” and blink once to answer “no”. Here goes. Do you understand, Jo?’
Jo blinks twice. Not clear, neat blinks, more of a frail fluttering, but it’s an amazing development and Nancy’s heart soars with hope for Toni Cotter.
This patient is nowhere near a vegetative state following a stroke, as several doctors have diagnosed. Jo Deacon is suffering from locked-in syndrome.
Nancy has no personal experience of the condition, but, over the years, she has heard about such cases. Locked-in syndrome can completely paralyse the patient. Sometimes, the only action they’re able to perform of their own accord is to blink. It’s extremely rare, but Nancy is convinced that Joanne Deacon is locked in, and aware of everything happening around her.
She knows she has an ethical responsibility to inform the doctors immediately and she has every intention of doing that. Very soon.
But, ethical or not, Nancy’s priority is not Joanne Deacon.
It is Evie Cotter and her family.
* * *
Nancy spends the following days dashing around the ward, fulfilling her general duties to the patients on Ward B. She keeps a close eye on Joanne Deacon’s room, monitoring when the doctors visit so she can return to the patient and be assured of a little time undisturbed with her.
Jo tires very easily. After a relatively short period, she stops blinking altogether and returns to her previous unresponsive state. But over a period of two full days, Nancy had been able to establish answers to several initial questions.
‘Did you abduct Evie?’
Yes.
As soon as Jo had blinked in the affirmative, Nancy was desperate to ask how and why, but of course none of these answers could be satisfied by a mere yes or no blink.
To alleviate Jo’s tiredness a little, Nancy graduated to asking Jo to blink just once if Nancy said the right answer. It worked well for some questions, and this afternoon she had one particular question in mind. Nancy waits until the doctors have seen Jo and then, near the end of her shift, she takes her chance to sneak into her room once again.
‘Is Evie still alive?’
Jo ignores the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and blinks once when Nancy gives the option ‘I don’t know’.
Nancy tries not to let her frustration show. How can she not know? If Jo is the person who abducted Evie, then surely she must know.
She picks up her homemade letter board.
‘You can spell out words,’ she explains. ‘I will read the lines of letters very slowly and you can blink once when I say the correct one. Let’s have a go.’
The process is long and laborious. Jo manages to blink a few times but the letters spell nothing. Nancy quickly realises the letter board is too much, too soon.
She feels her heart clench as Evie’s innocent face floats before her mind’s eye. Heat floods through her and the urge to physically shake Jo Deacon forces her to turn around and take some deep breaths until she feels calm again.
‘Let’s go back to yes and no answers,’ she says evenly. ‘Do you know where Evie is?’
No.
It’s all she has time for before the end of her shift, and she doesn’t want to overtire Jo. These initial questions are of the utmost importance and she has to keep Jo onside.
If she asks the right ones, then surely, even without the help of the letter board, she can help Toni Cotter begin to unlock the mystery of her missing child.
* * *
On the way home from work, Nancy makes a detour to Muriel Crescent. She knocks on the door of Toni Cotter’s house and her mother, Anita, answers.
‘How is she?’ Nancy asks in a low voice. Anita shakes her head sadly.
Toni sits, a crumpled wreck, in the same corner of the couch as when Nancy visited three days earlier with DI Manvers.
When Nancy enters the room, Toni looks up sharply, desperate hope glimmering briefly in her eyes. Within seconds, it has fizzled out and evaporated, leaving her eyes dull and listless once more.
‘I thought it might be DI Manvers with news,’ she says quietly, looking down at her hands.