There is a silence, punctuated only by the whoosh and click of machines and the faint conversation of the women in the next bay.
“It could have been Dr. Myers,” Hannah says. It’s what’s been preying on her mind ever since that moment in the hotel, and now it’s a relief to say the words out loud, but there’s also a different quality—it is as if saying them makes the possibility real. “He was already on the staircase. He could have got access to the room between Neville leaving and Hugh and me arriving. Geraint’s right—if he was sleeping with April, if he had got a student pregnant—well, that would give him motive and opportunity. Neville was convicted because he was the only person who had the opportunity to kill April. He never had a motive. But Myers—he’s the one person who could have slipped in there without anyone noticing.”
“I wonder if he was ever interviewed,” November says. Her expression is sober. “I mean, the police must have asked him whether he heard anything. But was he ever seriously a suspect?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah says. “I never saw him in court, but I wasn’t allowed to see the other—”
She breaks off. Her phone is buzzing in her lap. She turned the ringer off, in semi-deference to the hospital’s NO MOBILE PHONES sign, but now it’s vibrating with an incoming call. It’s Will. Thank God.
“Will!”
“Hannah.” He sounds out of breath. “I just got your message—I was swimming. What happened? Are you okay?”
She swallows. Will is not going to like this.
“I—I fainted,” she says at last. “I’ve gone into the maternity unit for some monitoring.”
There is a long pause. Hannah can tell he is trying to keep himself in check, not overreact, make her more upset, particularly after their recent argument. She hears him swallow on the other end of the phone.
“How—is everything all right?” he says carefully. “Is the baby okay?”
“I think so,” she says. “I haven’t been signed off yet, but they keep coming in and looking at the baby’s heartbeat chart and they don’t seem too worried.”
“Good,” Will says. “Look, I can be there in…” His voice goes faint and she can tell he’s looking at his phone screen, figuring out how long the journey will take. Then he comes back on. “Twenty, twenty-five minutes?”
“I don’t know if I’ll still be here.” Hannah looks up at the clock on the wall. “When they hooked me up they said they’d monitor me for half an hour—it’s been nearly that now. Shall I call you when I know what’s happening?”
“Okay,” Will says. He sounds worried, but also like he’s trying to keep his concerns from her. “I love you, and Han—”
“Yes?”
“I’m—I’m really sorry about… you know.”
“It’s okay,” she says. For anyone else, his words might be hard to decode, but Hannah knows he means their fight. She bites her lip. She wishes Will were here. “This isn’t your fault, I promise.”
“Okay,” he says, though he doesn’t sound completely convinced. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
She hangs up. November has moved away, trying to give at least the illusion of privacy, but now she turns around, looking over her shoulder.
“Everything okay?”
“I think so.”
There is a rattle at the door and a tall, smiling obstetrician comes in, holding a clipboard.
“Hannah de Chastaigne?”
“Yes,” Hannah says. She struggles to sit up straighter in the padded chair, the plastic creaking. “Yes, that’s me.”
“Excellent. Could we have a moment?” She looks at November, though it’s not clear whether she’s inviting her to leave or stay.
“I’ll be in the corridor, Hannah,” November says tactfully. She picks up her bag and slips out.
The doctor takes November’s stool and begins to look through Hannah’s notes and at the readout on the monitor.
“Well,” she says at last. “I hear you had a little fainting spell.”
Hannah nods. “I think I just—I don’t know, I’d had a bit of a shock, low blood pressure probably. I feel fine now.”
“Well, the good news is you look fine, and so does baby, all the vitals are really good, and your urine is clear, but… we do want to keep an eye on your blood pressure.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it’s been creeping up a bit over the last few appointments, and I’m afraid it’s a bit higher than we’d like.”
“What? But I don’t understand—the doctor at the hotel said low blood pressure was what makes people faint.”
“It can be, but yours isn’t very low, I’m afraid. I understand it’s been up at the last couple of checks?”
“Yes—but—but there were reasons—” Hannah feels tears rising in her throat, forces them down. If only Will were here. “I ran there. You don’t understand.”
“Have you had any headaches? Flashing lights? Dizzy spells?”
“No! I mean—other than today, obviously, but the rest, no, absolutely not. I feel completely fine.”
“Well, I think we’d like to get it down regardless. I’m going to give you a prescription for methyldopa—it’s a very safe drug, we’ve been using it for years with pregnant women—”
“You’re kidding.” Hannah heart is sinking, a hollow feeling of guilt and anger at her body’s betrayal taking its place. “Medication? I don’t want to take drugs. Can’t I just—I don’t know—take it easy?”
“It’s very safe,” the doctor repeats. She is trying to be reassuring, Hannah can see that, but she feels anything but reassured. In fact her heart is racing, the trace on the monitor spiking up and up. She feels again that sickening slide into uncertainty she experienced after April’s death—the sensation that events have taken over, and that her life is spiraling out of control. Only this time it’s not police officers telling her where to go and what to do and how to feel, it’s a doctor with a white coat, but the same pitying, understanding smile that Hannah knows so well.
“No,” she says forcefully. “No, this isn’t okay. This can’t be happening!”
“Your baby is fine,” the doctor says again, gently. “This really is just about taking the best care of you both. I understand it’s upsetting when things don’t go—”
“I’m not upset!” Hannah explodes, though it’s so patently untrue that part of her wants to give a sobbing laugh at the irony of that fact. Her throat is tight and she feels like crying. But she cannot. Will not. She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I am, obviously, upset. It’s just—it’s so unexpected. I feel like things were fine a week ago and now, it’s like—”
It’s like someone has come in and taken over and everything is out of my hands and moving in a direction I don’t want and can’t control.
That’s what she wants to say. But she won’t. Because although it’s true, that is how she feels, the rational part of her knows that this reaction is only partly about the baby and her blood pressure. A far larger part of it is about April, and Neville, about what happened then, and about what is unfolding now.
And suddenly, with that thought, Hannah knows what she is going to do, and she feels her heart rate slow, and a kind of peace unfold inside her. Because Hannah has had her life ripped away from her by events beyond her control once before. She does not intend to let it happen again.
This time, she will be in charge.
AFTER
“So, where to?” November asks, as Hannah sinks into the leather-scented interior of the limousine. “Not back to work, clearly?”
Fuck. The shop. Hannah feels like smacking herself in the forehead with the paper bag of pills she is holding.
“I completely forgot about work. I need to phone my colleague. Can you drop me in Stockbridge? I live on Stockbridge Mews, it’s near Dean Park Street.”
“I have no idea where that is,” November says pleasantly, “but assuming Arthur does, then yes.”