sat up straighter and took a deep breath. He looked me straight in the eyes. 'We were wrong.
There's no excuse.' I could see him thinking about putting forward all the reasons and excuses, then swallowing them back. Good. 'I can't believe you did that.' He slumped into the chair again and put his face back into his hand. 'What a fucking balls-up from start to finish. You can take us all to the cleaners, you know.'
Is he dead?'
'He's in the ITU.'
'Oh.'
Do you know what you did to him?'
'Yes.'
'His eyes.' He said this in a whisper. I couldn't tell if he was looking at me with admiration or horror and disgust. 'You pushed them half-way into his brain. I mean, fuck.'
'With my thumbs,' I said.
'But, Jesus, Abbie, you must be .. .'
'I didn't have anything else.'
'We'll need to take a formal statement later.'
'Of course. Is Sarah all right?'
'Sarah Maginnis is shocked, malnourished. The way you were. She'll be all right. Do you want to see her?'
I thought about that for a minute. 'No.'
'She's very sorry, Abbie.'
'You know?'
'She can't stop talking about it.'
I shrugged.
'Maybe I was lucky,' I said. 'He was going to kill her. He'd taken his scarf off. I don't know what I would have done. I don't know if I would have just stood there and watched him do it. Nobody would have blamed me, would they? Poor, traumatized Abbie.'
'I don't think you'd have just stood there.'
'Is there any news about Jo? Has he said anything?'
'I don't think he'll be talking for a bit. We're beginning our investigation into Miss Hooper's disappearance.'
'You're too late,' I said.
He lifted his hands but then let them fall back on to his lap. We sat in silence for a few minutes. A nurse came in and said someone had left me flowers at Reception. She laid a damp bunch of anemones on my locker. I picked them up and sniffed them. They smelt of freshness; there were droplets of water on their bright petals. I laid them back on the locker. Cross's face was grey with fatigue.
'Tell me what you know about him,' I said.
'We've only just begun. His name is George Ronald Sheppy. Fifty-one years old. His only conviction was for animal cruelty, years ago. Slap-on-the-wrist job. We don't know much more yet, we've talked to a few neighbours. He was an odd-job man a bit of this and a bit of that. Removals, fairground mechanic, lorry driver. Doesn't seem much, really.'
'What about the other women?'
'The other names,' said Cross. 'We'll keep on looking, of course, especially now try to match missing people with areas he worked. Maybe when we know more .. .' He gave a helpless shrug. 'I'm just saying, don't expect too much.'
So the names were still only syllables spoken to me in the darkness.
'Are you seeing someone?' he asked.
'Several doctors, but I'm fine.'
'No I meant someone to help you. Who you can talk to. After what you've been through.'
'I don't need help.'
'Abbie, I've been in there, I've seen what's left of him.'
'Do you expect me to be traumatized?'
'Well.. .'
'I put his eyes out.' I held up both hands and stared at my fingers. 'I put my thumbs against his eyeballs and I gouged his eyes out. That's not a trauma, Jack. The trauma was being grabbed. The trauma was being held in a cellar with a hood over my head and a gag in my mouth and eyes watching me in the darkness, hands touching me in the darkness. That was trauma. Knowing I was going to die and no one could help me. That was trauma. Escaping and finding out no one believed me. That was trauma. Being in danger all over again, when I should have been safe. That was trauma. This was not. This was me surviving. This was me staying alive. No, I don't think I need help any more. Thank you.'
He leant back as I was talking, as if I was pummelling him. When I'd finished speaking, he nodded and left.
Ben came at lunchtime his lunchtime, that is. Hospital lunch is at about half past eleven. Supper is at five. Then the evening stretches on and on until it becomes night, and then the night stretches on and on until it edges into morning again. He leant over me to kiss me awkwardly on the cheek with cold lips. He was wearing his lovely floppy overcoat. He held out a box of chocolates and I took it and put it on the pillow. He sat down and we looked at each other.
'I brought this as well,' he said, and pulled a smooth wooden oval out of his pocket. It was honey-coloured, veined with darker contours. 'Hornbeam,' he said. 'A special wood. I made it for you last night in the workshop, when I was waiting for you and hoping you'd come back.'
I closed my fist around it. 'It's beautiful. Thank you very much.'
'Do you want to talk about it yet?'
'Not really.'
'Have you remembered anything?'
'No.'
There was a silence between us.
'I'm sorry about Jo,' I added. 'She's dead.'
'You don't know that. Not for sure.'
'She's dead, Ben.'
He stood up and went and looked out of the small closed window at the blue sky above the rooftops. He stayed like that for several minutes. I think perhaps he was crying.
'Abbie,' he said, at last, turning back to the bed, 'I was out of my mind with worry. I wanted to help you. I didn't want you to be on your own like that. Whatever you felt about me and Jo, you shouldn't have run off, as if you thought I was the murderer or something. I know you were upset with me. I understand that. But you could have died. And it wasn't right, Abbie,' he said. 'It wasn't well done.'
'Ben.'
'All right, all right.. . Look, I'm sorry about me and Jo at least, I'm sorry you found out like that. I'm not saying I'm sorry we had an affair. That's something different and, if you want, one day I can tell you about it. And I'm not even saying I was completely wrong not to tell you. We started right in the deep end, us two. We didn't have the proper order to our relationship, did we? In the normal run of things, we would have got to know each other, and gradually given each other our confessions. We hardly knew each other and suddenly there you were living in my house and scared for your life, and everything was all so momentous and so out in the open. I didn't want to start our relationship by laying all my cards on the table, all at once. I was scared of losing you again.'
'So instead you started our relationship off with a lie,' I said.
'It wasn't a lie.'
'Not technically. Morally.'
'I'm sorry that I lied,' he said. He sat down beside me again and I lifted my hand to stroke his nice soft hair.
'And I'm sorry that I ran off like that,' I answered. 'Have a chocolate.'
'No, thanks.'
