Warhol's Prophecy

A smile flickered across her lips.

What if it was Rob? He’d tried his key and not been able to get in because of the bolts. Even now he could be standing there waiting for her to let him in. He’d had time to think, and he wanted to talk. That had to be it.

Surely?

She hurried towards the stairs, pausing briefly to look in on Becky, who was sleeping, undisturbed by the persistent ringing.

Hailey hurried down the stairs, crossing to the key-pad and jabbing in the four-digit cancel code. For long seconds she stood in the darkness of the hall looking towards the front door.

She could see shadows outside.

Two figures.

It wasn’t Rob.

Did you really think it would be?

Not Walker either, unless he had someone with him.

Perhaps he’d brought Caroline with him. Perhaps they had needed to tell her of their undying love for each other.

She exhaled deeply.

The doorbell sounded again.

Hailey took a step towards the front door, pausing to squint through the spyhole.

She’d been right: there were two figures standing in the porch.

The breath froze in her lungs. Her heart thudded alarmingly against her ribs.

Please God . . .

With shaking hands she slipped the bolts free, then scurried into the kitchen and fetched her front door keys. She left the chain on as she opened the door, feeling a blast of cold night air sweep into the house. It raised goose pimples on her flesh.

‘Mrs Hailey Gibson?’ said the first of the policemen.

She nodded. ‘What’s wrong?’ she murmured, barely able to force the words out.

‘It’s your husband,’ the uniformed man told her.

‘Oh, no,’ she said, her voice cracking.

‘If you get dressed, we’ll run you to the hospital.’

‘An accident?’ she said.

‘We’ll give you the details on the way,’ the other policeman said, smiling understandingly.

She wondered how many previous times he’d performed a similar task – or worse.

‘Is he badly hurt?’ Hailey wanted to know.

‘Yes, he is,’ said the second man.

She slipped the chain free and let the two men in, turning and bolting up the stairs.

Tears were already forming in her eyes.

You’ve got to be strong for Becky’s sake.

She stood in the doorway of her daughter’s room, looking at the little sleeping form.

Hailey waited a moment, then hurried into her own bedroom.

She dialled the number quickly.

Caroline Hacket was still up, still working.

‘I’m really sorry, Caroline,’ Hailey said. ‘I’ve got to go to the hospital. I need someone to watch Becky for me. I won’t be long. It’s Rob. I think he’s in a bad way.’

Caroline said she’d be there in five minutes.

‘Thanks,’ said Hailey, wiping her eyes with the back of one hand. She hung up.

She pulled on jeans, socks, stepped into trainers, then ran a hand through her hair and headed for the stairs, pausing once more at the door to Becky’s room.

The little girl was still sleeping soundly.

No need to wake her.

Not yet.

Hailey made her way downstairs to the waiting policemen.

83

THE DRIVE TO the hospital seemed to take an eternity.

All the way there, Hailey sat gazing blankly out of the side window of the police car.

There were questions she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t seem to force the words out. And, as they drew nearer to the huge building, she felt as if her vocal cords had seized up.

The car pulled up outside the entrance to Accident and Emergency, and the younger of the two policemen led Hailey through the reception area into the hospital itself.

An ambulance had just arrived, its blue lights turning silently. Hailey briefly glimpsed someone being lifted onto a gurney from the back of the vehicle. She saw blood, heard a moan of pain, then it was gone.

She followed the policeman along a series of corridors; they passed nurses and porters on the way. But Hailey’s overwhelming impression was one of silence. At such a late hour most patients were sleeping: some soundly, some with the aid of painkillers. In this monolithic structure, people were in pain. Some were dying. Some were already dead.

She forced the thoughts to the back of her mind, or at least she tried to. And, all the time she trudged along with the policeman, that antiseptic smell she hated so much clogged her nostrils. To Hailey hospitals smelled of pain and suffering.

They passed a cleaner using a buffing machine to polish the floor of one of the corridors. He looked up briefly as Hailey passed, no doubt wondering who this sad-looking woman was here to see. Then he returned to his work.

Hailey and the policeman rode the lift to the third floor and he stepped out ahead of her.

There was a small nurses’ station to her left, lit only by a dull night-light. There didn’t seem to be anyone on duty.

The policeman crossed to the desk and looked behind it, towards a small inner office.

A tall, thin-faced nurse in a blue overall emerged and smiled efficiently at him.

‘Robert Gibson?’ he said.

‘Room 311,’ the nurse told him, returning to her duties, as Hailey and the policeman made their way towards the room she had designated.

There was a single plastic chair outside it, and perched on that chair, a copy of the previous day’s Mirror in his hand, was a man in a brown suit and a pair of unpolished shoes. He stood up when he saw Hailey and managed a smile.

‘Mrs Gibson?’ he said.

She nodded.

‘My name is Detective Constable Matthew Tate,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been assigned to your husband’s case.’

‘Please let me see him,’ Hailey asked.

‘Look, I’ll warn you now,’ Tate said almost apologetically, ‘he’s taken a bad beating. The facial damage is severe but . . .’

‘Please, just let me see him,’ she said irritably, and barged past the plain-clothes man.

During the drive to the hospital she had tried to prepare herself for every possible eventuality. Imagined what he might look like. How bad his cuts and bruises would be.

‘Oh my God,’ she whispered softly, and the tears began to flow immediately.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she now saw.

Rob lay propped up on three pillows.

‘Oh my God,’ Hailey repeated, moving closer to the bed.

There were drips running into both arms. His right hand was heavily bandaged. So too was his scalp and