“What happened with Luke? What did he say about her?”
“He said she was a narcissist,” I answered, and she snorted a laugh. “And that she was controlling and took all the credit for her and Sonia’s work.”
Paige sniggered again and rolled her eyes. “Abbie’s a bit of a perfectionist,” she said. “She likes things done a certain way, but she’s not a narcissist. She’s completely selfless. Plus,” she added with a keen passion that made me imagine she’d had this conversation before. “They’re botanical studies. They literally study the plants. Of course, Abbie’s the lead researcher. There’d be no study without her. Sonia knew that as well as anyone. That’s why this was one different,” she went on. “Why Abbie wanted to make sure that the plants were sorted, so that Sonia could carry on without her when she was on holiday. It was her project, not Abbie’s.”
Paige’s depiction of her sister slotted perfectly into place in my mind, and I felt a little weight leave my shoulders. I looked past her to Abbie, looking at her properly since we first found her. The bruises had faded, but her skin was gaunt, and she looked thin.
“Is Abbie much of a fighter?” I asked. “If she’d known that someone was there to attack her, would she have known what to do?”
“She made us both go to some self-defence classes after Gracie was born,” Paige informed me with a roll of the eyes. “Said we needed to know the basics, at least. So, yeah, probably. She’d have fought back a little. Why?”
“We found some blood in the greenhouse that doesn’t match hers. Could be our attacker.”
Paige sucked in a breath, her eyes wide, and then turned to the bed when Grace lifted her head and poked Abbie on the shoulder.
“Mummy’s sleeping,” she told us in a loud whisper.
“That’s right, poppet,” Paige said, hastily wiping her nose on her sleeve. “What do you think she’s dreaming about?”
Grace thought about it for a while, her nose scrunched up. “Porridge,” she said at last.
Behind me, Mills laughed, and Paige shook her head fondly.
“We read Goldilocks last night,” she explained. “Someone’s been talking about porridge all day. That’s a good dream,” she said to Grace. “We’ll make her some when she wakes up, yeah?”
Grace nodded and looked down at her mother again with a confused face that made my chest twinge.
“We’ll leave you to it,” I told Paige quietly. “But I also wanted to let you know that we’ll be increasing the security for her room. You might see a few more officers here and there when you come and visit.”
She looked taken aback, but she nodded understandingly and bent her head to kiss Abbie’s hand. “We should be getting on. Come on, toerag,” she called to Grace. “Let’s let mummy sleep. You and I are going to go home now.”
Grace slipped down from her chair and walked around the bed as Paige stood up. As she helped her put her coat on, I rose from my chair and joined Mills.
“Say sleep well, mummy,” Paige said, taking Grace’s hand. Grace turned around and blew a kiss to Abbie. Paige wiped her face again and took a deep breath, girding herself up.
“Right then. Home, dinner, bath and we can watch some telly before bed. Thanks for coming,” she said to the two of us, “and good luck with it all.”
“Thank you, Paige. You’re doing fantastic,” I added in a lowered voice. Her face brightened, and she nodded, leading Grace down the hall.
Mills and I left Abbie’s room then, and the officer who we’d let step away whilst we were in there drifted back into place with a foam cup of coffee in his hands.
“Any good?” I asked him with a nod.
“Tastes a bit like burnt toast, but it’s better than nowt,” he said.
“Call us if anything’s amiss,” I ordered, and he nodded, stepping into place with his back to the door as we made our way through the confusing map of hallways, back down to the reception and out into the car park. The sun was starting to set, the sky streaked with pink, and I sighed deeply, the air cooled by the rain that had at last stopped.
“Dinner, bath, telly, and bed sounds pretty decent to me,” I remarked.
“It does. I don’t have a bath in my flat, though,” Mills replied despondently. “Maybe I’ll if Susanne will let me stew in hers for a bit.”
“Can’t hurt to ask,” I told him as we climbed back into the car. “We’ll get in touch with Lin Shui tomorrow, see if she can help point us in any more of a solid direction about this threat.”
“Might be worth taking a look into the study?” Mills suggested as he reversed from the parking spot.
“I don’t remember seeing it with her other ones in the garage,” I answered.
“If it’s that old, maybe she got rid of it,” he answered. “Especially if they shut it down.”
I nodded in agreement. “Hopefully, she or Sonia have a record on one of their laptops, else we might be asking Dr Quaid to take a deep dive into their archives, and I don’t really fancy that, to tell you the truth.”
Mills chuckled. “Can’t say I blame you, sir.”
We were close to my home on this side of the city, so he dropped me at the kerb with a promise to swing by for me in the morning, and I happily let myself into the house, the weight of today threatening to buckle my knees as I pushed the door shut and leant against it, my eyes shut. I kicked my shoes off and padded into the kitchen, fishing for something easy to cook in the fridge, my eyes glancing on the calendar on the wall beside it. Nearly August. There was still time at least to get one mother and child relationship repaired. I wouldn’t
