Heathen/Nemesis

Three

She might as well have been blindfolded for the journey. Donna saw little or nothing of the houses and countryside that flashed by. Stigwood guided the police car along the streets with sometimes bewildering speed. She could see her own face reflected in the glass of the windows when other vehicles passed: her eyes looked blank. There was no expression behind them other than that of fearful expectation. Or desperate hope.

They’d said they weren’t sure if it was her husband or not.

You’re holding his handkerchief, for Christ’s sake. Look at it.

It could be someone else.

Someone who looked like him?

It was possible.

Someone who had the same initials?

Please God let them be wrong.

There was so much blood on the handkerchief she could have wrung it out. As she sat in the back of the car she ran her fingers over the plastic. Occasionally she would clasp her hands together.

The silence inside the car was as uncomfortable as it was impenetrable, but what were the uniformed men supposed to say? Stigwood was too busy concentrating on the road to strike up a conversation and Cobb couldn’t even bring himself to look round at the distraught woman. The only indication of her presence was the occasional sniffle.

If it wasn’t Chris, then how did they know where to find her? From his driver’s licence? She gripped the handkerchief more tightly, one part of her mind filled with the unshakeable conviction that the man she was being taken to identify was indeed her husband. The other part of her being fought to believe, prayed that there had been some terrible mistake. She tried to make herself think that there could be another Christopher Ward.

The police car slowed down as it approached a set of traffic lights, the glowing red in the gloom. The single scarlet circlet was like an unblinking eye. As red as the blood on the handkerchief.

Donna shifted position, pulling her jacket more tightly around herself, aware of the same bone-numbing chill that had enveloped her from the time Cobb had stepped into her house. But now that chill was deepening, freezing her blood, turning her bones to glacial props encased by bloodless skin. She had never felt cold like it.

Was death as cold as this?

Did Chris already know?

She closed her eyes for a moment but images of him appeared there, images she wanted to see but also ones she feared she might never see again. Images which would become only memories. Never again to be witnessed. She was to be left with nothing but memories, now.

In the night air the sound of sirens echoed stridently and amidst a blurr of flashing blue lights an ambulance hurtled from the main gates of the hospital.

Stigwood watched it go, checked that the way in was clear, then guided the car through the main gates.

As the car came to a halt and Cobb opened the door for her, Donna felt as if the very life were being sucked from her.

She brushed a tear from her cheek and followed Cobb inside the hospital.