Chapter 59
Jo had been alone in the waiting room since the air ambulance had dropped them at the Balfour. Herself, Kris and Rachael.
Rachael had asked that Jo come with her in the helicopter and Kris had joined in her plea. Jo realized Kris was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to calm Rachael if her condition worsened during the flight.
Although keen to stay with the girl, Jo had also been fearful of her own reaction should the threatened miscarriage actually happen.
Rachael had gripped her hand throughout the short journey and Jo understood why. She had been the one she’d told of the unplanned pregnancy. The first to listen to Rachael’s fears. The first to offer the girl support.
Back then, Rachael had been lost. Not understanding why Kris had left her. Or whether he would return. She was a stranger in a strange land. Pregnant, confused and full of fear.
It had been her job, Jo knew, to reassure her and offer help, both as a police officer and as a woman. When Rachael heard her words, she’d instinctively known that Jo had been in the same situation as Rachael. Had once been as fearful as she was back then.
And lying there in the air ambulance, Rachael wasn’t frightened about being pregnant, but fearful that she might be no longer. Fearful that the baby she and Kris had talked about in their time on Cava was already lost.
She’d gripped Jo’s hand and held it until they’d wheeled her into surgery.
Jo could still feel the pressure, even as she prayed to her father’s God and all the gods in heaven and on earth that Rachael wouldn’t lose the baby.
It was at this moment that the door opened to let someone in. Glancing round the waiting area, he spotted her and immediately came over. The sight of Ethan’s concerned face lifted her spirits a little and she rose to greet him.
‘How are things?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. No one’s come to tell me. I’ll give it a little longer then ask.’ Sometimes it was better not to know. For a little longer at least. And hope instead.
He seemed to understand her unspoken words.
‘How did you get back here?’ she said as he took a seat beside her.
‘I raced the patrol boat,’ he told her with a smile.
‘You didn’t?’ she said, aghast.
‘I brought the Angel over with them and got a lift to Kirkwall. DI Flett suggested I come and check on you. Actually, I told him I intended on coming to check on you,’ he added.
‘Thank you,’ she said and meant it.
‘Can I fetch you a coffee from the canteen? Maybe something to eat?’
‘That would be good,’ she said gratefully.
‘I’ll call in and check on Mackie on my way. You’ll want to wait for news here, I expect.’
‘I do,’ she admitted.
‘Right, back in five or ten, depending if Mackie’s up for a chat,’ he told her.
Jo let out the breath she wasn’t aware she’d been holding. Somehow Ethan’s presence here had helped ease her own fear of what was about to happen. Rising, she made her decision and began towards the desk to ask about Rachael.
But a voice stopped her. Froze her in her tracks.
Turning, she saw him, almost as close now as he had been in the boss’s office. Why was he here? She knew the answer before she’d asked herself the question.
He was here for her.
‘Don’t come near me,’ she said, keeping her voice low.
‘We need to talk,’ he said. ‘Outside now.’
She considered what might happen if she disobeyed his order. They were both police officers. If they were to have an argument here . . .
That can’t happen, she thought.
‘Okay,’ she said quietly.
It was raining. Just a smirr, touching her face like damp thistledown. Below her skin, the blood rushed round her body, willing her to run, escape before things got worse.
Because they would.
She didn’t meet his eye but waited, heart thumping, for what he had to say. Giving him this chance might defuse his anger and she could walk away.
His voice when it emerged from his stone-like face was a hiss of fury.
Fury that had, she knew, been smouldering since he’d first arrived here in Orkney.
Ready to see her. Something she’d managed to avoid, with DI Flett’s help, until she’d taken his seat at the monitor to examine the diary entry.
That’s when Erling had sensed by her reaction why she’d been lying about knowing DS Gowan.
If only Erling were here now.
The words spewing from Gus’s mouth were all the ones she’d heard before. That she’d murdered his child. Ruined his life. She wasn’t a police officer, but a baby killer. She should be in prison for what she’d done.
Impulse strove to make her fight back with words. Or walk away. But if she did either of those things, his response would be swift and probably painful.
As she made her decision with a decided ‘No!’, his hand grabbed her arm, twisting it until she had to smother her pain against his chest.
‘Get off her!’
Even as he shouted the order, she saw Ethan reach out to grab Gus’s arm.
‘I’m a police officer,’ Gus said in a menacing tone.
‘So is Jo.’ Ethan’s tone was equally forceful.
As Gus’s hold lessened, Jo shook herself free and stood back, conscious that she had to defuse the situation in case Ethan decided to punch Gus and find himself on the wrong side of the law, despite the circumstances.
Moving to take Ethan’s arm, she turned and walked him back to the hospital entrance, feeling Gus’s vengeful eyes on both their backs.
Once inside, she turned to look and found Gus gone.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Ethan was searching her face, looking for an answer.
Jo found herself saying the words, quietly but definitely aloud.
‘We were together back in Caithness. I got pregnant and had an abortion, because he was . . .’ She tailed off, aware she’d almost made the accusation she’d avoided until now.
‘Violent towards you,’ Ethan finished for her.
When she gave a brief nod, she heard him mutter ‘bastard’ under his breath. ‘You need to report him to DI Flett. He’s a police officer, for God’s sake.’
Registering the mixture of concern and anger on his face, she nodded. ‘I will, I promise, but I want to ask about Rachael now.’
They found Kris in the waiting room looking for her.
‘Rachael wants to see you,’ he said, his look so relieved that Jo felt her own fear ease.
She was sitting up in bed, a little colour in her previously chalk-white face. She looked alive and happy, which must mean . . .
‘It’s okay,’ Jo heard her say. ‘The baby’s okay. Thanks to you,’ she added with a soft smile.
Jo, lost for words, simply nodded, aware that her relief at such an outcome must be obvious.
‘You need to know that Hugh was there to help us,’ Rachael was saying. ‘He wasn’t the threat. That was his brother Harald and his son Max. Hugh will explain everything to Inspector Flett. It’s over,’ she added in a thankful voice. ‘The nightmare is over.’
Jo nodded her pleasure at Rachael’s words, all the time aware that her own nightmare was not.