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Natalie

‘Enough.’ Natalie swipes her hands over her face, her fingers sticky with tears, and shoves her chair back.

‘I’ve done what you asked.

I’ve answered your questions, and now I’m going to find out what’s happening to my daughter.

’ Ignoring DI Travis as she calls her name, Natalie almost tips her chair over as she rushes from the stifling, cramped office and out into the corridor.

She can’t sit there and listen to them insinuate that she is responsible for Erin’s abduction – or worse, that Emily could have something to do with it.

She’s going to find a doctor and demand answers – they’ve been here for hours with no word of Erin, and she can’t bear to wait any longer.

She’s her mother; she has a right to know what is going on.

As Natalie approaches the ICU reception desk, somewhere behind the door an alarm shrieks into life, and all of a sudden people are running everywhere.

Nurses drop pens, clipboards, mugs of tea and sprint through the wide double doors into the ICU corridor.

Unobserved in the chaos, Natalie slips through the doors, hoping to get close to Erin, when her heart seems to stop in her chest. The alarm is still screaming from a room off the corridor, a team of doctors and nurses surrounding the bed as they frantically try to help their patient.

As one moves away, Natalie’s stomach drops.

The patient is Erin.

The alarm is screaming for Erin .

A nurse exits the room and Natalie pushes her way in, watching in horror as a doctor leans over Erin’s fragile body, his fingers pressing down on her chest. Natalie is frozen, a still tableau in a flurried blur of movement as the hospital staff work on Erin, that incessant alarm scraping down to Natalie’s bones.

‘Please … That’s my baby,’ Natalie chokes the words out, grabbing at a nurse’s sleeve.

‘What’s happening? Is she going to be OK?

’

‘You can’t be in here.

’ The doctor barely raises his head, his eyes on Erin.

‘Get her out of here!’

‘That’s my daughter.

’ Natalie can hear the wail in her voice, the words suffocating her as she struggles to breathe.

‘Erin … What’s happening?

Please, tell me.’

The nurse – Natalie realises she’s young, a student, maybe – takes Natalie’s arm firmly.

‘You really can’t be here.

Let the doctor help Erin, I’ll come myself to the waiting room when they—’

‘No,’ Natalie half shrieks.

‘I know all about your waiting room, I’ve been in there half the night waiting to hear if my daughter is going to be OK.

Please, please can someone just tell me what’s going on?

’ She peers over the nurse’s shoulder as she is dragged towards the door, trying desperately to see into the room, to catch a glimpse of Erin.

All she can see is doctors, bent over Erin’s tiny frame as they work frantically, the alarm blissfully quiet at last.

‘Please, Mrs Maxwell.’ The nurse grips her arm and skilfully manages to manoeuvre her out of sight of Erin’s room before Natalie has even realised.

‘You have to trust us.’

‘The alarm …’ In the corridor now, Natalie’s legs feel as though they might give way and she sags against the wall.

‘There have been some complications with Erin. Her breathing. It’s been irregular, and there was a brief moment as we brought her back to her room where she stopped breathing completely.

’ Natalie feels the blood drain from her face, the room beginning to spin.

‘Here.’ The nurse sits Natalie down in a chair in the corridor, perching beside her as she grasps her hand in hers and rubs briskly, bringing warmth to Natalie’s ice-cold skin.

‘That’s why we have the alarms – we had the team go straight in there the minute she stopped breathing.

They’re doing everything they can to get her stable again.

’

‘She’s going to be OK, isn’t she?

’ Natalie’s eyes burn with tears and she thinks to herself that she’ll do anything – anything – if Erin will just be all right.

I’ll get help. I won’t yell at Emily any more.

I’ll even forgive Pete.

‘She’s in the best possible hands,’ The nurse repeats.

‘How about I walk you up to the waiting room? You can wait there, in privacy, and I’ll bring you a cup of tea.

’

The thought of tea, after the rancid hot chocolate and the wine swirling in her belly, makes Natalie feel even more sick.

‘No, thank you,’ she manages.

‘I need to find my husband and tell him what’s happening.

He’ll be waiting.’

The nurse pats her hand and leaves Natalie in the corridor.

Her legs feel oddly shaky, as if she’s just been on a long run, and she finds her stomach is swollen with butterflies as she fumbles for her phone.

Pete. I need to tell Pete.

Her finger hovers over his name in her contacts.

She doesn’t know what she’ll do if he doesn’t answer.

The thought of him at Montpellier Square while Natalie is here, watching Erin battle to stay alive, makes her blood bubble like lava.

She holds her breath as the call connects.

It rings once, twice, three times and then, ‘Nat?’

The relief Natalie feels at the sound of his voice almost finishes her off.

Her throat closes over and, even though she thought she was all cried out, sobs make her words almost indecipherable.

‘Pete. Oh my God, Pete. You have to get here now, it’s Erin. ’