But Lissa needed—absolutely, desperately needed—the insomnia to stop, as well as the nightmares from when she finally drifted off into a shallow, tainted half-sleep. During the day she felt grit under her eyelids, and she could not control her breath when she saw a bunch of lads on the street or heard a shout or, worst of all, a car backfiring or accelerating. If going to this godforsaken place would help her get over that, then it was worth a shot. She would have vastly preferred to be at her granny’s in Antigua, but that wasn’t an option the NHS was notably keen on offering her. So the wild north it was.

Chapter 19

Cormac was, he rapidly realized, somehow just too big for London. He’d played rugby for the army, and it had never really left him. It wasn’t just that he was tall, although he was—there were plenty of big-looking people; aye, there were plenty of people, full stop. More people, surely, he thought, than were strictly necessary or even viable. More people than you could figure out had gotten crammed into these hot, sticky streets that smelled of food and smoke and choking exhaust fumes. Didn’t they notice how revolting the air was? Maybe not. London clung to you, put greasy fingerprints all over you.

The nurses’ home was a tall, peeling eight-story building situated outside of a tube by a roundabout in what Cormac would learn to call South London.

There didn’t appear to be any automatically obvious way to get through the roundabout, which was, on closer examination, actually two roundabouts, each with four lanes of traffic. The air was a haze. Cormac thought back to what he had imagined he’d find the first time he came to London. It had definitely involved lots of parks with swans in them. And also, Buckingham Palace.

He sighed and tried several times to reach the block through subway passages lined with people asleep on flattened cardboard boxes, in filthy sleeping bags, and finally made it to Nightingale House. The glass was security protected. He rang the bell, and a large man saw him from inside and buzzed him in.

“Hi,” said Cormac nervously. “I’m the secondment for . . .” For a split second he forgot her name. “Alyssa Westcott? I’m taking over her room?”

The man stared at him, unperturbed, then ran his finger down a grubby list of printed names.

“Neh,” he said.

Cormac looked to the side, then tried again. “I’m not Alyssa,” he said. “I’m Cormac MacPherson.”

There was another very long pause.

“Yeh,” said the man, lifting a heavy finger from the page and sighing deeply.

“So, youse having a good day?” said Cormac cheerily.

The man looked at him, humphing as he got out of his chair—which creaked alarmingly—and stretched up to a long line of keys.