He thought again about the pair he had seen her with outside the hospital. They were her friends, or certainly the one in the black dress was, that was plain to see. Maybe she’d go to them. But who were they? They had the look of tourists. They’d be bound to be staying in a fancy hotel. And there weren’t many of those.

The shirt had warmed itself on his burning skin. He went to the sink and soaked it again under the tap. The Girl was sitting on the chair by the window, nursing her bandaged wrist in her lap like a baby. He grabbed her, sinking his fingers into her bony shoulder, and hauled her to her feet. She shrank away from him in fright, the whites of her eyes flashing, and began to babble what sounded like a prayer.

‘Shut up!’ he shouted. He pressed a handful of banknotes into her brown little claw and mimed drinking from a glass. ‘Whiskey,’ he said. ‘You know? Whiskey? Drink? Spirito?’

She nodded quickly and ran out of the room. He didn’t care whether she came back or not. Though he was badly in need of a drink. He only took spirits when he had a pain, or couldn’t get to sleep, or when old ghosts rose up and tried to frighten him.

He sat down again on the bed and swung his legs up on to the covers and stuck a couple of pillows against the headboard and leaned back against them and closed his eyes.

A pulse was beating in his jaw. He was in a bad place, but he could bear it. He had got worse hurts at Carricklea, and he had survived them.

He bit on the pain as if he were biting on a bullet.

*

The Girl did come back, bringing him a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. He couldn’t make out the label. It wasn’t whiskey, but some kind of sweet, sticky stuff. It didn’t matter, he drank it anyway, straight from the bottle. He was beginning to feel better already. He would be all right.

The alcohol trickled along his veins, doing its work. He took another few slugs from the bottle, then corked it and put it away, on the far side of the little table that stood beside the bed. He was going to need a clear head.