My eyes grew accustomed to the dimly lit room. I reached out with my right hand and felt for the plastic bag I’d seen earlier in A & E. It had travelled to the new room with me – tucked away under the bedside trolley. I removed the damp denim jeans inside one-handed, and then wormed my right index finger down into the ticket pocket. I might have been close to moral bankruptcy – but I wasn’t quite penniless. Soaked, squashed, but still there: I left the hundred-dollar bill where it was and pinched the sleep out of my eyes.

I needed to see clearly.

Maybe I didn’t have to vanish. Maybe Frank would come back online with all the answers. Maybe the mission would become clear. Never mind a hitman, Frank had conjured me up out of Raven Hill as his Irish avenging angel – visiting death upon all those who threatened the idea of the Crown we served. Even if we no longer quite trusted one another, we still needed each other to fight the forever war. Although I had accepted death long ago, I wasn’t ready to quit. Not today.

I swung my legs around and sat on the edge of the bed, facing the bathroom door. The ECG leads were long enough to let me move. I put my feet on the floor and flexed my toes. I stood up. The surgical gown they’d wrapped me up in clung to me like a winding sheet. That was me, all right: a dead man walking. No matter who was after me, this was the point of maximum vulnerability – not just on this job, but since the very moment I joined UKN. For the first time I was not only outside the system that supported me but trapped in the world that supported the system – the real and ultra-visible world of doctors and police and processes and procedures. If I could be seen, I could be identified. And if I could be identified, I could be eliminated: without investigation, without interrogation, without trace. You cannot be held accountable for killing a dead man.

I put the jeans on carefully. Damp, but not torn. They’d evidently peeled and not cut them off me in the ambulance. Good to go.

‘I’m glad you’re not ready to quit.’

I turned around. The consultant was standing in the doorway, lab coat bleached bright white by the harsh light of the ward beyond. She turned her head towards the policeman outside. I spread my hands wide and caught her eye. She startled and looked at me.

‘Please,’ I said.

8

I sat down again and she stepped into the room.

‘I was talking to myself, wasn’t I?’ She nodded. ‘Bad habit. Sorry. I can’t think straight if I don’t talk things through.’

‘And now?’ she asked. ‘Are you thinking straight now?’