As he reached it, he glanced through the window of the secured doors towards Bruno’s bed.

It was empty. All the machines had been switched off and were silent, the displays blank.

Christ.

For an instant he stood, feeling like his blood had turned to ice.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

Grace turned and saw the doctor again, a handsome-looking Asian man in his late twenties. His badge gave his name, Amil, and underneath the words ICU Registrar.

Bewildered and terrified, he stuttered, ‘My – my son – I just came back to see how he was.’

‘Bruno?’ the man asked, calm and with a reassuring air.

Grace nodded. ‘Where – where is he?’ Terrified of the answer.

‘He’s been taken for an MRI scan, he should be back shortly, sir. Perhaps you’d like to wait in the Relatives’ Room and someone will be along to let you know when your son is back. I’ll take you there.’

‘Don’t worry, I know where it is, my wife and I are staying in there.’

Numbly, he walked back out of the ward, into the same windowless room, and sat back down. A few minutes later the door opened and the stocky ICU consultant he and Cleo had spoken with earlier, Adrian Burton, came in. He had a strange, unsettling look on his face.

‘You’re working a long shift today,’ Grace said, trying to sound jovial and not succeeding.

Burton smiled thinly and said, in his warm Brummy accent, ‘I felt I owed it to you and your wife to stay on and make sure we’re all doing the very best for your lad that we can.’

Standing up, Grace thanked him, then asked, ‘How is he? Can I see him?’

‘I’ll take you in to see him in a minute, but I’d like to talk to you first, please?’

Grace felt another cold flush deep inside him. ‘Sure,’ he said flatly.

‘Roy, normally we’d wait twenty-four hours before doing an MRI scan on a trauma victim, but Bruno hasn’t been maintaining his blood pressure or pulse, so the team needed to see what was going on. If I can explain in layman’s terms, as the brain swells from a trauma it cones. Basically, it gets pushed down into the base of the skull – the technical term is foramen magnum. Bruno doesn’t have any skull fracture, which, ironically, is unhelpful in this situation, because a fractured skull could absorb some of this increasing pressure.’

‘Clearly a tough nut, like his dad,’ Grace said, attempting a smile.

Burton gave a kindly smile back. ‘Clearly.’ Then his face clouded. ‘But the pressure has caused a real problem for him.’

‘How – how serious a problem?’ Grace asked, aware his voice was faltering.

‘I’m afraid it is extremely serious,’ Adrian Burton said. ‘The next step tonight is for Bruno to be taken into theatre again – the leading neurosurgeon in Sussex is on his way, and he’ll insert an intracranial bolt to monitor the pressure.’