DI Gordon turns his head, asking quietly for something. She doesn’t catch his words but his glance falls on her and he looks aghast. She doesn’t care. In that moment of his surprise she straddles the edge and is over, inside the freezer, half lying and half kneeling in the shit and the vomit and the broken glass, crying, at least she must be, someone is making that low groaning noise. She takes her daughter’s body in her arms. She pushes her face against Sorrel’s and wraps her arms around her. She was expecting her to be cold, icy cold, but she’s still warm and her skin still smells of her. DI Gordon reaches over the edge of the freezer.

‘Fuck off,’ Eve whispers. ‘Leave us alone.’

DI Gordon doesn’t take any notice. He slides his hand past Eve’s face to place his fingers against Sorrel’s neck.

‘She’s alive,’ he says.

14. November

Eve

The paediatric intensive care ward is hot and brightly lit. Eve is getting used to the background hum; nurses at the desk and the doctors on their rounds, the never-ending bleep of machines. She’s learnt to ignore the constant movement around the beds. From time to time there are muffled gasps of someone weeping. She focuses on Sorrel’s fingers lying curved on the sheet; the crusted blood has been washed away. She holds her hand, the small palm lying motionless against hers, and watches the rise and fall of her chest under the sheet.

Sorrel’s brain scan was normal. The blood tests showed early starvation and dehydration, nothing that can’t be reversed, the nurse tells her. Her name is Annie. Her voice is pleasant, the rhythm sings. She is from the south of Ireland and has a creamy skin and black curly eyelashes, one of those kind, brisk girls, whose quiet way of moving inspires confidence. Annie’s glance plays constantly over the machines by Sorrel’s bed, her fingers adjust the rate of the drip and the height of the pillows, she smooths strands of damp hair off her forehead. Eve watches to see if Annie is on at the start of a shift and if she is, allows herself to doze.

Eric tells her to go home, but what if she misses the moment when Sorrel’s eyes open? Eve has hardly moved from her bedside for three days, not even to clean her teeth. Eric holds Sorrel’s hand; he is polite but more remote than ever. She wonders if Melly let slip about her relationship with Martin. She can’t ask her, they haven’t talked since Sorrel was found, she has no energy to cross the little gap that has opened between her and Melly.