‘Stop. It’s the very least I could do,’ Liv said sipping her own milky sweet coffee. ‘Actually, if you want to go home and tidy yourself up, grab a couple of hours’ sleep, I don’t mind staying with him.’ The words were out before Liv realised it. But, it was funny, the tiredness she’d felt on finishing her shift had all but evaporated now sitting here with Estelle.

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that; it’s too much to ask…’

‘Is there no-one else who can come here and sit with him?’

‘Not really. His parents are on a Christmas cruise. It’s his mum’s birthday tomorrow and last I heard they were walking around Mexico City. I rang them of course, last night, but…’

‘Shouldn’t you go downstairs and check to see if they’ve rung back?’ Liv suggested, realising Estelle would have had to keep her phone off anywhere near this ward. ‘I’m sure they’ll be worried sick when they hear he’s been in an accident.’ She looked at this girl. She was indeed very striking, but very young too, much too young to be married to Finn O’Connell. She hardly looked twenty-two now that her make-up of the previous night had worn away and he was, according to his driver’s licence, the same age as Liv – thirty-six years old.

‘I suppose,’ she said, standing now and glancing through the narrow window at the bed opposite.

‘Go on,’ Liv said taking the empty paper cup from her and walking her towards the stairs. When she turned back, she saw the nurse she’d spoken to earlier was on her way home after her shift. She looked like the type of woman who would go home to an organised house, probably with teenagers and husband already having dinner cooked and on the table for when she arrived. ‘Happy Christmas,’ Liv said as she passed her. Liv watched as she left and then pushed the door through to the ward.

She padded across the floor to Finn O’Connell’s bedside and sat in the seat so recently vacated by Estelle, picking up the notes that had been left there by the last nurse who’d done obs. Liv couldn’t help flicking through them. There was nothing more to add – he was stable, hopefully healing beneath the coma that shut him off from the rest of the world for now. She drank in his features, so weirdly familiar although they’d hardly really met at all; she’d thought of those few words between them, many times over the course of the last few hours.