The house was too quiet. During the day it was HQ: there was bustle and phones ringing, people coming and going with tea and paper and new problems to be solved. The website was new: MenopausalArmy.com, but, disappointingly, they were still trying to raise awareness on many of the same issues they’d been working on since the Seventies. And the menopause was long gone. It would be more apt to call themselves OldCronesCompany.com now.

At night, though, HQ returned to the pumpkin it was: an empty house. She could hear the pipes ticking.

Perhaps, in her next phone call, she wouldn’t tell Thea that she had been trying to dig up information on a perfectly innocent technology company. But old habits were hard to break. Not that there was anything to worry about – she had spoken to Thea only the day before and had been delighted to hear that she was already sleeping better.

The wine disappeared rather too quickly and Vivian sighed – it was time to take her old bones to bed. But thinking of Thea reminded her to glance at the answerphone on her way upstairs. Thea would have nagged her to use her mobile, or at least switch it on, or maybe just find it. It had to be in her desk somewhere. Vivian was suspicious of carrying around something that was to all intents and purposes a glorified tracking device.

Old habits were hard to break.

A red light blinked in the hallway.

Vivian played the waiting message: ‘Oh, hi Mum – no panic. Just wanted to run something past you. Catch you tomorrow. Love you, bye!’

Vivian knew her daughter’s voice and there was a hectic edge to it that she’d rarely heard before. She played the message again, glad that the red light had switched itself off because it felt too much like “Stop!”, “Don’t!”, “Beware!”

It felt like a warning.

Chapter 19

The monitor beeped. It was a strangely soothing sound.

Beep. Rosie’s still alive.

Beep. Still alive.

Beep. Still alive.

Beep. Alive, alive, alive.

Thea sat in a chair next to the bed in the medical wing located in the Staff Bubble. It was evening. Had it all only happened a few hours ago? She felt dazed. She stared at Rosie, at the mess of her face, the swelling, the blood, one eye swaddled in bandages, the other mercifully closed. Her chest rose and fell gently, rhythmically, hypnotically. If Thea focused on that, she didn’t have to think of anything else; her brain could just fill itself with the rhythm of it. And the beeping.

Beep.

Alive.

Beep.

Alive.

The door opened.

‘Thea?’ Rory’s voice. She didn’t turn around.

‘I brought you some food. You need to eat something.’

She could hear him put a tray down and then he dragged a chair over to sit next to her. Out of the side of her gaze she saw him rub at his beard.