He liked the idea of Callie being monitored less. In his mind he had a perfect vision of Callie slipping away silently, lying undiscovered until her mother arrived to realise all at once that he was a man of his word.

He lined the syringe up so it was concealed against the tied stems of the flowers. Then he moved forwards.

He couldn’t know if there were cameras in the ward. He had seen them covering doors in other parts of the hospital and didn’t want to be taking chances now. He kept his head down, his eyes darting ahead from under the brim of his hat. He held the flowers up to obscure his right side as he walked. The right side was where all the patients were arranged in rows. Only one bed had a visitor but it was someone sitting in a high-backed chair that was mainly angled away. No one was paying him any attention. The ward was five open areas. Callie was in the third, right next to the woman’s daughter. He knew that they tried to keep the areas to one gender, to put children together too. It was why he had targeted a mother in the first place.

He slowed his pace, using the time to tell himself to stay calm. This was to be the first time he had ever set eyes on Callie Evans, and he didn’t know how it was going to feel. Everything had been building to this, everything. He couldn’t let his emotions spill out. Anger stood out, something he could ill afford. He could be emotional later.

The sun was bright at the window as he turned into the third area. Six beds. Three on the left, three on the right – laid out so their feet pointed at each other. He knew Callie was on the left side, he knew she was fifteen years old, and he was sure she would be clearly labelled for him by documentation at the end of the bed carrying her name.

He was right.

The clatter of the letterbox made Sharon jump. She had allowed her eyes to go out of focus while she was lost in her thoughts. She was anxious to get moving, to be anywhere but here, but the whole morning had been a battle to get Jamie to eat something. Finally he had made a start on breakfast and now he was giving Zinedine a lap round the block after insisting that he walked him every morning. Still they hadn’t spoken about his dad. They needed that conversation but it was obvious he was doing all he could to be away from her. She planned on trying to talk to him while he was in the car, but he must have worked that out for himself and now he was trying his best to delay them leaving – even though it was to go and see his sister.