“Can I have longer if I need it?”

“No,” said Mr. Cunningham.

“Ready,” said the nurse, her voice metallic through the speakers. She left the patient alone in the room. The technician pressed a button, and the platform started to draw the man’s body into the machine.

From the angle Joanna was looking from, the patient’s face was obscured by the foam helmet as he was slowly inserted into the aperture. She hadn’t noticed when she stood next to his bed earlier on, but his body seemed different. Thinner than when she’d inspected him on Saturday. Perhaps a couple of days on a liquid-only diet will do that to you.

Once the man was fully inside the scanner, the doctor leaned forward and pressed the button on the intercom microphone.

‘Mr. Franks, in a moment we’re going to ask you a few questions. If you’re able to, just think of the answer for me. We’ll be able to pick up any brain activity on the scan. If you can hear me, this is your chance to communicate with us, okay?”

The patient started to cough and splutter. He was coming round. Joanna stood up. She could see his feet kicking in the restraints.

“Oh, shit,” said the doctor, scanning the readouts on the heart monitor. “That’s not right.”

“What’s happening? Is he waking up?”

“We need to get him out. Right now.”

The technician pushed the button to slide the platform from the machine. The doctor left the control room and appeared a moment later in the scan room, followed by two nurses.

“He’s fitting,” shouted the doctor. “Let’s get him back on the trolley.”

As more staff entered the room to transfer the patient, Harper and Atkinson stared through the glass at the carefully managed emergency happening on the other side of it. Someone pressed the resuscitation alarm. Blood dripped from the patient’s head as he was lifted across. And Joanna saw a strand of hair peeping from the foam helmet, the wrong color, the wrong length. The man was too skinny. His legs didn’t reach the end of the hospital bed. She wrenched open the control room door and ran around to the scan room, but she didn’t need to get a good look at the much younger man lying there. She knew already.

“That’s not him.”

“What?” said Atkinson. “But how?”