‘How are you doing, Cait?’ Geoff asked, when Beryl was satisfied she was going to live at least another four days.

I opened my eyes. He was staring at me intently. I wondered how long he’d been doing that. ‘What?’

‘You look like you might be struggling.’

I shrugged, annoyed. Usually you didn’t have to talk in group unless you wanted to. Carlos went for weeks without saying anything about himself, and Glenn often just sat quietly and listened. He wasn’t a big talker, he’d explained, in one of my early sessions, but it helped him enough to be there.

‘I’m okay.’ I looked at Fiona. She was reading something on her clipboard, frowning.

‘Are you sleeping better?’ Geoff persisted.

‘A little.’

‘I read about a guy who died from not sleeping,’ Frannie said.

‘Yeah, me too.’ Carlos was frowning and smiling at the same time. ‘Multiple organ failure. Everything just got so tired it stopped working, you know?’

I sighed. ‘That’s not going to happen to me.’ I shook my head, tried for a laugh. ‘I’m fine, just tired.’

But as Louise started to share her theory about an old unsolved kidnapping case, I felt something cold stir at the back of my neck.

I closed my eyes again. Multiple organ failure.

12 THURSDAY, MAY

12

THURSDAY, MAY

‘Hey, are you at work?’

I hadn’t recognised Lina’s work number, or I wouldn’t have answered. The thought made me feel terrible.

‘I’m starting in a few minutes,’ I said, taking a seat at the table in the staffroom. My bones were cold, stiff, like my body didn’t have the energy to warm them anymore. Everything was an effort. ‘What’s up?’

‘Have you booked your flights yet?’ she asked.

I hesitated. I didn’t know the right answer, if the truth was acceptable.

‘Because I was just online,’ she went on, ‘it’s so dead today, don’t ask me why—and flights to Bali are so cheap right now. I’ll book for us, if you want. When can you go?’

The door opened and Nic walked in, still in his street clothes, carrying a plate of toast. I tried to give him a smile but it must have come out wrong, because he frowned in response.

‘You still there, Cait?’

Nic put the toast down, walked over to his locker. ‘Yeah.’

‘Good. Do you still want to go early? I have the whole week before off work so I could go on Saturday.’

‘I don’t know.’ The smell of warm jam and butter was making me dizzy. I hadn’t eaten breakfast and suddenly I was starving. ‘I think I can only take one weekend off.’

Nic turned around, shirt off, eyebrows raised in shock. I hadn’t taken a single day off since I started. Not even after Dex.

‘Of course,’ Lina said. ‘I forgot.’