signs that led him towards the intensive care unit, to which he had been directed.
The entrance was secure, with a video camera and intercom. ‘DCI Pye,’ he announced to the microphone, ‘here to see Miss Sonia Iqbal.’
‘Come in when you hear the buzzer,’ a voice instructed. ‘Then it’s the first door on the right.’
He obeyed the instructions and found himself in a room with eight others, some smiling, others intense, but all clearly under stress; patients’ relatives, he assumed, wondering if any of them were connected to Grete Regal but not ready to ask.
Five minutes passed, each one observed impatiently on his watch, before the door opened and a soft voice said, ‘Mr Pye, please.’ He followed the summons and stepped out into the corridor.
Sonia Iqbal was a tall woman, with smooth brown skin and eyes to match. She was wrapped in a long colourful robe and her shiny black hair was pulled behind her head in a bun.
‘Can we talk here, Chief Inspector?’ she asked, in a thick accent that he found impossible to place, but a small Egyptian flag badge pinned to her dress gave a large clue to her nationality. ‘This is as private as I can manage.’
‘It’ll do,’ Pye replied. ‘What can you tell me about Ms Regal? How is she?’
‘She is very seriously ill, I am afraid, she was hit very hard, several times, by a large stone.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘I found fragments embedded in her cranium. Does that knowledge assist you?’
‘I have a forensic team at the scene of the attack. It’ll help them to have something specific to look for. What’s Ms Regal’s prognosis? Will I be able to speak to her soon?’
‘Mr Pye, you may never be able to speak to her. She has suffered bleeding in her brain, and it has swollen. To relieve the pressure this has caused I have had to remove a large section of her skull, and insert it in her abdomen. We do this to keep the bone nourished so that it can be replaced at a later date.’ She grimaced. ‘However, she will have to recover for that to happen, and I can give you no guarantee that she will. We will keep her chemically comatose for as long as is necessary, but beyond that she will only come round in her own time. She may die, and if she survives she may have a degree of neurological damage.’
‘I see,’ Pye murmured. ‘Poor lass. It may be she’s better off unconscious; that way she doesn’t have to deal with the fact that her child’s dead.’
‘Her child?’ the surgeon gasped. ‘She was attacked too?’
‘Abducted. She died from natural causes. You weren’t to know; you must have been operating on her for most of today. Do you know if any of her relatives have turned up?’ he asked. ‘Her partner’s away, and we’re making contact with him. I’ve been busy with the investigation, but I’ve had officers calling the contacts on her phone to locate other family members. I haven’t had time to check on their progress.’
Ms Iqbal nodded. ‘There is an aunt, Mrs Rainey. She wants to see Ms Regal as soon as she’s out of recovery and installed in the ICU. She is in the room; if you wait here I will fetch her.’
‘Sure.’ As the surgeon had said, the corridor seemed to be the most private place in the intensive care unit; beyond, green-clad staff seemed to be in one continuous bustle. The detective knew why they were so busy. A few years before, his mother had spent a couple of days in a similar unit in another hospital, after life-saving surgery; he understood from that time how intensive the unit’s care was.
‘Are you the policeman?’ The voice that spoke the question was authoritative, and although its foreign accent was not as strong as that of the surgeon, it was there nonetheless.
He turned to face its owner, to find that she was almost as tall as he. She had been seated on her own in the waiting room, by the window, as if she was trying to position herself as far from anyone else as possible. ‘That’s right, DCI Pye, ScotServe; Edinburgh Division CID. Mrs Rainey, yes?’
‘Indeed, Ingrid Rainey; Grete is my niece. What has happened to her? And what of our little Zena? Where is she?’
Suddenly, Pye felt exposed in the open corridor. He looked at the surgeon, who was standing behind the woman. ‘Ms Iqbal,’ he asked, ‘is there somewhere we can