Her phone beeped and she went back to check the message, already knowing it was Hanna.
‘Thank God! Been desperate all day. Hardest part is done then, hopefully. Yes, please get him to text when he’s awake. Send photo too if data will permit. Thanks Bell, for everything. Hx’
Bell scrolled quickly through the photos she had taken that day, mainly of Linus playing in the room as they had waited for Emil’s arrival, their exploration through the gardens. There had been none taken at the hidden beach, of course . . . She was sending one of Linus playing with the red Corvette when the sound of footsteps on the treads again made her lift her head. She ran back and peered out just in time to see the same man jogging back down the stairs. She hesitated, then followed after. She was here to protect Linus, after all; she needed to know if there was anything happening that might affect him. Emil couldn’t collapse if they were all out together, not in front of Linus . . .
The man had disappeared into one of the smaller rooms at the back of the house, opposite the grand spaces of the formal salons.
‘Excuse me?’ She stopped outside the door of the room, the gym. The man was inside, rolling up some mats. Weights and kettlebells were scattered everywhere; a heavy-looking battle rope lay, anaconda-like, on the floor.
‘Hmm? Oh, hi!’ He got up with an athletic bounce and came over, his muscular arm outstretched. ‘You must be the nanny? I’m Christer, the physio.’
‘Yes, I’m Bell. Pleased to meet you.’
He had his hands on his hips. ‘I heard you guys were coming today.’ He gave a grin. ‘It’s been a big deal, all he’s talked about for months. How did it go? He was pretty quiet tonight.’
‘Oh. Well. Yes, very well, I think. Under the circumstances.’ She bit her lip. ‘It’s not an easy thing, for anyone.’ Did he pick up on the serrated edge of her words?
‘You’re telling me. I don’t know how he’s got through all this.’ Christer shook his head in admiration. ‘Every time he was told he couldn’t do something, he went and did it. When the docs said he’d walk with a limp, he trained his left side twice as hard to counteract it. And in the weights room, when we were trying to reverse the physical atrophy and spasticity, he went longer and harder than anyone there had ever seen. You’d never be able to tell it now.’
‘No?’
‘Uh-huh. He’s got grit, I’ll give him that. I only wish my other clients would take a leaf out of his book. He’s the miracle, I keep telling him. He’s the One Guy, you know, the one in a million chance. He’s the One.’
‘And is he okay? Now, I mean?’ She gave a worried smile as he looked at her, a little confused. ‘It’s just that I was in my room just now and thought I heard something, and I saw him being carried –’
‘Ah yeah,’ Christer grinned, batting away her concern with a bear paw. ‘Don’t worry about that. Looks worse than it is. He often does that – works himself to his absolute limits.’
‘To the point of collapse?’
‘Yep. He just won’t stop.’
‘But surely you can make him?’
‘I can tell you’re new here,’ Christer laughed. ‘Listen, if there’s one thing you’ll find, it’s that no one can make Emil Von Greyers do anything he doesn’t want to do. He’s a stubborn bastard when he wants to be; but people need to understand that what might make him difficult to be around at times is also what helped him recover to this point. You can’t have one without the other.’ He shrugged.
‘He’s difficult – how?’
‘Well, not sleeping doesn’t help his general mood, for starters,’ he commented, rolling elastic bands around the mats to hold them in place as tubes.
‘He doesn’t sleep?’
‘Barely. Well, would you want to, after what he’s been through?’
She pulled a face. Maybe not.
‘And it would sure help if he could just eat something he can taste. He keeps losing weight because he doesn’t want to eat.’
‘He’s lost his sense of taste?’
‘And smell.’
‘Oh.’
He glanced across at her as he replaced the dumbbells onto the racks in weight order. ‘You didn’t know all this?’
She shook her head. ‘Not much beyond he was hit by a car and in a coma for seven years, to be honest.’
‘Pfft.’ Christer frowned. ‘Well, the poor guy’s had