‘The surgeon set her wrist, nose and jaw, taped up her three broken ribs. The laceration on her scalp was just a flesh wound, but there was mild concussion. The surgeon was concerned about internal bleeding, and there was some, but that’s been stopped. Four broken fingers…’
The woman started to cry. Her husband patted her arm.
‘She’s very bruised and sore, and groggy,’ said the nurse more gently.
‘Excuse me,’ said Layla. ‘Are you talking about Precious?’
‘I’m talking about Amelia Westover. I’m sorry, are you a relative?’ asked the nurse.
The woman turned and looked at Layla with Precious’s light grey eyes. ‘Precious? That’s my daughter’s nickname, I always called her that when she was little,’ she said. ‘Do you know her?’
‘Yes, she’s my friend,’ said Layla. She felt tears start in her eyes. Amelia, she thought. Precious suited her so much better.
‘You’re Layla? She mentioned you on the phone. Said she met you at the accountancy firm where she’s been temping. You’re one of the trainee accountants, isn’t that right?’
Layla could only nod. There was no way she could tell these people the truth.
‘We got the call from the hospital and came down on the train.’
‘From where?’ asked Layla.
‘Durham. We’re going in to see her,’ said Precious’s mother, reaching out to squeeze Layla’s hand with thin cold fingers. ‘You can come in with us, if you’d like to?’
‘Thanks,’ said Layla.
‘How did this happen?’ asked Precious’s father.
He looked shattered, but there was anger in his eyes, as if he wanted to lash out, pay the world back for what had happened to his daughter. Layla didn’t blame him.
‘I don’t know,’ she lied, feeling like shit. These were good, decent people – what did they know of the sort of scum her daughter had been mixing with? They didn’t know that Precious was paying her way through college by private dancing. They thought she worked in an office. Well, let them go on thinking that. She wasn’t about to enlighten them.
‘We don’t generally allow more than two people at the bedside,’ said the nurse.
‘I won’t stay long,’ promised Layla, and they were buzzed through.
It was worse than Layla had expected. All the bruising was coming out now, so that the semi-mummified creature in the hospital gown on the bed bore no resemblance to Precious. A drip and an IV were attached to her arm. A bank of monitors was positioned beside her bed, machines bleeping, reporting vital signs. Her nose was packed and taped up. Bandages encircled her head. Her jaw was twice its normal size. Her eyes were slits in two blackened swellings. Both hands were splinted.