Mekong Dragon

By Frank Hurst

When intelligence officer Mike Rawlin becomes an assassination target of an international drugs smuggler, his world descends into chaos… In the much-anticipated final story of his Golden Triangle Trilogy, Frank Hurst provides another spellbinding ride into the world of international crime and the steamy jungles of South East Asia. Brimming with secrets, romance and deception, this is an epic story in its own right.

Praise for the Golden Triangle Trilogy

‘Hurst’s writing is compelling, a drama of considerable suspense; akin to 007 with canny Ian Fleming style plot building intact. Hurst achieves a level of authenticity that armchair detective writers can’t hope to match.’

The Nation

‘Gripping, quality writing, truly enjoyable, fabulous, a delight to read, couldn’t put it down, bring on the movie.’

Amazon customers

A fast-paced page turner. Hurst’s writing shows a real inside knowledge of the drug business; nail biting, irresistible.’

Goodreads UK

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781803137841

Frank Hurst

Frank Hurst, who writes under a pseudonym, spent thirty-six years as a criminal investigator for the British Government. After leaving the service of the Crown, Frank has devoted his time to writing novels. His Golden Triangle Trilogy, set in the Far East, has received wide acclaim and won literary awards.

Book preview

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

London, February 1991

Mike Rawlin awoke with a start. A breath of frigid air swept his face; the sound of distant drums pulsed in his head. Sensing he was emerging from a deep sleep, he rubbed his eyelids and peered down the rock-strewn chamber. In a far corner, against a wall of ancient brickwork, a yellow glimmer revealed a trio of flickering candles. Two had fused at the apex, dancing in a weird embrace; the third, dislodged from its stand, lolled awkwardly away from the others. Its flame burned more fiercely, dripping hot beeswax onto the stone floor. Heaving himself out of the bed, he ventured cautiously towards the light. As he resurrected the fallen candle, a slug of molten wax spat onto his wrist and he flinched in pain.

‘Damn!’ He squeezed his hand and tried to scrape the congealing wax from his skin.

‘Daddy, are you awake?’ A child’s voice seemed to come straight out of thin air. Confused, Rawlin lifted his head and listened.

‘Dad. Speak to me if you can. I’m here now, right next to you.’ The girl was gentle and pleading. ‘Open your eyes,’ she implored.

Then he remembered. Of course, it was his baby daughter; it was Caroline. Wonderful memories flooded back and a sense of euphoria started to envelop him.

‘I can’t see you, where are you?’ His speech sounded strangely disconnected.

Another voice, strident and threatening, projected out of the gloom. ‘You have been away far too long. I was beginning to think you would never come back to us.’ The mood had changed and now it felt as if a colossal shadow was hovering over him.

Tearing the offending candle from its stand, he held it at arm’s length and circled with it around the room. The flame guttered in a sudden current of air. Beyond a mullioned window, black clouds boiled in the sky, then even the moon and stars were quenched in a darkness almost tangible. The room shook like the onset of an earthquake, sweeping items from a wooden table in that cell- like space, scattering half-recognised faces in a broken frame onto bare flagstones. Increasingly disorientated, a primal fear started to overwhelm him.

‘Where are you, Carrie? I can’t see. What is this place? I can’t see you, darling!’ Suddenly he stiffened with dread. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Maybe it’s thunder, Dad. It must be going to rain.’

Her voice was strangely distant, mechanical. There was a menacing sound; a whistling noise at the window, as if air was rushing out, into a dark void. Then, Rawlin recognised his child huddling in the shadows of what had suddenly stretched into a vast chamber. For all his terror, there was no power in his body. He wanted, desperately, to protect her, to hold her in his arms, but he moved towards her now in nightmarish slow-motion, as the room cracked and juddered around him. The whistling sound increased, a pane of glass blew out, and his candle was extinguished. A sound of flapping, like heavy curtains in a gale, enveloped him, as he struggled to move his legs, and the terrible thing happened. Under pressure from some gigantic force, the wooden frame started to heave and splinter, then with an almighty explosion the entire window was sucked out. A blast of wreckage flew into the darkness, and the terrified figure of Carrie, seized by the black vacuum, was shaken in mid-air like prey, then vanished in a storm of silver fragments. It was over in seconds. Rawlin screamed obscenities at the darkness, but for some reason the words emerged only as a string of enraged gasps. A monstrous howling filled the room, taunting his paralysis, and she was gone, as if clawed from him by a predator. As suddenly as the terror had erupted, the forces subsided around him. He was able to stagger to the shattered wall, and night skies cleared. With a shudder of despair, he glimpsed his daughter for the last time; a vanishing speck in the moonlight.

Carrie!’ He shrieked. ‘Carrie!’

The darkness was within him now; he was suddenly gasping for air, choking, drowning in that black lake, floundering and sinking under a starry sky. A colossal fire on the shoreline spat cinders towards him as the icy water tightened around his body like a shroud. A terrible pain cut into his back. His head sank into the depths once more, the water starting to suck the existence out of him, and then he felt his right arm being torn apart; wrenched from his shoulder...

‘Mr Rawlin …’ A kind voice whispered out of nowhere. It shushed him gently. ‘There, there. Oh dear, look at what you have done. You’ve ripped the cannula from your arm. A bad dream was it? Poor man. I’m glad to see you beginning to wake at last. We were getting very concerned. Hush, now.’ The nurse wrapped a warm hand around his stinging wrist, and cradling his head, she slipped a pillow behind his shoulders. ‘Don’t fret now, Mr R. You’re over the worst of it. The crisis has passed.’

Still unable to see, he lay motionless on the hot cotton sheets, listening to the sound of his heart thumping, the drumming in his ribcage holding him under its spell for a while. As his head began to clear, he slid a hand instinctively towards his groin and felt the cold perspiration on his naked body. Opening his eyes, gradually at first, he struggled to identify his surroundings. The place looked vaguely familiar, but to his muddled brain, it was curiously smaller than he remembered. From his bed, through a narrow gap in the encircling blinds, he spied a woman at the end of a long room. She was young and pretty in her distinctive grey striped uniform, flat shoes and black stockings. Her raven hair was tied back into a glossy bun under a neat cap. The sight of her working quietly lifted his spirits and the flicker of a smile spread across his face. He watched her frown involuntarily as she fiddled with the contents of a tray, rearranging the items into neat rows. As if on cue, the girl glanced up and smiled back. Her coy and reassuring expression gave Rawlin a curious feeling of cosy submission and barren desire, all rolled into one. She put down her tray and walked towards him.

‘Feeling better are we today, Mr R?’ She asked cheerfully in a soft Irish accent, as she slipped one of the curtains back a few more inches and stepped inside his tented domain. She placed two warm fingers against his wrist, and with her free hand she examined the inverted watch pinned to her breast. He could see her face more closely now. Her starched apron touched the bedspread and a whiff of scented soap made his nostrils tremble. ‘You look a lot brighter for sure.’ She replaced his hand with exaggerated care onto the blanket and patted it gently. ‘Sister tells me you can go home at the end of the week. How does that sound?’

‘Thank you, nurse …’ Suddenly he was lost for words. ‘Have we met before? Your voice sounds familiar,’ he blurted.

‘Why, of course we have, Mr R. We’ve spoken many times.

You’ve been in the wars, that’s all. It’s been weeks.’ ‘What is this place?’

‘Why, it’s Barts of course!’

He felt a shiver run down his spine. ‘Bart? I know that name,’ he mumbled. He was suddenly frightened but couldn’t work out why. It was not the girl for sure.

‘Yes, St Bartholomew’s Hospital to give it its proper title.’

He wanted to talk to her but her comely authority made him falter. She smiled benignly down at him, a trace of pity in her eyes, and turned to go.

‘How long have I been in here?’ He ventured, as she drew the curtains back. ‘It’s all been a bit of a blur.’ Before the nurse could respond, a new voice, shrill and purposeful, answered him from behind the drapes.

‘Sixteen days, Mr Rawlin.’ A large, dark blue uniform appeared suddenly, sweeping the blinds apart with a single expansive movement. ‘Thank you, Nurse you can go now. I’ll take over from here.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ The girl winked secretively at Rawlin as she departed.

‘I think it’s time you had a look at your surroundings. Got some fresh air – so to speak.’ Another authoritative swish of curtains and suddenly he was exposed. Rawlin blinked as the light from a pair of colossal windows hit his face. He stared at the line of beds opposite and gawped at their occupants. Sister Cooper reached behind his shoulders and, in a deft move she must have practiced for many years, she lifted his torso into a sitting position, rearranging the pillows in the process. He grunted unhappily and winced as a sharp pain ran down his ribs.

‘Don’t worry, the stitches will sting a bit, but in another week or so, you should be able to ride a horse.’ The thought of trotting off on the back of some large, uncontrollable animal horrified Rawlin and he grimaced.

‘I don’t ride, Sister; horses scare me. More to the point, will I be able to swing a golf club?’

‘I haven’t a clue!’ She said with disarming honesty. ‘I expect so, if that’s what floats your boat. You’ll get there in the end – nothing much wrong with you now. We were quite worried at the beginning. The infection took a while to get under control, and you were in intensive care for nearly a fortnight. But now all the signs look good and you’ll be ready to hit your putter, or whatever you call it, soon enough.’

Chapter Two

‘If they think they can treat us like that and get away with it, they must be mad.’

‘Not mad, Chief, just bad...’ Angus Buchan was the Head of Drugs Operations for Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise Investigation Division. He spoke the words with resignation in his voice, his familiar Scottish burr softening the message still further. ‘That’s their way. That’s how the Spooks do business. We just have to accept it. It won’t do us any good to cause a stink.’

The senior management meeting fell uncomfortably silent. Outside in the freezing London air, an urban pigeon strutted and poked its way along the stone parapet that ran around the perimeter of the frosted sixth floor windows overlooking the pavements of New Fetter Lane. Around the conference table, the atmosphere felt suddenly oppressive. The oak-cased clock, alongside a portrait of The Queen, abruptly struck three, breaking through the awkward stillness. The chimes seemed incongruously decisive. Oblivious to the sounds within, the pigeon continued pecking past a line of grime-darkened bricks and disappeared behind the corner of the building that faced onto Fleet Street. Ralph Skinner, the Chief Investigation Officer, bit his lip and twirled a black fountain pen between his bony fingers.

‘We need to make some sort of a protest though, Chief, otherwise they will continue to walk all over us,’ said Neil Bingley, the Head of Fraud Investigation, with typical servility. He was a man who smiled rarely and liked to support his boss’s statements. The others had witnessed his humourless, self-seeking loyalty many times before. ‘Why don’t we withdraw McDougall from his liaison job at Century House? That might make them think,’ Bingley added, fingering his pencil-thin moustache.

‘No, that’s not the way. The Spooks would be glad to see the back of him!’ Buchan spoke with more force this time. ‘What do you think, Joe? After all, Stimulus was your operation.’ Joe West was the Head of Drugs Intelligence and he knew the way MI6 worked better than most in the room. West was a bulky man with a mop of untidy grey hair and impressively bushy eyebrows that seemed to merge with his fringe. ‘I’ll have a chat with them. I’ll get Claudia Prosser over and ask her to explain what they did, and why. But my guess is their actions were sanctioned at the very highest level, and it may leave us very little room to move.’

‘Maybe this is a blessing in disguise,’ Buchan observed dryly. ‘They’ve spiked our operation, that’s clear, but we need them to admit it, even if they whine on they had the best of motives. Prosser is bound to trot out the old chestnut of national security, but then, at least they will owe us something, and next time, maybe they will be more candid. We are supposed to be on the same side, after all.’

‘Candid! The spooks are never candid!’ Bingley protested. ‘That word, like honesty, loyalty and empathy, is not in their dictionary of spying.’ His voice trailed off, and the room fell quiet again.

Buchan broke the silence. ‘I’d like to be there when you call Claudia in for a chat, Joe, if that’s OK. Not that we want to intimidate her of course. In any case, I’m sure she won’t be foolish enough to come alone. So, it will even up the numbers.’

‘Fine by me. I’ll ring her today and set up a meeting first thing in the morning.’ West looked across the table at Skinner, ‘I take it you are happy with this approach?’

The Chief turned his pen again and absently fiddled with a red silk handkerchief that emerged from his breast pocket, like some freshly picked blossom. ‘I want a report on my desk by close of play tomorrow, Joe. This sort of behaviour simply won’t do. Deliberately undermining one of our most important investigations is completely unacceptable. And now the Berlin wall has come down, you’d have thought MI6 would want to make new friends. After all, the cold war has all but ended; how else are they going to fill their time? The Soviets used to take up so many of their resources. Now, they must have more officers lazing about than they can shake a stick at. It won’t be long before they’ll have to release staff. Either that or reassign them to something more productive.’

‘Like the war on drugs, you mean,’ said Bingley scathingly.

‘Precisely, Neil. Our biggest criminal target has slipped the net again, thanks to them! Who knows where the hell Bart bloody Vanderpool is now; or even if he’s alive! Have your meeting with Mrs. Prosser, by all means; find out what the hell is going on at MI6, but I don’t want you making any promises about future cooperation. Give Prosser a chance to explain; see if she’s contrite and all that, and then we will decide how to take things forward. I don’t mind having a row with the Spooks if I have to. However, tread carefully all the same. Understand?’

‘And what about Mike Rawlin?’ West asked. ‘He will be out of hospital in a couple of days. He was bloody lucky, by all accounts; Vanderpool’s harpoon missed all his major organs, gave him a deep gash in his shoulder instead. There’s no doubt the bastard had meant to kill him. A lot of blood at the time apparently, but the Thais in Chiang Rai stitched him up pretty well.’

‘Not nearly as well as Claudia Prosser has stitched us up, I bet,’ Buchan muttered under his breath.

West ignored the remark and pressed on. ‘It took about fifty stitches – but no bones broken.’

‘I’d heard he’d taken a turn for the worse after he was medevacked back to the UK,’ Bingley intoned, with a complete lack of compassion in his voice.

‘Yes, he picked up an infection and went into a coma for a couple of days, but the hospital has told me he’s out of danger now.’

‘The wonder of morphine and antibiotics, I suppose,’ Bingley observed, sardonically.

‘Yes, Neil.’ West couldn’t hide his irritation. ‘But now Rawlin is on the mend, we’ll soon need to think about where to assign him. It won’t be too long before he’s fit enough to work again.’

‘In my book, Rawlin has salvaged his reputation,’ Buchan said, ‘and we should do what we can for him. He and Harry Birdwood did a fine job tracking Vanderpool down in the first place. It wasn’t their fault the case went pear shaped. Rawlin was sucked in by the Spooks, just like the rest of us. In my opinion, if he wants to go back into the field, we should allow it. We should listen to him; let him have what he wants. He deserves a break.’

‘We are not running a charitable foundation here,’ Skinner snapped. ‘This may not have been all his fault this time, but he damn well seems to court calamity wherever he goes. And don’t forget, if he had been where he was supposed to be on that last day, instead of with that damned woman of his, we might have been able to act sooner and this whole bloody mess could have been avoided. He’s not blameless in this. When he’s fit enough, I will talk to him myself. Let’s leave it at that.’

As they traipsed away from the Chief’s office, West grabbed Buchan’s elbow and allowed the others to pass them in the corridor. When they had all vanished around the corner, he said, ‘look, Angus, I’m going to see Rawlin tomorrow evening in Barts Hospital. Would you like to join me? I don’t want the Chief to get to him first. He’ll start filling the man’s head with his usual unconstructive rhetoric. I want to let him know he has some allies on the sixth floor, and you could help me reinforce the message. He’s due to be discharged at the end of the week, so it may be our best opportunity to see him together. Otherwise it will be a day trip down to Brighton, and the Chief is bound to smell a rat. What do you say? Meet me in The Printer’s Devil at six and we can go from there?’

‘Sure, Joe. I’ll join you. Barts Hospital, eh? A bit ironic don’t you think?’

‘Ha-ha. Yes, I hadn’t made the connection, but now you mention it, it is quite a coincidence. Maybe Bart Vanderpool haunts the wards. Maybe it’s an omen!’ West spoke the last sentence in a simulated ghostly tone and waggled his arms in mock horror.

‘Hmm... But first, Joe, we have to meet MI6 and that Prosser woman tomorrow morning and listen to what she has to say. Let’s have a pint tonight and talk tactics; and it’ll be your round!’ The two men smiled conspiratorially and shuffled away towards their respective departments.

Mike Rawlin’s new home was one of the city’s great institutions, originally established more than eight hundred years ago. It boasted it was the oldest continuously serving hospital in the kingdom. The Lambeth Ward, in which he now found himself was one of the more recently built Victorian wings of the ancient infirmary. Its vaulted windows had views onto Smithfield Market, and if Rawlin had been able to look out of one of them, he’d have seen red double-deckers belching down the Farringdon Road towards Blackfriars and the river Thames beyond. He spied the ample proportions of Sister Cooper approaching his bed.

‘The nurse said I can go home at the end of the week.’ ‘Yes – a few more days should do it.’

‘What’s her name by the way?’ Rawlin said, trying to look casual.

Sister Cooper pursed her lips and frowned. ‘That would be Nurse Noreen Minnihane,’ she replied sternly. ‘She’s from Skibbereen and is engaged to be married in June.’ Rawlin nodded back with a gloomy look that told her he’d accepted her polite ticking off.

‘Now, are you comfortable? Because you have a visitor, Mr Rawlin,’ Sister Cooper announced with mock grandeur. ‘A young lady, and very pretty too.’

Rawlin’s eyes narrowed. ‘A young lady to see me? Must be my lucky day, Sister. Did she give you her name?’

‘Caroline. She tells me she’s your daughter. And very handsome she looks, Mr Rawlin. You should be very proud of her. Shall I tell her she can come in?’

Rawlin felt a slight tremble run across his shoulders and the hairs on the back of his neck bristled against the pillows. ‘My daughter? She’s here? Now?’

‘Yes, Mr Rawlin, she’s waiting outside. She’s worried you might not want to see her. Now there’s a thing. Why on earth would a man not want to see his lovely daughter, I ask you? But she insisted I speak to you first, so here I am.’ She looked at him expectantly. ‘What shall I tell her?’

‘But I’ve not shaved. I must look a mess.’

‘You look perfectly fine! A lot better than when she came a couple of days ago.’

‘She came before?’

‘Why yes, she spoke to you, but you won’t remember. You were insensible most of the time, and pretty incoherent, so we told her to come back when you were properly awake and out of intensive care.’ She paused and looked at him closely. ‘Are you OK, Mr Rawlin? You look a bit peaky again. Would you like a glass of water?’

‘Thank you, Sister. You don’t have a gin and tonic by any chance?’

‘Now, now. Always the joker! Fine, I’ll tell your daughter it’s alright then?’ Rawlin blinked involuntarily as Sister Cooper swivelled her substantial hips and started to stride away. Looking over her shoulder at him, she said. ‘And I’ll bring you that water at the same time.’

The swing doors at the end of the ward closed behind her with a whoosh of finality and Rawlin ran his hand through his hair in a futile effort to repair his appearance. Wearily, he fumbled around the stubble on his chin and then his fingertips detected mounds of puffy flesh under his eyes. Caroline was coming to see him! My god, it had been nearly seven years since he had seen her last. Then she was not much more than a girl. He did some mental arithmetic. She must be twenty-four or thereabouts by now, or maybe just twenty-three. His jaw clenched in frustration as he tried to do the sums in his head. He remembered the petty argument they’d had at the airport when she and her mother had left Bangkok for the last time. He recalled how he had wanted to cry, and the huge sense of loss that had welled up in him as he’d watched her disappear behind immigration controls for the last time. He racked his brain and tried to picture her face, but for the life of him he couldn’t. This made him panic. It was simply too long ago, and now his mind was in no state to compute and catalogue the minutiae of the past. He fidgeted with his bed sheets and looked uneasily down the ward. He couldn’t even remember what had caused their silly quarrel all those years before, but he knew, in his aching heart, he was to blame – for everything. He was the reason why the family had split in two. And worse, he’d distanced his daughter from his life over the intervening years. Suddenly a hopeless sense of guilt enveloped him and added to his panic. His hands felt clammy. A bead of sweat channelled its way down his neck. It was true his wife Maureen had been intolerant and inflexible. But how could he blame her if she hated the stinking heat and clamour of the Far East? It was not her fault she couldn’t accept the importance he attached to his work. His daughter Caroline, was the supreme innocent party, simply dragged along by her mother and by events she didn’t comprehend. Rawlin reflected moodily that he had no- one to censure but himself. His pointless career and his craving to get even with one man had utterly consumed him; it was as simple as that. And now, look at him … pathetic, damaged goods, and still no further forward in his futile pursuit for retribution. Just then, there was a noise from the end of the ward and the swing doors pushed opened with a clunk. Rawlin peered down the line of beds apprehensively. A rather unappealing, fixed grin plastered itself on his ragged face. But it was just Nurse Minnihane struggling with a trolley, clanking it against the sides of the door as she pushed it through the opening. He didn’t see her neat prettiness this time. He looked right past her and squinted into the corridor beyond. The doors slammed shut, and with them the tantalising glimpse of his escape route disappeared. An old man on the other side of the ward coughed loudly and Rawlin felt vulnerable. He reached up to draw the curtains around him again, but they were beyond his grasp and the effort made him flinch with pain. His pressing urge for privacy was strong however, so with a lot of effort he swung his legs out of the bed and pushed himself unsteadily into a half-standing position. The floor felt cold under his toes. With a swipe of his arm, he managed to move the curtains nearest to him quite easily, and with a single swish and a rattle of hooks he was protected on one flank at least. He stooped and started to walk around the bed, dragging the screen with one hand but it stuck, jammed against the rail. The man opposite coughed up more phlegm. Rawlin waggled the curtain violently, cursing under his breath. ‘Damn! Damn and blast!’

‘Dad... are you OK? Should you be out of bed, Dad?’ A soothing and very familiar voice came from directly in front of him. He looked up abruptly. She was much taller than he remembered – and lovelier too. His earlier fixed grin had disappeared as he’d hauled himself out of the bed, but seeing her now brought back a smile; this time it was one of authentic and spontaneous welcome.

‘Oh my god, Carrie. I’m sorry, so sorry. Don’t know what to say. I’m in a bit of a pickle I’m afraid.’ Without thinking, he raised his serviceable arm to touch her. As it hung in the air, it dawned on him it might be rejected, but to his relief she drew closer to him and pulled him into an embrace.

‘Come here and give me a hug. It’s me who should apologise. I should have come sooner, much sooner. I did try to see you a few days ago but you were out for the count. Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry. I want to put things right between us … if you’ll let me.’ Rawlin wrapped his injured arm around her back and felt no pain from his shoulder. He was beyond physical pain. He pushed his head against her cheek and a thousand memories came flooding back.

‘Let me? Of course, I’ll let you, Carrie. Silly girl. I want it, more than I can say, for us to be friends again,’ he exclaimed. As he enfolded her in his arms, tears welled up, falling onto her neck. ‘I’m so glad you came,’ he sniffled. ‘I’ve missed you so, so much.’ He released his grip and looked at her. She was quivering and crying now too. ‘What a pair we make. Come, sit on the bed. I have such a lot I want to talk about.’ He patted the blanket. ‘Maybe we can ask Nurse Minnihane for a cup of tea or something.’ The man in the bed opposite retched some bile into a bowl. ‘Carrie, can you pull those blinds across? I’m so bloody weak I can’t seem to manage it. Maybe we can get some privacy.’ Caroline reached up and untangled the edges of the material and within a few seconds they were alone inside his curtained stronghold.

The noise of the curtains moving along the rail produced a sudden image in his head, like an echo from a dream. He said, ‘I was only thinking about you yesterday, or maybe it was this morning … I’m a bit confused these days.’

‘Good things I hope, Dad,’ she smiled.

‘You were in some kind of danger. It’s all a bit muddled, but a picture of you just came back to me. You were only little; there was a thunderstorm. Can’t remember much else. You’re not in any danger are you Carrie?’

‘Don’t be a soppy date! I’m perfectly fine. Look at me. I’ve never felt better. Probably a nightmare. You were given a lot of drugs you know. They can do funny things to your mind. Better get back into bed, Dad before Sister Cooper sees you.’ Caroline put her arm around his waist, Rawlin allowing her to help him even though he knew he could manage perfectly well. The touch of her hands was so wonderful after all this time.

‘How’s your mother?’ He tried to sound caring and nonchalant at the same time.

‘She’s fine. She doesn’t know I’m here though. She wouldn’t approve I’m afraid. She has a new man. Wayne’s a banker.’

Rawlin started to chuckle inexplicably. ‘Sorry, Carrie, that’s rude of me. It’s just the way you said it. Wayne and banker sounded comical for some reason.’

‘Well, he’s not comical at all, quite the opposite.’ She grinned and frowned at the same time. ‘He’s the manager of the Barclays branch in West Wickham. He hardly ever smiles, not to me at least.’

‘If they’re happy, that’s the main thing,’ Rawlin said limply.

His daughter didn’t respond. She changed the subject instead.

‘Dad, I’d like to spend some time with you when you get out. There’s a lot we have to catch up on. I don’t even know where you live these days. Your office wouldn’t tell me.’

‘I’m in Brighton,’ he said airily. ‘Sussex by the sea! I’d love you to come and spend a few days. I have a couple of rooms and I’ve even got a view over the promenade. It would be great if you could visit. And, where are you? Last I heard you were at Surrey University. You must have nearly finished by now, I expect.’

‘I finished last year. Managed to get a 2:1 as a matter of fact.’

‘Oh, well done, Carrie. I always knew you were smart. Remind me what you were studying.’

‘Geography and International Relations.’

‘Sounds perfect. Should be just the job for the modern world. Mind you, I wasn’t much good at studying. I got thrown out after two years, in fact. I was rather indolent in those days. I may have told you about what my tutor once said to me. Rawlin, he said, You’ll go far – the further the better. It wasn’t funny at the time. Of course, he had every right to be hacked off with me, as I never did any work! I remember…’

‘Actually, Dad,’ she interrupted him. ‘I was hoping I might move in for a while. I thought I could take care of you until you’re fit enough to get back to work.’

Rawlin looked at his daughter with an open-mouthed expression that betrayed more than a sense of anxiety. He wasn’t prepared for the suddenness of her proposition. He knew he loved his daughter with all his heart, but they’d hardly been reunited for more than fifteen minutes. ‘Move in, Carrie?’ He said at length. ‘Are you sure that would be sensible? I’m still feeling rather weak, you know, and those drugs they’ve given me are