Free Sins of the Fathers by Patricia Hall Page A

about fathers is all very well but our readers won’t wade through that unless there’s summat personal to hold their attention. This little girl in hospital’s the perfect peg. All alone there, hanging between life and death because her father couldn’t hack it. Get yourself over to the infirmary and see what details you can dig up about her condition. Is she going to make it or what? Where’s her granny and her aunties and uncles? See if there’s any chance of getting a picture. We can make a big appeal of it if she doesn’t snuff it too soon. Where’s the rest of little Emma’s family when she needs them?’
    Laura opened her mouth, took a deep breath and eventually replied in the only terms that she thought Grant would understand.
    ‘The police won’t want us making the assumption that Gordon Christie was the gunman,’ she said carefully. ‘It’s legally very dodgy to go there.’
    ‘Well, don’t say he was,’ Grant snapped. ‘Leave it open.She’s still a victim with no family to support her. That’s all you need. You can get round the legal issues with a few allegedlys and apparentlys, the odd well placed question mark, for God’s sake. Is this the latest victim of a spate of family massacres? How much carnage lies in wait behind surburban front doors? That sort of thing. You’re not working for the bloody police force, you know, even if you do choose to live with it.’
    ‘Right,’ Laura said, her cheeks flaming. She took hold of the article which Grant thrust in her direction and went back to her desk, careful not to slam the editor’s door too hard behind her. Reluctantly she stowed her tape recorder in her bag, put on her coat and walked the short distance from the Gazette ’s office to the Infirmary. She made her way through the long corridors to the intensive care ward on the top floor. When she looked through the glass in the heavy swing doors she recognised DC Val Ridley sitting beside a high bed where a small figure lay hooked up to the machinery which Laura assumed was keeping her alive. She slipped into the ward and past the empty nurses’ station. Most of the staff were clustered around a bed at the other end of the ward where some major life and death procedure seemed to be taking place.
    ‘Hi,’ she said quietly to Val, who jumped, as if her mind had been a long way away, but her startled expression was soon replaced by a faint look of embarrassment and she glanced round at the nurses, who had still failed to notice Laura’s arrival.
    ‘How is she?’ Laura asked, her eyes fixed now on the child’s pale face with a mask over her mouth. Emma’s eyes were closed and it was difficult to tell whether or not she was alive, although the monitors bleeped rhythmically above the bed.
    ‘There’s no change,’ Val said quietly, following Laura’s eyes. ‘She’s been slightly less deeply unconscious since yesterday, apparently, but she’s not opened her eyes. It’s still touch and go.’
    ‘Are you on duty here until she wakes up?’ Laura asked, slightly surprised that the police could spare an officer for what looked like a fairly fruitless vigil.
    Val, usually so pale and composed, flushed slightly, ‘Not officially, I just pop in when I’ve got the time,’ she said. ‘Stupid to let it get to me, I know, but I do so want her to survive…’
    ‘It’s a terrible thing,’ Laura said quietly. ‘But what’s she going to wake up to?’
    ‘Tell me about it. It haunts me,’ Val said, and Laura realised from her stricken expression just how deeply affected she evidently was by Emma Christie’s plight. Thackeray was obviously not the only officer to be taking a hammering from this case, she thought.
    ‘Can’t the Gazette make some sort of appeal for relatives?’ Val suggested. ‘There must be someone somewhere…’
    ‘You’d think so,’ Laura said. ‘As it happens my editor wants me to write something about Emma for tomorrow, so maybe that’ll help.’ She