Free Then We Die by James Craig

years as a senior administrative manager, she had recently been promoted to the role of Chief Operating Officer. That meant she was directly responsible for a budget of almost £40 million and a team of 200 people working in 30 countries, including the Palestinian Territories. Carlyle was well aware of her views on the Israeli checkpoints, roadblocks and border closures that made it difficult for ordinary people to access healthcare. He knew her mantra off by heart, how the recent violence in the Gaza Strip had left more than 1,300 people dead and over 5,000 people wounded. The safety of Avalon health educators, nurses and volunteers was a constant source of concern to his wife.
    She looked at him with fury in her eyes. ‘It could have been you.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘It could have been you, bleeding to death on that dirty pavement.’
    ‘Joe didn’t bleed to death.’
    ‘You know what I mean, you stupid man.’
    Clumsily, he reached out to hug her but she shied away and punched him hard on the arm.
    ‘Hey! That hurt!’
    ‘You bloody deserve it,’ she sniffed, half-crying, half-laughing, then hitting him again, not quite as hard this time.
    ‘Look,’ he said, finally getting close enough to slide his arm round her. ‘It was a very strange situation. Maybe it could have been me. But it wasn’t. I’m okay.’
    The expression of anguish on her face almost broke his heart.
    ‘Look,’ he repeated gently, ‘I’ve been a cop now for – what? Almost thirty years. Nothing like that has ever happened before. Nothing like it will ever happen again. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event, at the very most.’
    Helen blew her nose on her sleeve, desperately wanting to be convinced.
    However, they both knew, deep down, that such assertions were all just talk.
    As husband and wife they didn’t do awkward silences. Holding his breath, Carlyle felt a tension such as he hadn’t experienced since their early courting days, those agonizing times when he worried that she might pack him in.
    ‘Poor Anita,’ she said finally.
    Breathing out at last, Carlyle felt himself relax slightly. ‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘I know.’
    ‘Poor Anita,’ Helen repeated.
    Poor Anita? She would have quite happily let one of her brothers beat me to a pulp
. ‘She is being well looked after,’ he said.
    ‘And the kids?’
    ‘Yes, them too,’ Carlyle nodded solemnly, happy to give any reassurance now that they were over the worst of their conversation.
    ‘And,’ Helen jabbed a gentle finger into his chest, ‘I had your bloody mother on the phone, moaning that she went to the loo at the Ritz and came back to find that you’d done a runner.’
    His mother! Carlyle suddenly realized that he’d forgotten all about her. ‘Oh fuck.’ He remembered the conversation they’d been having at the time, but decided not to get into that with Helen right at this moment. ‘I’ll give her a call. Did she see all the fuss?’
    ‘I don’t think so. Anyway, she didn’t mention it.’ Helen pushed herself away from him. ‘She said how she told you that she was divorcing your dad.’
    ‘Er . . . yeah.’
    Helen gave him one of her
Why didn
’
t you tell me this?
stares. ‘And?’
    Carlyle shrugged. ‘Well, we didn’t really get into the details. She just dropped her little bombshell and then went off to the Ladies. Everything kicked off while she was still in there.’
    ‘You must have sensed something before.’
    ‘No.’ Carlyle shook his head. ‘Everything seemed pretty much normal to me. When she said she wanted to talk about my father, I assumed she was about to tell me that he had developed cancer or something.’
    ‘John . . .’ They both knew how he paid minimal attention to wider family issues beyond the walls of their own flat.
    ‘Come on!+-’ Carlyle allowed himself the smallest of smiles. ‘How could I have suspected anything? They’ve been married for almost fifty years! What’s the point of getting a divorce now?’
    Helen