‘And what are you doing?’
‘I’m in the kitchen. Drinking wine and reading.’
‘What are you reading?’
‘A Jodi Picoult book. The new one.’
‘That’s good. Now listen to me very carefully. It’s five to eight now. I’m going to ask you to move ahead to half past eight. Are you able to do that for me?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘That’s good. So I want you to do that now. Move forward to half past eight. Do it now.’
Jenny sighed, and then went still.
‘Jenny, can you hear me?’ asked Barbara.
There was no reaction. Barbara looked up at Nightingale. ‘It’s just not working.’
‘Why not? What’s the problem?’
‘I don’t know, Jack. It’s as if that hour just doesn’t exist for her. She can tell us what happens before he arrives, then she’s in the shower afterwards. But there’s nothing in between.’
Nightingale nodded. ‘Okay, move her forward until after he’s gone.’
Barbara turned back to Jenny. ‘Listen to me, Jenny. I need you to move forward to nine o’clock. Can you do that for me?’
There was no response.
‘Jenny, can you hear me?’ Barbara stroked Jenny’s hand. ‘Tell me you can hear me.’ Jenny didn’t respond. ‘Jenny, can you hear me?’ Barbara repeated.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Nightingale, but Barbara ignored him.
She patted the back of Jenny’s hand. ‘Come on, love, I need you to go back. Go back to before he came to the house. Go back to five to eight. Do it now. Come on.’
Nightingale could hear the fear in Barbara’s voice and he knelt down by the side of the sofa. Jenny wasn’t moving and her eyes were closed.
‘Jenny, talk to me,’ said Barbara. ‘Can you hear me?’
Nightingale’s stomach lurched as he realised that Jenny had stopped breathing. ‘Jenny!’ he shouted.
‘You mustn’t wake her, not like that,’ said Barbara, still rubbing Jenny’s hand.
‘She’s not breathing, Barbara!’ said Nightingale, his heart racing.
‘What?’
‘Look!’ said Nightingale, pointing at Jenny’s chest.
Barbara put a hand on Jenny’s cheek. ‘Jenny, it’s time to wake up,’ she said.
Jenny lay completely still.
‘Barbara, you’re going to have to wake her up now.’
‘I’m trying,’ she said. ‘Nothing like this has ever happened before.’
‘Jenny!’ shouted Nightingale.
Barbara seized Jenny’s shoulders and shook her. ‘Come on, Jenny, wake up!’
Jenny’s mouth dropped open but her eyes stayed closed. Nightingale pushed Barbara to the side and pulled Jenny upright. Her head lolled to the side. He shook her hard, then slapped her across the face but she didn’t react.
‘Shall I call an ambulance?’ asked Barbara, her voice trembling.
‘No time,’ said Nightingale. He placed his fingers against Jenny’s neck and found a pulse. Her heart was beating but she’d stopped breathing. That made no sense at all. He bent down and grabbed her around the waist, then straightened up with a grunt and carried her out of the sitting room to the stairs.
‘Jack, where are you going?’ screamed Barbara.
‘We’ve got to snap her out of this, now,’ said Nightingale. He carried Jenny upstairs, using the banister to pull himself up. The bathroom was at the back of the house, next to the spare bedroom. He rushed in, pulled open the glass door of the shower and carried her inside. He twisted the temperature control to cold and then turned the water on full, gasping as the jet of freezing water washed over them both. He twisted around so that the water sprayed over Jenny’s face. Within seconds she began coughing and spluttering, thrashing her head from side to side.
Nightingale lowered her so that her feet were on the floor, and Jenny put out a hand against the tiled wall to steady herself. She shook her head as the freezing water poured down her face, still coughing and fighting for breath.
Barbara followed them into the bathroom and grabbed a white towel.
Nightingale put his hands on either side of Jenny’s face and looked into her eyes. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘What the hell are you doing, Jack?’
‘How do you feel?’
‘Soaking wet and bloody freezing,’ she said. ‘How do you think I feel?’ She saw Barbara standing at the door clutching the towel. ‘What’s going on, Barbara?’
‘The regression went wrong,’ she said.
Nightingale turned off the shower and tried to help Jenny out but she shrugged him away. ‘Leave me alone,’ she snapped.
Barbara wrapped the towel around Jenny.
‘Is this because I threw champagne over you?’ she asked Nightingale. ‘Is that what this is about?’
Nightingale shook his head. Water was pouring from his soaking wet clothes and pooling around his shoes. ‘We need to talk,’ he said.
55
Nightingale walked into the sitting room with three mugs of coffee on a tray. He put it down on the table in front of Jenny and Barbara. Jenny had taken off her wet clothes and put on a pink bathrobe. She was on the sofa with her legs curled up underneath her. Nightingale had dried himself off as best he could but he was still wet and he was shivering.
‘There’s another robe in the airing cupboard,’ said Jenny. She picked up her mug. ‘You’ll catch your death.’
‘I’m okay,’ he said.
‘You’re not okay,’ said Barbara. ‘Jenny’s right. You’ll end up with pneumonia.’
Nightingale shivered and nodded. He headed for the stairs.
‘Leave your clothes on the rail in the bathroom,’ Jenny called after him. ‘It’s heated.’
Nightingale went upstairs, took a white robe from the airing cupboard and stripped off his wet clothes in the bathroom. He patted himself down with a towel, put on the robe and hung his clothes on the towel rail to dry.
Jenny and Barbara were sipping coffee when he got back downstairs.
‘Did you tell Jenny what happened?’ he asked Barbara as he sat down.
‘I was waiting for you,’ she said.
‘What happened?’ said Jenny.
‘What do you remember?’ asked Nightingale. He realised that the robe had ridden up his legs and he pulled it down.
‘Lying on the sofa. Hearing Barbara telling me to relax. Then the next thing I remember is being in the shower.’
The robe rode up Nightingale’s thighs again. He pulled it down and then grabbed a cushion and placed it on his lap. He caught Barbara grinning at him but he ignored her. ‘Jenny, you stopped breathing.’
‘What?’
‘You stopped breathing. Your heart was still going but, trust me, you weren’t breathing. We tried to wake you up but you weren’t having it. That’s why I took you into the shower. I figured cold water was the only way to get a reaction.’
‘Yeah, well, that worked a treat.’
‘And you don’t remember anything before that? You don’t remember what you said to Barbara?’
Jenny shook her head. Nightingale looked over at Barbara. She motioned with her hand for him to continue, and he understood why she didn’t want to be the one who told Jenny what had happened. He grimaced, then sipped his coffee, realising that he was playing for time; but he was all too well aware that Jenny wasn’t going to be happy with what he was about to tell her. He put down his coffee mug.
‘Okay, here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘You told us that Marcus Fairchild came around here on Saturday night. Two days before the books vanished.’
Jenny’s mouth fell open in astonishment. ‘Rubbish.’ She looked over at Barbara but Barbara was nodding in agreement. ‘I already told you that I haven’t seen Uncle Marcus since he got you out of the police station.’
‘While you were under, Barbara asked you when you’d last seen him and you said Saturday evening. And you were quite specific that he came at eight o’clock.’
Jenny grabbed a cushion and clutched it to her stomach. ‘That’s impossible.’
‘Where were you on Saturday evening?’ asked Nightingale.
‘Here,’ said Jenny. ‘But I was alone.’
‘Reading a Jodi Picoult book?’