Chapter 31
Ellie found Leo standing at the door of the locker room the next morning. He stood stock still, staring straight ahead at two white suited officers who were intricately mapping each smudge and stain that littered the room. Leo seemed to be steadying himself with each breath. "This place looks a mess."She interjected. He turned to face her. She was still dressed in her coat and Leo noticed a wrath of bulging fabric tucked under her layers. He found himself stating the obvious, "The SOCOs are just finishing up." "What's the latest?" She looked at him inquiringly, he didn't need anymore information, he knew what she was asking. "Still in surgery." "Oh," Leo couldn't bring himself to elaborate further, he didn't want to think about the possible reasons for why it was taking so long. "I left Harry there." He offered instead. " I needed to come back and see if I could help the police." They fell into an uneasy silence both turned back to observe the Socos and an uneasy silence fell between them. Finally, Ellie felt she should speak, "I'm not sure I can really believe this has happened." Leo nodded in agreement. "I know. It seems almost unbelievable, except…" He twisted his head back to the room beyond. "Do they have any leads?" Leo shook his head. "Nothing as yet. But someone managed to get into here, someone had a reason to want to hurt her." "They will find them, Leo." "I hope so, I really hope so." Seeing Leo had once again returned to his thoughts, Ellie began to make her way back up to the office. She hadn't gone far when she realised the Leo had followed and had now fallen into step beside her. "What are you doing here, Ellie?" He enquired. "Zac phoned me. He said that you might need some help over the next few days." "He's probably right, but I didn't think that you would want…." "Leo, I'm happy to stay on with this one. I know the department I know how you work. I guess Zac thought that would be easier than having a stranger here." "I thought you were happy to be released, get back to your old life." Leo said feeling immensely grateful for Zac's foresight. "I wasn't exactly released Leo, I was sacked , you don't need to be tactful about it." She smiled back at Leo and he felt the warmness of his own grin breaking through in response. He quickly pushed back his smile, feeling guilty that he could even think of anything but the current predicament of his friend. "Well it's up to you, but I would welcome the help. Not sure Harry's going to be up to it for a while." "Understandably. He must be devastated." Leo nodded. "At the moment he's just very angry," he elaborated, "I think it's best if he keeps his distance for a bit. He's not shown any history of really trusting the police at times like this." "Oh, don't hold back let him hold back on my account. The police force have done me no favours recently... In fact they're the reason I'm almost a single mother with three feral kids." She said, alluding to her current husband's occupation. She stopped to open the doors to the office and turned back to Leo. "I hope you don't mind, I've had to leave Daniel and Mason in your waiting room, the ex is not answering the phone, probably off with some blond bimbo from the accounts department and the husband is on a course in St Albans, learning about Crisis aversion techniques." She broke to breathe and to ceremoniously dump her large backpack on to the edge of the lab bench. "That warrants some kind of witty comment but I'm really too tired to come up with one." Leo looked on shocked and not quite knowing how to reply. "To top it all, this one," she pointed to the swaddled bundle on her shoulder, "... refused to settle with the childminder, so I'm stuck having to cart him around like a sack of potatoes whilst I wait for my mother to finish at bridge club."
When they finally wheeled her into ITU in front of him, Harry didn't know what to do. She was there once again beside him, surrounded by machines that beeped with a comforting regularity but then again she wasn't 'there', not in the way he longed for. It was the stillness that made him fearful. Sure, he worked with silence every day, his normal companions on a long day at work were still and silent but he didn't want to think of them and her in the same breath, this had to be different. In those first few moments he found comfort in the predictable beeps and buzzes of the machines keeping her alive but that didn't seem to remove the tight feeling in his chest, the fear he felt knowing that all this could change in an instant. It brought back so many memories of the time he and Nikki had kept a vigil over Leo when he was attacked, it had been a miracle that he survived, that he was still here with them. In his heart Harry was struggling to believe that he would see history repeated. "She's through the worst though, isn't she?" He glanced up at Jake Timbrell who had remained beside Nikki checking and recording her vital signs. "Harry, you know as well as I do that this is just the beginning, the next challenge will be when she comes out of the anaesthetic, then she will need to come off the ventilator. We still don't really know how much damage she's done, it could still go either way. Nothing is certain." Having made his notes, Jake pulled forward a chair and placed it beside her bed, he indicated for Harry to sit. However, Harry remained standing almost in a daze. "You should speak to her, she might be able to hear you. " "You know that's unlikely she's still anaesthetised." "To be honest it's not really for her at the moment." Jake again pointed to the chair. "Sit. I'll ask one of the nurses to get you a coffee." "No." Harry replied firmly, " I should get back to the office. It's important we find out who did this…" "Dr Cunningham!" But Jake's call was left answered as with Harry's closing statement he glanced once more at Nikki's silent form and fled the ward.
When Harry entered the office, he was met by a wall of concerned faces. He quickly observed that the majority of the department seemed to be gathered in the top floor office, the lower floors having been sealed off for the investigation. When he tried to make his way to his desk he felt a strong arm grab his and pull him towards the office. Leo shut the door behind them before turning once again to his colleague, "Harry, what are you doing here?" Harry shook off Leo's grasp. "She's out of theatre, in ITU, sedated. She doesn't need me at the moment." "Go home then, Harry. Get some rest." Harry looked across at Leo, he was still wearing the same outfit he had changed into after they SOCO's took their own clothes for testing. "You can talk, Leo. Don't patronise me." Leo remained firm. "Harry, I mean it. You're of no use to us here." "I need to be here, Nikki would expect me to be here." "No she wouldn't, she'd want you to be looking after yourself." Then his voice softened, "You're going to need to take some time to process this, Harry, we all are. Despite what you think, It isn't our job to work out why or how at the moment. Wednesbury will deal with that." "Wednesbury?" "Yes." "Tell them we want someone else. Anyone that isn't him." "Despite what you think of him, he's highly regarded in the force. The Super said that he trusted no one else above him and with this case we want the best they can offer." Harry's voice mellowed but Leo could hear ripples of his grief as he continued, "I'm staying Leo, I'm not going anywhere till she is safely back and there is nothing you can say to me to make me change my mind." On exiting Leo's office, Harry made his way almost automatically over to where his desk was situated. As he reached his desk the exhaustion from the previous night seemed to be almost overwhelming and he reached his chair, sat down and spun it round without much thought. He stopped abruptly instead of Nikki sitting opposite him her chair contained the figure of Ellie. She was flicking through the pile of folders that Nikki had left on her desk, opening each one and then sorting it into two piles. A wave of anger swept over Harry, the seat was still warm, Nikki had only departed it last night and here was her 'replacement' sitting where she had no right to be. He stared blankly at her not able to process any of the emotions that were now coursing through him. Eventually, she looked up into Harry's face. "Harry, I wasn't expecting you to be in." Harry didn't answer but his face seemed to be one of pure contempt. "I just thought I would check there was nothing urgent on these cases. I wouldn't want anything to fall through the cracks." She indicated the piles of files across Nikki's desk. "I admire your audacity Ellie but you really don't need to be here." "I told Leo I would help out." Harry raised his head to look at her, "We don't need help, Ellie. Leo and I can cope." There was a moment of silence, Ellie returned to perusing the file she was holding in her hand. "Or is there something I'm missing?" Ellie looked up again to see Harry face inches infront of her, he was now leaning across the desk, " What do you want, Ellie? Do you think there might be a vacancy opening up?" Ellie sighed, it was clear that he wasn't taking this well. "Harry, I'm not here to replace Nikki. As soon as this is tied up and Nikki is safely restored to the mayhem you call an office, I'll quite happily go back to my maternity leave and leave you to it." There was no answer from Harry so she continued. "I mean you're both fine to work with, if a little obsessed and neither of you seem to have a life outside these walls, but I'm starting to yearn for the mundane routine of the school run and the endless stream of dirty football kits." Harry breathed in deeply, he regretted his outburst immediately and softened his tone. "Leo will need some help downstairs, let me check her cases." He realised then that it wasn't that he didn't trust Ellie, after all, Nikki had implicitly but but in that moment he just didn't want to entertain the idea of someone else even in the radius of her things.