Chapter Seventeen.

Thursday 30th May

'You will find him next to me,'

"You're in no fit state to go to work!" Anne said to Nikki as she handed her a coffee at about eleven the morning after she'd arrived in a taxi, with a bag, a case and a million questions.

"I can't just stay here though can I?" Nikki replied. "I can't just hide."

"You're not hiding, you're recovering!" Anne said sternly.

"Has Harry asked you to keep me under house arrest?" Nikki asked somewhat cruelly.

It didn't phase Anne, she'd seen grief in many different forms and in all its variety of faces. "I haven't spoken to Harry since yesterday. Why would you think he would do that?"

Nikki just shrugged. She wasn't sure of anything anymore. She sipped her coffee. No she wasn't sure of anything except she was sure Anne had added sugar to her coffee.

"Would you like some toast?" Anne asked as she saw Nikki's eye's lose focus and drift back to her memories.

"Erm, thanks." Anne hurried off to the kitchen. She knew Nikki wouldn't eat the toast, but it gave her something to do. She had begun to understand what had made her son leave. Looking at Nikki in such distress was just like looking at Harry. The same dark shadows under the eyes, same haunted look, same tightness throughout her body. Nikki might not bunch her fists as Harry did and just as his father Edward had done before that but the other similarities were startling. For Harry looking at Nikki in pain she realised, would be just like looking in a mirror and no one needed the grief he'd suffered throughout his life reflected, or doubled.

Nikki was standing at the window when Anne handed her the plate with the toast on. She looked at it in confusion.

"You asked for some toast," Anne stated.

"I did?" Nikki asked. But accepted the plate and turned back to the window.

###

She'd gone home after that, but her house seemed foreign to her. She'd not been away for long, it was still the same but everything felt different, it felt empty. She couldn't stay there. She picked up her bag and went out to her car.

She drove on automatic towards the Lyell Centre, she'd turned on the radio to block out the noise from her brain, she wasn't really listening but one repeated lyric began to penetrate into her consciousness.

'I will find him, I'll find him next to me,'

She was glad she knew the roads well; she'd made this journey so many times, at all times of day and night and often when half asleep. But there was something today, maybe that song that reminded her that this was Harry's car she was driving. He wasn't next to her; he had left and she had hardly talked to him since their weekend together in New York. She began to realise that her difficulty seeing out the windscreen was not due to the dust that perpetually covered the cars in London but the tears in her eyes. She spotted a petrol station and pulled into the forecourt just as the song reached the line:

'When all I need's a hand to stop the tears from falling

I will find him, I'll find him next to me.'

And another wave of overwhelming pain and sadness crashed down on her.

###

The Lyell Centre had been quiet; the locum Leo had brought in to cover them while they were all away was at Jack's computer. Clarissa must have been somewhere but Nikki hadn't seen her. She knew exactly where she was going and she didn't need help. She went straight to the drawer that held Leo's remains and wheeled his body into the viewing room. She'd had to beg them to bring him to the Lyell Centre but she wasn't having him anywhere else. Here he was home. She pulled up a chair and sat down. The toast she'd nibbled at earlier was still weighing heavily in her stomach although she'd eaten it hours ago.

"What am I going to do Leo?" she asked.

There was no reply.

She liked the quiet. It was the first place that she'd felt comfortable since arriving back in England. No one would mind if she stayed. No one even knew she was there. She put on the jacket she'd brought with her as the air felt cool and she sat staring at the black bag, just as she had done for hours on that plane.

She ignored the message tone on her phone. There was no one who could be sending her a message that she was remotely interested in reading. But when it pinged three times in as many minutes she thought she'd better check it.

'Can we talk? H x'

She felt the tears prickle in her eyes again. She was exhausted.

'I've got nothing I can say." She texted back.

"Can we Skype? I know where you are.

I want to be there too." Harry replied.

How could Harry know where she was she wondered but then noticed the time on her phone was showing after midnight. If he had called his mother and her house and the office… He was right; he probably did know where she was. She looked in her bag and was surprised to find her laptop in there, so she switched it on and waited.

"You alright?" Harry asked when the video link picked up.

"No," she replied. "You?"

"Not really." He paused. "Do you mind if I just sit here with you for a bit?" he asked.

Nikki disappeared from the screen; he saw her pass once or twice in front of the camera and then the computer being lifted. When it stopped moving Harry realised she had moved him to sit opposite her with Leo in between them.

"I'm really sorry Nikki."

"It's OK Harry; you don't have to say anything." She said, pleased in a way that he was there with her but slightly upset at the disrupted silence.

Neither said a word, occasionally Harry looked up to check she was still there, but her face was fixed unmovable. If he didn't know her better he'd think the Skype had stuck, but he knew what she was doing, he'd seen it many times before. He was more surprised when she started talking; her voice was quiet, little more than a whisper as if she were telling a wonderful secret not the details of a tragedy. He wasn't sure at first if she was talking to him or to Leo, but as he strained to listen he heard her tell the tale of all that went on during their trip. He didn't interrupt once, afraid of breaking the spell and despite all the circumstances and the subject matter he was enjoying listening to her voice.

The story over Harry noticed Nikki lean her head into her hand and a while later her eyes begin to droop. It was still only ten pm with him, he was glad he'd left Beto and Jorge early and despite wanting to be there for her he knew he couldn't sit up all night. He really had to go to work in the morning and he'd have to talk to Leo's solicitor and the undertakers.

"I'm really sorry, Nikki. I'm sorry I'm not really there with you."

"S'alright," she mumbled in a sleepy voice. "Thanks for being here with me like this."

He waited another half an hour to be sure she was really asleep before he spoke to Leo.

"We've said our goodbyes before Leo." Harry began. He looked up to see if Nikki had moved but it did seem as if she was really asleep.

"Thank you," he continued with a crack in his voice. "Thank you for keeping her safe. I'm sorry Leo. I wish you hadn't gone. I wish it was different. I wish you were still here. I wish I had had the guts to apologise properly for what I did to you in Hungary. Hearing you shout as I walked away. I've never got over that and I am truly sorry. I really admired you Leo, you know that. I'm glad I got the opportunity to tell you so before you left. You and she were the best things in my life. I'm going to miss you Leo. Goodbye my friend."

Harry felt slightly relieved as he felt his eye's sting and the tears fall. Two days of anger and alcohol had done nothing to calm him. But sitting in the quiet with Nikki he had finally found some peace.

"Harry?"

Harry scrubbed at his eyes, unaware that she had woken, or maybe she hadn't been asleep.

"Mmm?"

"Thanks for understanding."

"You should really find somewhere better to rest Nikki," Harry suggested.

"I will," she said. "I'd just like to be here on my own for a bit longer. Do you mind?"

"No Nikki, but don't stay all night, please."

"Alright. I'm shutting you down now; I'm almost out of battery anyway."

"OK Nikki, take care. Can I call you tomorrow?" He saw her look at him then a mixture of pain, hope and hurt. "Harry, I…"

"Alright, Nikki I understand. But please call me or text me whenever you want. I'm so sorry Nikki."

"I'm sorry too."

"Night Nikki."

"Night Harry."


Next To Me: Emeli Sande