Page 1 of Duplicity

CHAPTER 1

Marlowe

The skin around her little rosebud mouth is tinged with blue.

It’s visible even on my phone screen, as are the tear tracks and the ominous pallor of her cheeks, and it makes my stomach lurch.

‘It’s going to be okay, my love, I promise.’ That’s all the reassurance I have time for. In this moment, getting my daughter to the hospital is more urgent than talking her through this. ‘Have you called an ambulance?’ I bark at the unlucky teaching assistant who placed the video call to me. Miss Lewis, her name is. She’s new to the school, which means she’s new to dealing with Tabby’s condition, and nothing about that is good. The phone screen jerks back to the TA’s face: young and terrified.

I get it. Believe me.

‘Yes. Miss Conway told me to?—’

I cut her off. ‘Good. Will you go with her to the hospital?’

She blinks. It’s clear she hasn’t thought this far ahead, but it’s not really a request she can decline. Sending an eight-year-old girl off in an ambulance by herself is not an option. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

As long as an ambulance is en route, I can talk this woman through the rest of our well-practised protocol. Tabby’s class teacher, Miss Conway, has far more experience of dealing with her condition, but I’m all too aware that she’s responsible for twenty-nine other kids, too. ‘Listen to me. Get her to the school office as quickly as you can. Mrs Hopkins knows the score. Put Tabs back on, can you?’

As I talk, I push back my chair and get on my knees, pulling my tote bag from beneath my desk before reaching further back for Tabby’s A&E backpack. I have one at home and one at the office, both permanently packed and ready to go for whenever we have a spontaneous visit to Accident & Emergency. They contain the bare minimum: books and colouring paraphernalia; healthy snacks; a phone charger; toothbrushes; PJs for Tabs and clean underwear for both of us in case they end up admitting her overnight, plus the obligatory earplugs. There is nowhere on the planet less conducive to a night’s sleep than a paediatrics ward in a busy London hospital.

We’re old hands at this routine by now.

‘Yes. Okay, I’ll—hang on.’ The TA sounds even more out of breath than the little girl currently suffering from oxygen deprivation.

My daughter’s face reappears, and I force my expression into a smile I hope is confident, competent, and reassuring in equal measure. ‘Hi again, my love. The ambulance is going to come and get you, and Miss, er, Lewis is going to go with you. But you need to get to the office so Mrs Hopkins can take your sats, okay? Do you think you can walk there? Are you feeling dizzy?’

I already know the answer to that. Her deathly pale complexion is evidence enough that she’ll be feeling lightheaded, but she nods. ‘Yeah, but I can walk.’ Her voice is so quiet.

‘That’s my brave girl.’ I kick off my heels and push my feet one by one into a pair of trainers, slamming my laptop shut as I do and then shoving it into the tote.

‘Will you come in the ambulance too, Mummy?’

‘I can’t, angel. I’m at work. I’ll have to get the tube straight to the hospital and meet you there. But I’ll stay on the line until the paramedics turn up, I promise.’

No way in hell am I risking going underground until I know Tabby’s in the hands of professionals. I tug my long hair over one shoulder so I can toss both bags over the other. ‘Hang on a sec,’ I tell my daughter, and I clamp the phone to my boob for a little privacy. My boss, Dean, is preemptively glaring at me.

‘Tabby needs to go to hospital. I’m sorry. I’ll log in when I get there.’

He stands up and crosses his arms over his chest. ‘We’ve talked about this, Marlowe. You know you’re on your last strike here.’

I widen my eyes in disbelief and hold the phone tighter against my body, hoping Tabs can’t hear any of this. ‘Tabby’s heart didn’t get the last strike memo, I’m afraid. I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch, but this is actual life or death. Youknowthat.’

He flinches slightly at theDword but recovers his inner arsehole pretty quickly. ‘That’s unfortunate, but I’m not running a charity here.’

I can’t help a small scoff, because the Royal Academy of Arts, for whom I’m a strategist, isliterallya registered charity.

He picks up what I’m putting down. ‘You know what I mean. I have a business to run. If you walk out that door, don’t bother coming back. Got it?’

‘Jesus Christ, Dean,’ someone says behind me. I point the index finger of my free hand at him. My body started pumping adrenaline out as soon as Miss Lewis called me, and now it hasme in a dangerous haze of laser focus. If this prick thinks his ultimatum will slow me down for a single second in my singular mission to get my daughter to A&E and meet her there, then he is fucking deluded.

Yes, I take the piss in terms of scarpering every time I get an emergency call from the school, but I’m also that employee feverishly answering emails from a plastic chair in the bowels of our local hospital at 2 am, and he bloody well knows it.

‘That you think you’re giving me a choice here tells me everything I need to know,’ I spit out. I don’t spare him or his threat a second glance. In this second, I’m not the usual eager-to-please employee who is horribly aware of how crucial this salary is. I’m a mama bear harnessing the full power of every maternal instinct I’ve honed over eight years of managing a child with a congenital heart defect, and woe betide anyone who tries to get in my way.

With what I hope is some devastating side-eye, I sweep towards the exit and unplug my phone from my boob. ‘Have you got to the office yet?’

‘Yeah,’ Tabs pants.

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