THE corridor of the hospital was cold, with pale blue colours that just made Amelia's depression worse. It smelled offensive in the antiseptic kind of way. T strip lights made everything look slightly unreal. Amelia sat in a plastic chair with her back straight and her hands in her lap and her eyes fixed on the set of double doors at the end of the corridor, which had not opened in forty-seven minutes.
She was still in the clothes she had been wearing on Chambers Street. She had not looked at them directly. She understood, from the way the paramedic had handed her a small sealed bag of something at the scene, that this was a practical consideration she would have to attend to at some point. She tucked it away, not caring to check what it was.
Ryan arrived first, having apparently been ca
