‘Yes, you do.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they keep your son happy,’ Abbey told him. ‘Also they tell us that your heart’s still beating, and if Ted out there doesn’t have positive proof of a beating heart every few minutes or so he has a nice little slab down in the mortuary that’s just your size.’

Silence. Ryan’s eyebrows hit his hairline.

But, to her satisfaction, Sam gave a weak chuckle. ‘You always did have such a persuasive way with you, young Abbey,’ he whispered. ‘OK, then. I’ll wear your dratted wires. Now get off with you and let a man get to sleep.’

‘Do you always gain patient compliance by threatening them with the mortuary?’ Ryan asked as he wheeled Abbey back into the corridor. His voice sounded drained and weary, but also calmer. The electrodes attached to Sam’s chest were giving a cautiously optimistic message. A nurse was sitting beside Sam’s bed and there was every reason to hope he’d live a bit longer. Live to be persuaded to have his by-pass…

‘I use it all the time.’ Abbey chuckled. ‘Works a treat. Especially since Ted started taking guided tours of his underground room.’

‘Ted…’ Ryan frowned. ‘Is that the ghoul I saw, stalking the hospital corridors, as I came in?’

‘If he looked like a ghoul it was definitely Ted.’

Ryan frowned. ‘He looks familiar. Do I… did I know him?’

‘Probably,’ Abbey told him, ‘but I wouldn’t imagine you were on close terms. He’s Ted Hammond.’

The wheelchair came to an abrupt halt. Ryan stared down in incredulity. ‘Abbey, Ted Hammond was a derelict when I was a kid. How-?’

‘He wasn’t a derelict,’ Abbey said. ‘He was just bored and lonely. He was out of work and didn’t know how to fill in his time. Ted came back from the war to find his wife and kids had left him. He had one leg shorter than the other and he had nerve damage. So… he drifted on the streets and he stayed there. Then…’