Witness

Начало книги

The blood didn’t disturb her. Fiona was no stranger to blood: as a midwife, it came with the territory.

The boy lay on his back, one leg buckled to the side, his arms outflung. Large hands. A boy on the cusp. Like her own son. Different features, this boy was Afro-Caribbean, but the same sort of age. Even as she had these thoughts she was kneeling, assessing him; ignoring the wild beating of her heart, channelling the roar of adrenalin to fire up memory and intellect and practical responses.

Checking his airways and finding breath there, stuttering but there all the same. Warm, moist breath, the faint tang of spearmint. And his eyes on her. Brown eyes, tawny, reflecting her silhouette and the blue sky beyond her. A rim of gold edged each iris. His eyes locked on hers as she tore off her cardigan, folded it and pressed it to his chest. There were dressings in her bag, over in the house, but there was no time to fetch it. The green T-shirt he wore was now black with blood. The same blood pooled in a slick beneath his shoulders, soaking into the grass, into the hard earth among the daisies and dandelions, the clover and the plantain. His eyes fixed on hers as she murmured words of comfort and prayed for the ambulance to hurry. His gaze was a kaleidoscope of emotion: surprise, then the skitter of fear and finally the bloom of love. Bringing tears burning in her own eyes.

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