Читать книгу Mercy - David Kessler - Страница 16

‘Are you all right, Sue?’

Susan White had been daydreaming. She was barely into the first hour of her shift and her mind was a million miles away. She became aware of a young nurse looking at her.

‘Oh yes. I’m fine. I was just thinking about something.’

The young nurse was dark-haired and pretty, with a smile that reminded Susan of some young British actress who had made it big in Hollywood after several appearances in British movies. She couldn’t remember the name of the actress. It was all she could do to remember the name of the nurse.

Danielle. Yes, that was it. Danielle Michaels.

‘You sure?’

Susan White could sense Danielle was genuinely concerned.

‘Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry. Really I am.’

Danielle smiled again and walked off, glancing back over her shoulder briefly, with a look of concern. But right now, the thing that was uppermost on Susan’s mind was that news report about the man who was about to be executed.

Were the cases connected? She didn’t know. But she had to be sure.

The first thing she did was head for the records room. The room was unlocked but the cabinets were not. It was out of hours and the records manager wasn’t there. Then she realized that she didn’t actually need the whole file, just the index. The hard copy files were filed by consecutive number and physically stored by date. But every file had a matching card in the card index and these were arranged alphabetically. The index card would have the date.

She found it in less than a minute and a chill went up her spine. The file had been opened on May 25, 1998. Nine years ago, just like the TV reporter had said.

There was no getting round it: the dates matched.