Читать книгу Angels of Mourning - John Pritchard - Страница 16

Chapter 9

‘What’s up with her ladyship today?’ I heard Lucy mutter – unaware that I was there, outside the storeroom.

‘Who, Rachel?’

‘Yeah. Five minutes late, that’s all, and she really bites my head off. Cow.’

I know listeners never hear good of themselves, but her tone still hurt a lot. It didn’t sound like a friend talking: not even a frustrated one. More like someone who’s bottled up her feelings for far too long.

And I’d thought we got on well, the two of us. Her cross, unguarded whisper made me wince. On top of everything else – all the weight on my mind – I had the sudden, scary thought that maybe no one cared for me, not really; that all their smiles were just for show. Suck up to Sister and keep her sweet …

At that moment – still only half-way through this dragging afternoon – the sense of no one left to turn to almost broke me down in tears.

‘I think she’s just tired, that’s all,’ came Jez’s voice. ‘She didn’t mean to snap …’

‘Yeah, I bet she’s tired. I think she’s got a bloke on the side somewhere, and it isn’t working out …’

Oh you bitch, I thought; but more in misery than anger.

‘… my last Ward Sister was the same. She’d have maybe five blokes going at once, and whenever she’d had a bust-up with one of them, she just came in and took it out on us …’

Biting my lip, I walked quickly on down to my office – no longer caring if they heard my footsteps. I could picture their reaction back there: a shared, sniggery glance of mock-horror. Sitting down at my desk, with the door safely closed, I felt a salty stinging in my eyes and nostrils: creeping up like a gathering sneeze.

Being Sister is often a lonely job, of course; and sometimes a thankless one. But even its most isolated moments couldn’t compare with the awful solitude I felt now.

And there were still six hours to go.

I’d counted nearly sixteen out already; I hadn’t slept a wink. All through the night I’d squirmed and wriggled, trying to get comfy while Nick just snored. Trying and failing. The bedside clock had crawled on through the small hours: at half-past three, the rain began again, wet and sullen against the windows. Lying with my face pushed into my pillow, listening to the streaming black night, I just hoped she was out there somewhere – and getting very wet.

I pretended to be asleep when Nick got up for his six-to-two, though. I couldn’t bear the thought of sleepy small talk on this of all mornings. Not when I was nerving myself to betray two of his colleagues, and help put a murderer back on the streets. His gentle parting kiss on my bare shoulder almost made me sob.

From then on, things got slower: time became treacle. It was like all the worst waits of my life rolled into one. Interviews. Exams. Even my driving test. I felt breathless and gutted. When I finally got up, I couldn’t face the thought of breakfast. Slouching in my nightshirt on the sofa, trying to browse through the paper, I felt just like I had before my last interview. Could practically see myself, dry-mouthed and dressed to the nines, nervously crossing and uncrossing my legs. Skimming through a copy of House & Garden that might as well have been in Russian.

But that had been a bit exciting, too: a challenge. This was like waiting for an excecution – without hope of a reprieve.

It might have been better if I’d known this was some meticulously planned operation, weeks in the preparing: something that might go without a hitch, and no one hurt. But what I’d been roped into was a rush job, made up almost as it went along, and the potential for disaster was appalling. Of course the sheer nerve of the thing was a crucial factor; spontaneity and single-mindedness might yet succeed against the odds. But if they didn’t …

The thought of terrorists shooting their way out of a sleeping hospital turned my stomach inside out.

And just to put the lid on things, there was Razoxane’s chilling little comment to contend with. What she’d said about the Kentish Town atrocity. Someone looking for me …

She’d told me I didn’t want to know her business, and she was right. But she’d still involved me, up to my neck; and ignorance was no defence against whoever might be on her heels – as that poor woman from Shelter had discovered. Whatever she was up to, someone (or something?) in this city was ready to mutilate and burn without mercy in its efforts to track her down.

And they’d come by night before; but what if they’d got wind of me, and were already on their way? Right now? A few grey streets away, and getting closer … ?

What if, what if, what if?

Feeling physically sick now, I forced myself to take a long, hot shower. And then I dressed, with almost fatalistic care. Everything clean and fresh, from knickers and slip on out. In case you’re in an accident, they say. As if the thought of them stripping clean clothes off your lifeless body is supposed to make you feel a little better …

Someone scratched at the door – and brought me back to my office with my jolt. I turned my head and swallowed. ‘Come in.’

It was only Jez, his smile seeming casual enough. Perhaps he hadn’t heard me walk away; or maybe he had, and was trying to gauge my mood. I felt the worm of paranoia begin to wriggle again.

‘We’re running low on shrouds,’ he said brightly. ‘Thought I’d let you know.’

Oh, brilliant. Thank you, Jez.

He’d leaned in around the door-jamb, and was just swinging himself back out again when I saw him hesitate, almost teetering. ‘You okay?’

Did I look like I’d just been crying? At least the betraying streaks of tears were gone – soaked up by the tissue now lying crumpled in my wastebin. I managed a sore-eyed smile.

‘Yeah, I think so …’

‘You look whacked,’ he persisted seriously. ‘You really shouldn’t push yourself so much.’ The concern in his face was friendly and genuine, and it gave me a lift I really needed. I felt my smile becoming warmer.

‘I won’t, don’t worry. I’ve … got some time owed from Monday: I’ll go off at half-eight, if you’re happy to do handover.’

‘Sure, no problem.’ He grinned encouragingly, and was gone.

My smile dried up and withered on my face.

One more step towards the point of no return – if I hadn’t already passed it. I’d told Razoxane I could be waiting at the door downstairs with half an hour to spare: and that was now confirmed. Jez hadn’t seemed surprised, either, even though I didn’t often bother to take time back. Usually I’d be here to the bitter end, reluctant to cut and run – for reasons that lay somewhere between a sense of duty and a sort of superstition …

Maybe he saw it as a measure of how tired I really was.

Not that I’d be getting any rest tonight, of course; I wondered if I’d ever sleep again. My system was sick and singing with adrenaline now, and my shift not half-way over.

Half-past eight, then. The fire-doors nearest the loading bay. That’s what I’d told them last night. The outside lighting was poor round that side of the hospital; the door itself was not alarmed.

Scrappy NHS security: I’d complained about it enough times in the past. Raised it direct with management when my own locker got broken into. Nothing had been done. Well, they’d had their chance …

Less than six hours, now. I knew I’d be measuring them out in minutes as I went through the motions.

And at some stage – probably my supper break – I still had to steal those bloody clothes.

It was just gone half-eight when I started down into the cold bowels of the building. Feeling smaller and less confident with every step.

Ours was one of the oldest hospitals in London: a great, rambling Gormenghast of a place – just like in those books I’d read at school. Each specialty held its corner, its enclave of wards, supported by a warren of clinics and kitchens, laundries and labs; all linked by lifts and stairwells and long, haunting corridors – a labyrinth you could easily get lost in.

But this real-life citadel had its dark side too. The brightest light couldn’t keep its dinginess at bay. The leap from sterility to seediness you got, coming out of our hi-tech unit, always came as a jolt. And down in the nether regions, beyond the public gaze, the decay was even further advanced.

All depressing enough at the best of times; but tonight I really felt like I was going down to the dungeons.

I had the clothing with me. Getting hold of it hadn’t been hard: not really. I’d put it off long enough to start getting panicky, but in the end all I’d had to do was raid a linen skip in the corridor outside. Two sets of loose blue pyjamas, the hospital’s name stencilled boldly on the backs. They were used, but not obviously soiled. I’d glanced around and grabbed them, stuffing them into the yellow plastic rubbish sack I’d brought along. Back on the unit, I’d helped myself to a spare white coat as well; there were a couple hung up in the office. None of the others gave me a second glance as I came and went; we’re bagging up waste ail the time. When I finally took my leave, it just looked as if I was taking a sackful down to the doors. Jez waved goodbye from a bedside. I faked a smile.

The presence of the bag down here would be a bit harder to explain, so I hoped I wouldn’t run into anyone. But the Lates wouldn’t start filtering down until after nine-fifteen, so if I was lucky …

Then again, if I was lucky, I wouldn’t have got caught up in all this in the first place. Would I?

The corridor was bare, and bleakly lit; I hurried down it. I hadn’t left stuff in a locker since the break-in – and after a nurse was attacked down here last year, I hadn’t used the changing rooms at all. Certainly not at the end of a Late. Even wearing my uniform on public transport, which sometimes got me ogled and even pestered, was preferable to that.

It was quiet down here. Echoey. My footsteps bounced ahead of me. My throat was tight and dry by the time I got to the fire-door.

There was no one out there.

Swallowing, I leaned down on the bar – and the door clanked loudly, stiffly open. The damp night air swilled in. Silence from the nearby backstreet; a faint swish of traffic from round the front. I drew back, my heart hammering.

For maybe a minute, nothing happened. Maybe more than a minute. The yard outside lay motionless in the half-light of a white sodium lamp. Then a shape detatched itself from a stand of metal wheely-bins and walked quickly over, closely followed by another.

I drew even further back as they came through. The first was a man of about Frank’s age, with brown hair and beard; he looked me full in the face for an unsettling moment, then past me to check the corridor. I could tell at once that he was nervous. The second was the girl called Jackie; she didn’t look too keen on this herself. Both of them were scruffily dressed, and smelled of the Underground: that dull, distinctive odour. They’d probably spent the last few hours down there, haunting the platforms, sheltering from the rain. Psyching themselves up.

‘This is Brendan,’ Jackie introduced grudgingly. I just nodded, with inbred politeness – and noticed the short, thick bundle he carried under his arm, wrapped up in a Sainsbury’s bag.

‘Er … what’s that, please?’

I said it just like a nurse: one who’s caught a patient trying to hide an illicit food parcel. Jackie almost sneered.

‘Flowers for the patient; what d’you think?’

‘God … Listen, you’re not going to start shooting in there, are you?’

‘Not if no one gets in our way,’ she answered flatly. ‘Now let’s get ready.’

I hesitated, feeling really wretched; then handed over the pyjamas, and led them back down to the changing rooms. Brendan put his head cautiously around the Male door, and slipped inside. I led the way into the Female.

Empty, thank God.

The lights above the aisles of lockers were bright and stark, but the annexe of toilets and showers lay in dimness. I ventured warily over to check they were all unoccupied. They were; but one of the shower heads was still dripping slowly in the gloom of its stall, as if it hadn’t long ago been used.

Jackie made straight for the nearest toilet, and gestured me in after her. Unwillingly I followed, closed the door and put my back against it. With my arms grimly folded, I watched her start undressing.

The claustrophobic space gave it all a stifling intimacy; closing me in with her sour-smelling coat and sourer stare. The clothes beneath looked like jumble sale rejects: ripped and grubby. Frank was right, they were ideal cover. People would look right through her – go out of their way to avoid her eye. And all the time she’d squat there, smiling inside; her pistol pushed snug into the waistband of her jeans.

She drew the weapon now, and proffered it. ‘Hang onto that a second.’

I stared at the thing; practically hugging myself now.

‘Go on, then,’ she hissed, so sharply that I flinched. Unthinkingly I took the gun. The weight almost dragged it from my fingers. Beads of sweat popped up across my back.

She allowed herself a smile: still stripping. I peered down at the ugly hunk of metal in my hands, and wondered how she could ever bear to touch it. How she could bear to do any of the things she did … My mind’s eye was suddenly clogged with the blackened mess of her Liverpool Street victim.

This is what the bombers did. To a human being.

A silver crucifix – like mine – was glinting in the hollow of her throat.

Down to her underwear now, she stepped into the pyjama trousers. I leaned miserably back against the door: straining my ears for any sound beyond it.

Nearly ten-to.

‘Not used to this side of it, are you?’ she asked tersely.

I shook my head.

‘Well it’s deeds we need, not words. Words’re cheap …’ She pulled the smock on. ‘It’s time people like you … stood up to be counted …’

I wondered dully just what Razoxane had told her. That I was an armchair sympathiser, probably: playing up the fact I was a Catholic. Maybe even someone who owed their awful cause a favour.

What the hell had she got me into?

Jackie sat on the toilet bowl to retie the laces on her grubby trainers; I hoped no one was going to notice those. Her street clothes went into the bag I’d brought. ‘You make sure these get burned,’ she told me, straightening up.

I made an affirmative sort of noise, and passed her the lab coat. She shrugged herself into it. ‘Right, give us that …’

I relinquished the pistol. She grasped it with a familiarity I found quite chilling, and set about examining the coat. It didn’t take her long to find the standard slit behind the pocket. She pushed gun and fist inside it – and drew them smoothly out.

My mouth was so dry I almost had to peel my lips apart to talk. ‘I can’t go up there …’

A cold glance. ‘You bloody will.’

‘People will see me with you. How the hell …’

‘Tell them we accosted you or somethin’. Held you at gunpoint.’ And with that she pulled at the pistol in her hand. It seemed to unlock and slide apart; then snapped together like a trap. I knew that meant she’d cocked it.

For a moment I glimpsed something flicker behind her dour, determined stare. It was gone again before I had it fixed; but I knew that it was fear.

A human response to what was coming: it should have reassured me. But all it did was accentuate my own.

‘Go check on Brendan.’

I turned, and eased the door open. The changing rooms were empty. I scuttled across to the main door, rubbing my palms down my uniform: trying to wipe away the pistol’s oily feel. Brendan was already waiting outside: ready to hand me his street clothes. The V-neck of his scrub top revealing matted hairs on his chest. The stubby bundle he carried was now wrapped in an old towel.

The twin muzzles of a sawn-off shotgun stared vacantly out from between its folds.

I pressed the call button for the lift: it lit up beneath my finger. Somewhere, floors away, machinery began to move.

I stepped back, peered up at the indicator. Watched the lights come counting down towards us. Anything to avoid looking at the others. Anything.

After all these hours of waiting, we were down to the last few minutes. I’d half-hoped my adrenal glands would have worn themselves out by now, but they clearly hadn’t. I felt clammy and short of breath; my heartbeat punching through my chest.

The silence was tense: icy. They knew I wasn’t one of them – and that I might prove a hindrance, screw things up somehow. If things went wrong, they’d probably shoot me first. At point-blank range.

I’ve had to reason with violent people more than once – especially when I worked in A&E. Sometimes they’d had knives. Almost always they’d been drunk, on drugs, or just mentally disturbed. But this pair carried guns; and whatever else they might be, they were stone cold sane. Killing me would be a swift, pragmatic act; the outcome of a tactical decision. And no amount of reasoning would stop it.

The lift arrived. The doors rolled smoothly open. In we got.

I waited until we were on our way up before finally mustering the nerve to say: ‘Please don’t hurt the coppers.’

Jackie glanced at me. There was the faintest sheen of sweat on her pale forehead; wisps of her fringe were growing damp.

‘Depends if they behave.’

I looked to Brendan. He stared back, his face unfriendly. The lift came smoothly to a stop.

We were one floor short.

The doors slid open to reveal a middle-aged couple – obviously visitors, although chucking-out time should have come and gone. ‘Going down?’ the woman beamed.

‘Going up,’ I countered, already reaching for the button. It came out sounding like a croak.

‘That’s all right; we might as well take the tour, eh George?’ They came in across the threshold before I could say anything more. And though I’d held the button down, the door was going to close in its own sweet time.

Jackie had rather obviously turned her face away, and was staring hard at the wall. Brendan looked down at the toes of his scuffed shoes. All I could do was gaze out down the corridor into the Surgical Unit. It was empty, apart from a nurse at the far end.

‘Busy day, love?’ the woman asked me kindly.

I managed a non-committal smile.

‘They should double your pay,’ she added, with great sincerity. ‘You’re angels, you really are …’

Come on, close, you bastard.

The door finally obliged; we lurched and continued upward. Next stop Orthopaedics. With a murmured goodnight, I led the way out.

The corridor here was empty. No sign of a guard.

I let my breath wheeze out as I got my bearings. We were starting where I’d finished last time; the closed ward was just along the corridor. I looked down at my watch. Between five and ten past nine now. Most of the nurses would be in Sister’s office for handover. And the coppers, into the last hour of their shift, might just be caught napping.

Another linen skip had been left here for emptying: the bulging laundry sack topped off with a couple of pillows. Brendan checked both ways, unwrapped his shotgun and pushed it in between them. I stiffened my muscles against a shudder.

His face was quite immobile now: a mask cemented into place. Watching him, I felt Jackie close behind me – so tense that my bare nape almost tingled with the static.

A thought fled through my mind, then – and blazed into a horrible conviction, like a spark setting off a blasting charge.

They’ve come to kill him.

No wonder they hadn’t discussed what they might do if he was bedridden, in traction, immobile. No talk of borrowing a wheelchair, or hijacking a trolley. They were here to stop him talking. Shut him up.

And me? Shut me up too? I stared wide-eyed at Brendan as he wheeled the trolley forward; nodding to Jackie as if I didn’t exist.

Jackie prodded me in the ribs. I jumped, swung round. Her other hand was buried in her coat’s false pocket.

‘C’mon.’

Instinctively I complied, walking on to the next set of fire-doors and pushing them open; holding them for the trolley even as I tried out-thinking my own mind.

That’s mad. They’re here to free him. He’s their friend …

Ward closed, said the sign ahead. No entry.

‘You go first,’ said Jackie in my ear. ‘Say we’re here to check on the patient; anything. Just give us the chance to get close …’

I came to the ward doors. The guard was there beyond them, under the light. Not the one I’d talked to; this bloke had ginger hair. We’d caught him napping right enough: he’d nodded off. Just slumped there, chin on chest; arms loosely folded.

I eased the door open; the trolley slid through. One of the wheels was squeaking, but it didn’t rouse him. Three yards, two, one …

And Brendan grasped the topmost pillow and lunged, clamping it over the copper’s face. Shoving the dozing man back upright, his shotgun jammed into the soft white mass – and in that moment I knew for sure there’d be no quarter: just one stifled blast, and the poor bloke’s brains all over the wall. I opened my mouth in horrified protest, sucking in air for a shout …

It seemed to clog in the back of my throat. The taste was warm and rancid. Suddenly I wanted to gag, and spit it back out. Instead of which, I saw – and almost spewed.

The policeman’s arms had dropped to his sides; he’d made no other move. Between the open flaps of his anorak, a clotted crimson slime was bulging outward. A chunk of it broke clear even as I gawped, and plopped to the polished floor like a stewed tomato.

Brendan reacted like a man electrified: standing rigid for a stupefied moment – then flinging himself clear, still grasping the pillow. The side that had pressed against the copper’s face was already dyed bright crimson. The mouth and nose that had soaked it were streaming blood now; the rest of the face as pale as sallow cheese. The eyes had rolled right upward: two sightless, sour-milk slits.

Jackie recoiled past me, knocking me to one side. Her own eyes stared like saucers.

The policeman’s corpse began at last to overbalance.

I felt a blow against my spine: it sluiced fear through my stomach in the moment before I realised I was up against the wall, beside the darkened office doorway. With my hand clutched tight across my bile-filled mouth, I watched the body topple to one side. Watched it fall, and strike the floor. The impact burst its belly like a blister; visceral pulp, held in place by the sheerest film of tissue, came slopping out across the lino. The smell was awful.

Even as I swayed – head swimming – the side-room door began to move.

Maybe the body had brushed it as it dropped; or maybe the heavy, soggy thud had set it swinging of its own volition. But all I could do was stand there, as if nailed to the wall, and wait for something in that room to come shuffling out.

The door creaked slowly open … and what I saw on the bed, albeit for just a second, sent horror crashing through me like a breaking wave. I simply fled.

Jackie had already bolted, back towards the lifts; Brendan followed, panting, at her heels. But in my panic I went the other way – deeper into the unlit ward. My momentum had carried me half-way down the long, hollow room before I realized my mistake, by which time it was far too late. The empty beds closed in on either side, looming out of the gloom like lurking skeletons. Almost whimpering with fright, I reached the toilet at the far end, and fairly fought my way inside; dragging it closed and locking it. It felt like a cell; a coffin on end. Darkness spiked with disinfectant. But I didn’t dare reach for the light switch. All I could do was stand there, shivering; both hands pressed hard against my mouth.

I knew I mustn’t be sick. I really mustn’t. Because someone would hear, and smell it, and come smashing in through the door to rub my face in it …

Oh Mary – oh Mum – pray for me.

I couldn’t see a thing. But my mind’s eye stayed fixed on the ghastly mess I’d glimpsed, lying on the bed in that overlit side-room. Fixed and staring. I couldn’t close it.

In the course of my nurse training, I’d learned that the human body contains nearly nine pints of blood, and has intestines twenty-eight feet long. Well fancy that, I’d thought.

It hadn’t meant a thing before tonight.

Time might have raced or crawled; in the silence and blackness I couldn’t tell. The acrid smell of hospital bleach filled my nostrils. Compared to the stench from the far end of the ward, it was a perfume.

A footstep sounded then, outside the door. The squeak of a shoe on the lino.

I waited, hands across my mouth; eyes huge. Trying not to tremble. Not even to breathe.

Silence.

Then a sudden flurry of gibberish from the other side of the panel – a hissing, distorted voice that sent a fresh bolt of panic through me. There was something eerily ethereal about it, as if the speaker was a gulf away.

As I listened, with tears on my cheeks, the shoes creaked again; I heard the bathroom door across the way easing open. Another hiss came – wordless this time. A crackle and pop of static.

And suddenly I realised it was crosstalk on a two-way radio. A police radio. Oh thank Christ.

I was about to fumble for the lock when something inside me said: Don’t.

I hesitated.

More footfalls. The door of the toilet next to mine swung open; its unoiled hinges squealed.

I had a cold flush then: it bathed me like melted snow and almost sent me into spasm. My reasoning mind, still insisting I should open the door and let him lead me back to safety, was suddenly choked. In uncomprehending dread I waited; and his radio squawked again.

He murmured something in response.

More twisted words from out of the ether – and a moment later I heard him pass my door and walk back down the ward, his shoes clicking and squeaking into silence.

Policeman. That’s all he was. An ordinary copper …

I closed my eyes against the darkness, and lowered myself shakily down onto the toilet bowl. And for the next hour, while all sorts of consternation came and went in the corridors outside, I just sat there, with my head in my hands, and silently wept.