Angels of Mourning. John Pritchard

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

Chapter 10

      The long, heavy blade came up slowly, and caught the light – reflecting it sharply back at me. I managed not to flinch. Taking another sip of strong tea, I kept my eyes on the screen; even when Nick leaned over the back of the sofa to stroke my hair, running his hand down inside my dressing gown collar.

      ‘Sure you’re up to tonight?’ he asked quietly.

      I nodded – absorbed in the news conference; watching the solemn-faced man hold the machete gingerly up by its handle and tip. The spokesman beside him looked grimly back into the cameras.

      ‘We believe a weapon similar to this was used: a machete, or possibly a butcher’s knife of some description …’

      ‘Jesus, what their wives must be going through,’ Nick murmured. His fingers tightened to a stop on my shoulder; then resumed their gentle squeezing. I drank again, the mug held tight in both my hands. Still peering warily over the rim.

       ‘… the actual weapon?’

      ‘No, the weapon used has not been recovered as yet,’ the policeman responded heavily. ‘Our conclusions have been drawn from the pathologist’s report. All three victims died from severe lacerations compatible with …’ His mouth kept on going through the motions; his strained face told it differently. Behind the formal language – the forced dispassion – I glimpsed his pent-up anger and disgust; the effort of keeping it inside him turned him white.

      Two coppers killed in the line of duty: gutted like fish in a busy, British hospital. The atmosphere under the TV lights was tripwire-taut. We could almost feel it seeping out into the room.

      Even if I hadn’t seen the carnage for myself, the shock would still have numbed me. Partly because the police we take for granted aren’t supposed to get killed: it breaks the rules. And partly – of course – because of Nick. To judge by the photos they’d shown, both men had been his age. Imagining his sheepish mug-shot in their place was far too easy.

      When I’d finally emerged from my hiding place last night, the floor had been alive with stunned policemen; dark uniforms offsetting bleached, tight faces. The ones I ran into by the stairwell established who I was as politely as their outrage would allow, and ushered me along. I was finally nodded out through the front doors at nearly half-past ten, leaving the hospital lowering behind me.

      Night castle. Black fortress. Staring after me with its hundred blazing eyes …

      The reporters on TV were demanding theories. The spokesman spread his hands.

      ‘We can confirm that the hospital patient was in police custody. We believe the murderer or murderers were primarily interested in him …’

       ‘… Is it true he was a terrorist suspect … ?’

      ‘I cannot СКАЧАТЬ