Angels of Mourning. John Pritchard

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the term familiar to us both. Except that mine had been the reactive depression more commonly associated with surviving fires or train crashes. The sort that gives dreadful dreams – and waking weeks of utter hopelessness. I’d been fine for a while, too – coping really well, or so I’d thought. Then the tears from nowhere had begun. The conviction that getting up in the morning would not be worth the trouble. The thoughts of suicide.

      Not active suicide, of course: not really. More the passive variety. Like, if a car had mounted the pavement, out of control, I wouldn’t have bothered getting out of the way. Suicide with a clear conscience, if you prefer.

      And I still think the only thing that kept me going through it all was Jenny. Her face in my dreams. Jenny, who’d been my best and closest friend. Jenny, who’d died before my own nightmare even began.

      Jenny, who’d reached out from her grave to save me from a fate far worse than death. And in all the weeks that followed, I’d felt her with me still: even in the darkest, longest nights. Beckoning me on towards the breaking of day.

      I’d met with her murderess, too: the witch-like woman who’d risen from her deathbed to strangle her. We’d faced each other in an overcast cemetery, over Jenny’s last resting place – and the old woman had just smiled a toothless smile, and gone her way. Perhaps to find a resting place herself; but maybe she was out there still.

      Whatever, it was an end between us. I’d sensed that much, that day.

      And so life had gone on, as it always must. And as I moved on too – new job, new town, new home, new friends – so the past had faded into the background. But sometimes, even now, I’d feel an emptiness: the strangest yearning for what was gone – like someone who’s been somehow left behind.

       Oh Jenny. What about me?

      ‘Penny for them, Rachel,’ Murdoch said quietly.

      I came back to myself with a start – to find him in the office doorway, watching me. Dressed in a charcoal-dark suit, as always: it gave him a sombre aspect, despite his crimson tie. His long, thinly-bearded face could often look severe, as well – which made his smile now all the more engaging.

      ‘Oh … It’ll cost you a good deal more than that, Dr Murdoch,’ I said airily – already feeling just a little better. And Murdoch’s smile grew wider.

      ‘I’ll be starting the round in a moment: any problems?’

      I shook my head. ‘Nope. They’re all being very good. Jez’ll go round with you.’ Even Murdoch called him that now. I guessed only his mum still called him Jeremy.

      ‘Good. I’ll speak to you later.’ He gave me a courteous nod and went on towards the station. I sat back, still smiling myself. Some of our anaesthetists were temperamental as hell: perhaps it went with the territory. But Murdoch – though one of the youngest – was probably the calmest of them all. And the softest-spoken.

      Which, when he did get angry, made his rages all the more unnerving. They were cold: controlled. I’d got on the wrong side of him once, and he didn’t even raise his voice – but left me shaking.

      I hadn’t made the same mistake again.

      But today he seemed in sunnier mood – which brightened up mine in turn. As a unit we worked well together: we got on. Sue had once even ventured the opinion that Murdoch was ‘kind of a handsome man’. And added (a few drinks later) that ‘he could put me under any time’ – politely ignoring our cheerful, pop-eyed stares of disbelief.

      Well, now. Sue could go on the Early with Jean. Jez had requested a day off. So who could I put on the Late? I pondered – or tried to. But the real question was, could I find an excuse for not doing the soup run again this week?

      Getting into bad habits, and I knew it. Knew, and didn’t much care. Not that it had ever been my favourite way to spend a cold winter’s evening: doling out soup to the street-sleepers. The temptation to let it go had always itched beneath the surface. But there was something more than apathy or mere distaste involved this time. I’d really had a fright.

      An awful shock.

      And all in the mind, as I’d realised soon enough. A last, stray echo of things left well behind me. But still – sitting here, pen poised – I could feel the way my guts had clenched inside me. I wasn’t about to go through that again.

      It had been a fortnight ago; we’d been bringing soup to an enclave of the homeless near Waterloo. Quite a crowd had gathered round our van, to slurp from steaming beakers in the dimness. I’d started out by making conversation – and ended up quite absorbed. Chewing the fat with a wryly funny Scotsman not long out of a psychie unit – and a well-spoken accountant type, who’d ended up on the street with what sounded like petrifying suddenness.

      ‘Gissa hand, will ye?’ the Scots bloke asked at length, taking a fresh beaker in each hand and jerking his head towards the people still crouching in the shelter of the nearby bridge. ‘Some o’ yon lads’re too tired to bloody stand …’

      I nodded, grabbed a couple more helpings of oxtail and followed him over. Hands reached up gratefully from the foxholes of cardboard and blankets. I glimpsed someone sitting apart from the others, almost submerged in the deeper gloom beneath the arch, and made towards him with my last beaker.

      I was only a few feet short when I suddenly stopped dead. So suddenly that the soup slopped out, scalding my wrist between sleeve and glove. So dead, I scarcely felt it.

      The person ahead of me was squatting with their back against the brickwork: wrapped up in an old black greatcoat. A battered, wide-brimmed hat was pulled right down to cover the face beneath; black as the coat, but smudged and smeared with ashy grey.

      I suddenly felt like a knife was being pushed into my belly. Pushed and twisted. My skin grew instantly cold. I took a tiny step backwards.

      The bowed head never moved.

      ‘… one over here, lassie …’ the Scotsman said cheerfully. He sounded a long way off.

      The shadow-shrouded figure didn’t stir. Probably asleep, of course. Exhausted, hungry, and about to miss his chance because of my ridiculous unease. Yet all I could do was back away, my heart now racing like a drum-roll.

      The Scotsman had to clap me on the shoulder to snap me out of it: the casual grip of his grimy hand was more welcome than I’d have ever dreamed. With a last, wary look towards the shape beneath the bridge, I turned towards the faces I could see, and made an effort to return their smiles and quirky greetings. But all the time I could feel the chilly sweat of that moment: trapped under my clothes, and slowly soaking in. And even after I’d got home, and showered, and scrubbed it all off, my jumpiness remained. My stomach felt sick and sore. Even though I told myself, again and again, that it couldn’t have been her. It couldn’t have.

      And of course, it hadn’t been: I surely knew that now. Not Razoxane.

      Because Razoxane was dead and gone – to Hell.

      Three years ago, I found out what Hell meant.

      I’d been just another nurse; an A&E Night Sister getting on with her job. Then she had come in off the street, and Hell had followed with her. I’d thought she was a psychie case at first, which was scary enough – but then she’d revealed the magic in her madness; opened СКАЧАТЬ