Night Sisters. John Pritchard

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СКАЧАТЬ to Jenner Ward said the sign over the closed double doors that came up on our right. Through their wired glass panels I could see on down the dark passageway, dimly-lit beneath the tubular hoods of the night-lights; past bays and side-rooms asleep in shadow, to the single desk lamp at the nurses’ station. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. Warily, I pushed the doors open, and we slipped through.

      With no idea of which bay our would-be suicide was in, we made straight for the desk; drawn also, instinctively, by the warm glow surrounding it, for the dreaming darkness of the ward was unsettling; unquiet. I heard ragged breathing in the gloom, and coughs and mutters; the ghostly respiration of the sick. Of course I’d worked my share of night shifts on inpatient wards and was familiar with the atmosphere. But I’d never quite got used to it, and always found it eerie. Tonight, with the prospect of a deranged intruder with a knife lurking somewhere in the shadows, the restless dark was positively scary.

      We reached the station without incident, having glimpsed nothing untoward in the bays we’d passed, nor in the sluice room either. I reached over for the nursing cardex, a ringbinder of notes on all the ward’s patients, and had started leafing through it before realizing I’d forgotten her name. ‘Bloody hell … Jones … ?’

      ‘James,’ Mike prompted calmly, still glancing round. ‘Angela James.’ He’d obviously been browsing through our admissions register as well. I quickly found the relevant entry, and saw she’d been put in one of the side-wards, the four single-bedded rooms back near the doors. We’d already passed her by, without knowing it. I had the sudden, sinking feeling that her pursuer might not have overlooked her so easily.

      We turned to retrace our steps, and one of the nurses was just emerging from the end bay, pushing a commode. She raised her eyebrows. ‘Hi … can I help you?’

      I hesitated for a moment; then, trying not to make it sound too melodramatic, I said: ‘We’ve had a patient-emergency down in A&E … think she might have found her way up here. She was talking about one of your patients, Angela James, and … er … she’s got a knife.’

      That took the colour out of her cheeks somewhat, but she retained her composure admirably. ‘Have you bleeped the porters?’

      ‘Not yet – none of our phones were working …’ And no fault of mine, but I still felt myself flush at her disbelieving look. She went over to the desk and turned the phone around towards me. ‘You’d better do it now, then.’

      Smarting, I moved to do so – while Mike turned to the distinctly unimpressed-looking Staff Nurse. ‘I think we’d better check that Angela’s okay, right now,’ he suggested evenly, and the two of them set off down the corridor. I watched them go, tucking the receiver under my chin as I punched in the number. There was a crackly pause; then the dull whine of number unobtainable. Fuck, I mouthed, and tried again; frowning in disbelief as I got the same result. It seemed the phones were playing up everywhere. I slammed the receiver down – belatedly realizing there were people trying to sleep all around me – and was wondering what to do next when there came a rustle of movement from right behind me. I spun round.

      The girl who stood there looked about fifteen – though she must have been older, or they’d have put her on the kids’ ward. She was wrapped in an overlarge hospital dressing-gown that made her seem even frailer than she was. Her face was pale, with dark shadows around the sunken eyes, and her fair hair hung in strings. She looked as if she was feeling really awful.

      ‘I’ve been sick again, nurse,’ she reported miserably; and as I stared at her, I realized who she was, who she must be.

      ‘Angela,’ I ventured, ‘we___er, thought you were asleep.’

      She actually smiled at that – if smile was the right word for the rictus that spread across her thin features. ‘No …’ she almost whispered. ‘No, I’ll not be sleeping again. Not safe to sleep …’

      I gave an understanding sort of nod. ‘Where were you? The toilet?’ I glanced down the corridor to see if Mike had re-emerged from her room yet. And as I did so, something caught my eye – a shift of shadow in the darkness of the bay beyond her. Someone was on their feet in there, and coming out. Another patient needs the loo, I found myself hoping with surprising fervour – but in vain. Because the figure who emerged was fully-dressed, in dirty black. And wearing shades.

      Angela might have sensed the movement at her back; she certainly saw the horror on my face. She turned quickly – and recoiled against me with a stifled sob. And the woman who’d called herself McCain stepped fully into the corridor – her clothes still blending with the gloom, but her face as calm and pale as a cadaver’s – and extended a gloved hand towards the girl. Palm open, like an offer to a drowning man.

      ‘Angela. Come with me now. It’s not too late …’

      Me she ignored completely, as if I wasn’t even there: although Angela was rigid against me, and my hands had instinctively gripped her shoulders. The two of them might have been alone here in this darkened ward: sharing in a secret tryst while the lesser world slept. But as I slowly eased the terrified girl backwards, away from her visitor’s slow-paced advance, I glimpsed something slip into McCain’s dangling left hand – and a moment later, with a sinister click, the blade of her knife licked out and locked.

      ‘Never too late to follow me,’ she breathed, her blank stare still not acknowledging my presence.

      I risked a fast, frantic look down the corridor – but it was empty: no sign of Mike or the Staff Nurse, though they must surely have discovered that Angela was out of her bed by now. At any moment they’d reappear, and see, and come sprinting to my rescue; but I knew that even the very next second would be one too many.

      Spinning Angela round, I grasped her wrist, and ran.

      Round the corner we went, and on down the link corridor towards Radcliffe Ward, feet thudding on the carpet, dimly-glimpsed doorways and bed-bays veering madly past on either side. Just like a crash-call, I thought breathlessly; and an old nursing phrase flashed with idiot incongruity through my mind. A nurse should only run in cases of fire or haemorrhage …

      Behind, McCain was coming at a walk. My fleeting look saw her stride increasing. When I next glanced back a moment later, she was running.

      … haemorrhage …

      We fairly crashed through the set of fire-doors separating the wards and raced on through Radcliffe. A Staff Nurse and a student were sitting at the desk, writing quietly by dusky lamplight. Both heads jerked up as we appeared, the unison so perfect it should have made me laugh. No time to explain, of course; nor to call for help, nor even shout a warning. We just kept running – Angela stumbling now, but even if she’d fallen I’d have dragged her – and the woman with the knife was at our heels. So let them call the porters. Let them find a phone that fucking worked.

      Please, God. Jesus. Please.

      Round the next corner and back towards the central corridor now – and suddenly there was someone in our path, shuffling across from toilets to bed-bay. A grey-faced old man in a faded dressing-gown, mobilizing laboriously with a walking frame. His head was slowly coming round, but nothing had time to register. I slowed for just a second, and swerved past him, and yanked Angela with me through the gap.

      McCain hit him full on.

      The two of them went down together, with a rattle of metal and a sickening thud. The sound made me wince: despite myself I slowed again, glancing round. My every nursing instinct cried out against СКАЧАТЬ