Night Sisters

In that first split-second I glimpsed enough: the white-coated figure on the floor beside the trolley, the black-clad figure bending over it, and straightening as I came through; the glint of a drawn knife in the harsh light. And I’d been on the Control & Restraint courses, knew all about how to reason with a knife-wielding patient – but as those sombre shades came round all I wanted to do was turn and run. I got as far as the turn. Before I could run, or even shout for help, her fist was in my hair and dragging my head back, stretching my throat so I choked on my cry and could only gawp soundlessly as she hauled me back into the cubicle. Desperately I threshed at the end of her arm, struggling to get free, to stop the white, ripping pain in my scalp: arms bent back, both hands scrabbling at hers now, trying to pry those fingers loose. But effortlessly she drew me in. From the corner of my eye I caught the gleam of the knife, and with a last frenzied effort managed to twist half around and lash out, knocking the glasses from her face.

I glimpsed eyes that were a cold and bleached-out blue, in the instant that the bright light struck them. The pupils reacted immediately, contracting to pinpoints, and with a snarl that was partly pain she jerked her face away.

Photophobia: she couldn’t stand the light. And before I could even think to take advantage, she’d wrenched me right round by the hair and slammed me bodily against the back wall. Winded, I gasped aloud. The fingers in my hair loosened and withdrew; I felt her grasp my shoulder and turn me slowly round to face her.

And a quick, sickening punch to my midriff dropped me in a heap at her feet.

For a moment everything was just a queasy blur; my head echoed and spun, and I didn’t even have the strength to retch. Then I became aware that she was sitting on her heels beside me.

She’d put her shades back on and pushed the wide-brimmed hat to the back of her head. The knife was cradled in both hands now, as though she was doing no more than idly weigh it, testing its balance. I managed to focus on the weapon, and it was a vicious-looking switchblade: cold, clean steel, and grips that looked like they’d been carved from bone. And for all the easiness with which she handled it, the point was still angled down towards me.

‘I had questions for your doctor,’ she told me, in the same dust-dry monotone she’d used before. ‘He wouldn’t answer them. I was about to show him the error of his ways, but …’ She inclined her head, studying me thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you will answer them for me.’

Oh shit, I thought. Aloud I managed to ask: ‘What … questions?’

‘A young girl was brought into your department this evening: she’d overdosed – tried to kill herself. What happened to her?’

I swallowed. ‘She was admitted …’

‘Which ward?’ And as I hesitated, with the instinctive reticence of someone for whom patient confidentiality was second nature, she leaned forward and hissed: ‘Don’t even dream of lying: I’ll see it in your soul.’

I believed her, too: the shock of that icy gaze still throbbed within me. It was fortunate that I was in a position to answer her, having browsed through the admissions ledger earlier in the evening. ‘She went to Jenner Ward: that’s Medical … second floor …’

She absorbed the information in silence for a moment; then reached slowly out with the knife and used the point to snag the silver chain of my crucifix, and lift the pendant clear of my collar. She spoke again, even more quietly than before.

‘This. Is it just a trinket … or something more?’

Again I swallowed, trying to lubricate a mouth gone bone-dry. ‘It’s what I believe in. Who I believe in …’

She nodded, and let it fall back into the hollow of my throat. ‘You’ll need to,’ she promised softly – and even her breath felt cold.

And with that she rose swiftly to her feet and was gone.

For a long moment after the curtain had flopped closed behind her, I just slumped there, eyes wide with disbelief. Then reaction set in – a sick and chilling surge that left me shivering. But despite the weakness that came with it, I began struggling to my feet.

I was halfway there when Mike stuck his head round the curtain to see how we were getting on: the shock that blanked-out his cheerful expression was so abrupt it was almost funny. ‘Rachel – what –’

My legs nearly gave way at that point and I had to clutch at the trolley for support. He moved quickly forward but I waved him away: ‘Okay. I’m okay. What about Graham … ?’

There was the sound of movement from the floor on the far side of the trolley, and a stifled groan. I leaned over. Graham was trying to sit up: his face paler than ever, and streaked with blood from a gash on his temple. I never thought I’d be so relieved to know he was still with us.

‘What happened?’ Mike was asking, even as he stooped to help the doctor up.

‘That girl – she’s a nutter, she’s got a knife.’ I paused for a gulp of air. ‘Need to fast-bleep the porters, tell them she’s after the girl on Jenner – the OD – ring the ward too. And the police …’

Karen was approaching by then, and detoured straight to the wall-mounted phone. I returned my attention to Graham, seated on the chair now, as Mike set about examining his wound; but when I glanced back at her, I saw the worried little frown creep over her features. She punched in the emergency number again.

‘I can’t get through – something’s wrong with the phone, it’s just whining …’

‘Shit! Try the one in my office.’ She hurried to do so, and I stumbled after her. I was more or less steady on my feet by the time I got there – but the expression on her face as she looked up from the phone was enough to stop me short.

‘Same again – it’s interference or something. Now I can’t get a dial tone …’ ~

‘Oh my God …’ I couldn’t believe it: not another switchboard failure, not now. And that crazy woman with a knife was on her way up to a sleeping ward – and about to arrive without warning …

Mike had come up behind me, and was about to echo my disbelief when I turned and grasped his coat. ‘Come on. We’ve got to go after her.’

He nodded, and we began to run. It was sheer instinct that prompted me to relinquish my keys, and I swung back round to toss them towards Karen; behind me, getting further away by the second, I heard Mike shouting, ‘Danny. Where’s Danny? Someone find the lazy sod!’ And then I was racing after him, down past the treatment rooms and Suturing and Minor Theatre, and on into the dimly-lit corridor that led to the lifts.

Six (#ulink_01edfb59-3450-5be2-a311-24a076a8df79)

In that claustrophobic tunnel, the noise of our footfalls on the linoleum floor swelled and rebounded and echoed around us, effectively masking any sound from up ahead. Maybe she’d already reached the lifts, of course, or was fast approaching them; but perhaps she’d paused, and was lying in wait for any pursuers – especially ones as reckless as us. That thought occurred to me just before we reached an angle of the corridor, where it bypassed the plant room, but I was going too fast to stop now, and with the breath rasping in my throat I couldn’t even voice a warning. Mike went round the corner first, and the adrenaline surged through me as I lost sight of him. But a moment later I’d followed suit, and had him back in view, still running, his white coat-tails flying – and beyond him a straight stretch of empty corridor, with the lift area at its end.

We ran for it, reached it, and skidded breathlessly to a halt, our eyes scanning the indicator lights. There were four lifts serving this end of the building, and two were still on our level, empty and unused. The third was out of order, which was par for the course.

The fourth was on its way up.

The indicator still showed our floor, but that was just the mechanism catching up. Even as we watched, it clicked up to the next level. Mike swore, and made for one of the waiting lifts; but I already had the door to the main stairway open, and turned to shout.

‘Stairs! Come on, it’s quicker!’

It is, too. This end of the building might be relatively modern, but the lifts are fast approaching the end of their natural, with a tendency to judder and grind and stop at floors you have no wish to visit. Whenever I’m in a hurry, I take the stairs.

So up the stairs we went: clattering, panting, grasping the banister rails to swing ourselves around the corners; passing the doors to the first floor, and going faster all the time. Reaching the second floor, we fairly burst through the fire-doors into the deserted reception area – and saw the lift we’d been racing standing empty before us. As we stood there, gasping to refill our lungs, the door slid smoothly closed again, an automatic function that seemed almost mocking.

‘Oh … sod,’ I murmured, ‘she’s up here.’

Mike walked quickly to the set of doors leading through into the central corridor, and pushed them open. The thoroughfare beyond was in semi-darkness: just doctors’ offices and storerooms, all deserted at this hour. To left and right at this end, more fire-doors sealed off the access corridors to the first two Medical wards, Harvey and Radcliffe. Likewise at the far end, for Lipscomb. And Jenner.

I moved up to follow him through; still a bit unsteady on my feet after our sprint up here. Still short of breath, too – but I struggled to keep my panting as shallow as possible as I peered into the gloom ahead of us. Where nothing stirred.

We went on down the corridor, quickly and quiet. The door to the seminar room was slightly ajar, and Mike paused and pushed it open; I watched with my heart in my mouth as he reached in to switch on the light and survey the room – but it was empty. We hurried on.

Welcome 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.’