Night Sisters

On to the changing room, where I divested myself of my uniform dress, tights and sensible shoes, in favour of blouse, sweater, jeans and trainers; chatting with Fran as she shrugged out of her own work clothes. She seemed to have settled in well over the last couple of weeks; a pint-sized and perky young Scouser, blessed with the essential A&E prerequisites of cool head and keen sense of humour. I reckoned she’d make a good member of the team, which was a relief: your face has to fit, in a department as close-knit as this one.

Outside in the corridor, Mark called goodbye as he went through to a meeting with Kessler; and as I left, Steve – one of the night porters who’d covered us for the shift – made a point of mentioning how good it was to see me back. I was feeling tired but happy as I walked across to the bus stop. The thoughts that had gnawed at me through the night seemed distant and insubstantial now – fading back into my subconscious beneath the bright cold morning sun.

Behind me, the buildings of Ravensfield General Hospital loomed up dour against the sky: great blocks of sixties concrete grafted on to dark Victorian brick. Row after row of windows watched me: ward-floors stacked up one on top of the other. We had beds for nearly six hundred patients here – though the cutbacks meant that some were never used. That wouldn’t have been obvious to the rather awestruck casual observer, of course – unless they passed the hospital at night, and saw that while the windows overlooking the road were brightly aglow, or showed at least the muted glimmer of night lights, the upper floors of the old north wing remained in darkness. We had several wards and a couple of theatres closed up there: slowly gathering dust behind locked doors.

I knew myself that it made for a vaguely ominous sight: that slice of shadow and silence cut into the brightly-lit evening bustle of the hospital. And of course there were staff who’d claimed to have seen ghosts up there, and heard old, shuffling footsteps in the gloom. But it was daytime now, and I was going home to sleep in a flat with sunlight pressing against the drawn curtains, and the ordered life of a quiet, leafy suburb going on around me.

Whatever vague unease still lurked within me, it could wait until dark.

Four (#ulink_606247cb-ed87-5333-8394-8615e9e371b1)

The next two nights were nearly as quiet. Minor injuries: cuts and cracked bones. Bread and butter stuff for us. The high point (relatively speaking) was Adrian Bell asking me out again.

That was Friday – or Saturday’s small hours. He’d been chargehand porter for the shift, and come down to keep an intimidating eye on one of our more aggressive customers. After the latter had wandered sullenly off, back into the night, I’d returned to my office to catch up on some reading; and was halfway through the accompanying cheese and pickle sandwich when Adrian stuck his head round the door.

‘Caught you.’

‘In-flight refuelling,’ I pointed out, mouth impolitely full. He made a show of nodding, his eyes amused. ‘All okay now?’

‘Fine,’ I told him gratefully. ‘Thanks for coming down.’

‘No problem.’ He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful; not quite meeting my eye. Then: ‘Listen … what are you doing next week?’

‘Oh. Well …’ I smiled, and let my own gaze drift while my mind went into fast forward. ‘I’m not sure of my Off-duty yet …’

The nursing equivalent of I’m washing my hair, and he knew it. Accepted it too, with a rueful smile of his own, and left it lying. ‘Fair enough. By the way … how’s Danny getting on?’

Our departmental porter. I pulled a face which probably spoke volumes.

His smile became a grin. ‘Not that bad, is he?’

I hesitated, feeling suddenly almost guilty. ‘Well, no he’s not. He’s all right, actually. It’s just …’

And that was it: there was nothing I could put my finger on. No aspect of his work that I could fault. He was off tonight, but he’d have handled that drunken loudmouth competently enough. A tested member of the team, now: conscientious and quiet. I just didn’t like him. For no good reason, he gave me the creeps.

Mea culpa, I suppose. Nobody’s perfect.

‘He’ll settle in soon enough,’ Adrian predicted drily: his tone suggesting he knew what I meant. ‘You get any problems, let me know.’

I nodded.

‘You know …’ he added musingly. ‘If I was to have, like, a cardiac arrest right here … you’d be duty-bound to start resuscitating me, wouldn’t you? Mouth to mouth, and …’

I grinned. ‘Oh, I’d probably have to shove an airway down your throat first – make sure your breathing wasn’t obstructed. Then cannulate a nice large vein …’

‘Mm. On second thoughts …’

‘… and zap you with a couple of hundred joules on the defib …’

‘Yes. Good job I’m feeling fine, really, innit?’ He winked. ‘I’ll see you, Rachel.’

I gave him a cheerful little wave, and listened to his slow departing footsteps; then took another bite of sandwich, and returned my attention to Burns and Their Treatment (Illustrated).

Saturday night was probably going to be busier (much busier, knowing our luck) but I was off, so it wasn’t my worry. I woke up late on the Saturday afternoon, and just slouched around in my T-shirt for a bit, enjoying the peace and quiet of having the flat to myself. Not that I begrudged Sarah her share of the place: she’s my flatmate – bright, slightly scatterbrained, works on Surgical – and good company as well as someone to split the rent with. I get on with her well enough – and in fact, with her working days and me on nights, we’re not tripping over each other that often. But there are times when you do need space to yourself, without heaps of ironing on chairs, half-cooked meals in the kitchen, or strange boyfriends wandering out of the bathroom when you least expect it.

For my own part, I’d started sleeping regularly with Wendy again. I’d thought it was all over; but now I found I was needing the company more and more. Someone to snuggle up with. Someone to hold on to in the dark. She was still in my room, lying lax on my unmade bed – an outsize rag doll, smiling brightly at the ceiling. I’d won her in a kids’ unit Christmas raffle: years ago.

The cat sidled up to rub itself against my leg as I made myself some toast and coffee. We call him Trinity, which is different, I suppose. Ignoring his wheedling on the grounds that he’d already been fed twice today, I stared out of the window at the neighbouring rooftops and back gardens. The sky was overcast: sullen with cloud. Someone was working on his shed, but other than that it was all quiet: the stillness of a winter afternoon. For no particular reason, I found myself recalling Saturday teatime when I was a kid: my dad and older brother watching the football results while mum and I made the tea and toast, cosy in the kitchen as the outside daylight cooled and faded.

A quick glance under the grill told me the bread was just as white as it had been thirty seconds ago, and I turned back to the window. The radio was chattering happily to itself in the background, and I was ignoring that too, scarcely noticing as the commercial break faded into the local news – but the lead headline put a hook through my idling attention and drew my head round sharply.

Murdered.

That word registered at once; the rest of the sentence took a moment to make sense around it.

‘… a man has been found murdered in a derelict house in …’

Our town. Suddenly I felt my thumb between my teeth.

‘… multiple stab wounds. A post-mortem examination …’

Now there was a rarity – even for a place as big and rough as this one’s getting. We were promised coverage of a scheduled press conference in the next bulletin, and the reporter passed on to other matters – but he left me well behind, still worrying his words – running them through my mind again, and then again. Of course I knew that most murders happen within a family, or circle of acquaintances: the chances were this was just some private, vicious settling of scores. Over and done with. The idea of some maniac walking around – catching people alone and slaughtering them for the hell of it – flitted quickly through my head, but without conviction. That sort of thing might happen in films, or even America; but not here. No: the slightly sick disquiet I suddenly felt came from memories of mutilation I’d seen myself. Not the rough and random mutilation of the car-smash, though, nor even the crude carving of a knife or broken bottle. Rather the precise and pitiless intervention of surgical steel – and outcomes in terms of a heart burst open, a brain top-sliced; a uterus scarred and sterile. Over the past year, someone with detailed medical knowledge had done all that, and maybe more – and maybe he was a maniac, at that. Or maybe something worse.

Much worse. I sensed where my thoughts were going, and almost shook my head to clear it. Pack it in, I told myself flatly: no more nightmares. It was daylight, after all, and the real world was all around me. And there was evil enough in some of the human beings out there, without me having to invent spectres of my own …

Murdered …

I became aware of a sharp reek in my nostrils then: the toast had burned black, and was starting to smoulder.

With Sarah away for the weekend, I had an uninterrupted, empty evening in front of the TV, and an early night. But Sunday was a better day: brighter; clearer. I knew it was a day to visit Jenny.

I took the first bus of the afternoon, travelling across town to the Milston Road cemetery through streets that were quiet and all but empty, apart from the occasional car or someone walking his dog. Getting off by the corner shop just down the road, which really did seem to be open all hours, I bought a modest bunch of flowers (their selection wasn’t that great) before walking slowly on to the open iron gates, and through them into the sunlit silence of the graveyard.

It was an ideal afternoon, fine and crisp; the twigs and branches of denuded trees standing out sharply against the clean, cold blue of the sky. The lawns were tidy as ever; the whole layout of the place spoke of restfulness and calm. I walked past the ordered plots without hurrying, making the most of the atmosphere … the peace … and enjoying the refreshing keenness of the air. But perhaps there was a certain reluctance too that made me tarry: a lurking unwillingness to reach the place I was heading for, and face its reality once again.

At length I got there none the less – the youngest corner of the cemetery, where the long, narrow mounds of earth had yet to be concealed by slabs and headstones. In a way they seemed the better marker: the natural brown of turned soil, offsetting the vivid splash of colour here and there where someone had placed fresh flowers. Much more moving than the ornate monuments of stone and marble all around me. But I knew how it was: how the earth had to be left to settle before the headstone could be erected. And settle meant subside, as the rotting coffin lid finally caved in, and dark earth slithered through to engulf its occupant’s remains.

So how could I picture that happening to Jenny, whom I’d last seen six weeks ago, vivaciously alive, her blue eyes shining – surely not the same person who now lay, cold and still, six feet beneath the mound I’d paused before?

Still not quite believing it, I crouched and laid my flowers on the bare earth.

Silence. No voices or traffic; not even birds. I quite wanted to pray, but my mind just wouldn’t focus. I just sat on my heels there, my coat brushing the dirt, and felt the hot, stinging wetness force its way into my eyes and nostrils. I couldn’t keep it back. I didn’t try.

After I’d finished, I sniffed, and wiped my cheeks, and blew my nose; and felt a little better. More time passed. Finally I gave a small sigh, and rose to my feet; walked over to a nearby bench and sat down.

I knew there were some things about her death I would never fully come to terms with. The shocking senselessness of it; the unanswered questions. But as I sat there, soaking up the atmosphere of calm and stillness around me, I reckoned I was slowly learning to live with it. The cry had done me good, cleared away a lot of pent-up grief and confusion. I still didn’t know why she’d died – but the turmoil inside me had faded now, leaving a sort of resigned acceptance. I did know that I’d loved her very much – and that was a memory I could treasure, and always carry with me.

Letting my gaze ease off across the cemetery, I found myself musing that she probably wouldn’t have wanted a burial – not a free-thinking, practical girl like Jenny. A clean cremation with minimal ceremony would have been much more her scene. I think the church service and the more permanent resting place had been for her mum’s benefit: she’d wanted it that way. It had been a nice service, though. I’d cried then, too.