Angels of Mourning

Chapter 2

A flick of my fingers and thumb and it was off again – veering over the desktop in a black-and-white blur.

I watched it, mesmerized, chin in hand: my pen laid aside on the sheaf of Off-Duties; the requests ledger forgotten at my elbow. My turn to do the rosters this month, a chore at the best of times – but this was more than just distraction. The thing had virtually found its own way to my fingers; they’d itched to make it move. There was something morbidly compelling about its inevitable progress: it held my attention like a hook.

It spun like an ordinary top at first; then with the weird, wobbling motion of a gyroscope, leaning out at forty-five degrees for longer than I’d thought was possible. But finally it fell, and rolled, and came to rest in front of me.

The Ace of Spades, of course.

So what game of chance could you possibly play? No matter how you spun it, you’d never beat its bias towards bad luck.

I halfway reached for it again – then changed my mind, and let it lie. It almost felt like a test of my resolve: being able to leave the bloody thing alone. In (and out of) my desk five days already, and I still hadn’t got round to handing it in. No one had rung to enquire, but even so … This afternoon, then, I decided. This time I won’t forget.

Maybe my fingers just needed something to keep them busy; maybe it was nerves. Like when I sometimes caught myself fiddling with the rings on my fingers, or the cross round my neck: an unconscious, edgy reflex.

The sort I knew I’d shown this morning, while I listened to Lucy weep.

It’s not just the relatives who need a quiet cry sometimes; the stress can wear the best of us down. I’ve needed a good, hard hug myself before now. But poor Lucy had more than the workload or the death of a patient on her mind. She’d just lost one of her friends.

Quite horribly.

I hadn’t known the girl myself: she’d worked over on one of the surgical wards, and our paths hadn’t crossed. Anna Stubbs, her name was. And yesterday she’d got into her car, just round by the nurses’ home; turned the ignition – and been burned alive.

No warning: no hope. The car had been a fireball in seconds. We’d known nothing at the time – all sirens sound the same on a busy day – and it wasn’t until I got home and saw the TV that I realised where the commotion had been coming from. There’d been a fleeting clip on South East News: the gutted hulk that had once been a trim Mini Metro. ‘… a tragic accident,’ according to the voice-over ‘claimed the life of a young nurse in London today …’ And watching, I’d lost my appetite completely.

How much worse for Lucy, who’d been sitting on a birthday present, ready-wrapped, for Anna’s twenty-third: next Thursday. She’d come in this morning with a brave enough face, but couldn’t hold it. And when I suggested a quiet chat in my office, it wasn’t long before she let herself go completely.

In between sobs and sniffles she’d tried her best to talk it all out – and I’d done my best to help it come. An awful, awkward job; but one I felt oddly at ease with. Perhaps because I knew just how she was feeling.

‘Really I do,’ I’d insisted, while she watched me miserably, and wiped her reddened eyes. ‘I mean … I lost my parents when I was just your age. That was an RTA. And then … a couple of years ago … my flatmate was … was murdered by her boyfriend …’ And oh, there’d been more to it than that, of course. Much more. But it was enough to sit her up, quite startled – then sympathetic herself.

‘Oh, Rachel. I’m so sorry …’

I shrugged, and quickly steered the conversation back to her. Her problems. I felt guilty dwelling on my own.

And really didn’t want to.

But they’d already started stirring again, at the back of my head. The memories of darkness, and burning, and bloody death. Stuff it had taken me months to get over; and years to begin to forget. As Lucy talked on, her voice getting slowly stronger, I fingered my crucifix – feeling its ends digging in under my nails – and tried very hard just to follow her words.

‘Did you … ever get depressed or anything?’ she’d ventured after a while; having said all she’d felt necessary on her own account. Ready to listen in turn now: the first step back up the ladder. I was grateful for that, at least.

‘Well …’ I hesitated. Then: ‘Yes, I was – for quite a while. Reactive depression, you know?’ And she nodded, 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 my startled eyes, and made me see. Comfortable certainties had crumbled to dust. And then she’d dragged me into her feud with a firm of Physicians as evil and old as she was: and the blood-bags really hit the fan …

I found the top was in my fingers once again: I’d fished it up from my drawer without thinking. Turning it over in my free hand, I put Michelle down for the Late – then gave in to the temptation, and set it spinning one more time.

Maybe I should just tell them I can’t spare the time, I thought glumly, watching it move. Maybe I’ll even manage not to make it sound too selfish …

Maybe.

The little top toppled, and spiralled to a stop before me.

Ace of bloody Spades.

Chapter 3

The next day I passed a uniformed policeman in the downstairs corridor: a bag of sandwiches from the foyer shop in one hand, a coffee in the other – and a huge black revolver in a holster at his belt. He seemed not to notice my startled double-take. So I was left to speculate – until Jez broke the news at the gossipy tail-end of Report.

‘Heard who they’ve got down on Ortho? Only one of those bloody terrorists …’ You could tell he was pleased with our reaction: his freckled face lit up. ‘Under armed guard. One of the porters was telling me.’ Which made it gospel, of course.

‘I heard it was some gang leader or someone,’ Lucy countered equably. ‘Got shot, and they’ve had to give him armed protection.’ She hesitated. ‘Or maybe he was stabbed …’

The hospital grapevine was obviously working well. I smiled to myself, still writing.

‘Well he wouldn’t be on Bones if he’d been stabbed, would he, Lucinda?’ Jean pointed out beside me: putting on her most sententious tone. The sort with nearly thirty years in nursing to back it up. And I, with less than twelve, might be Sister to her Staff Nurse – but it still sometimes felt like she was the headmistress, and I was just head girl.

Most of it was just an act, of course – though her sense of humour was too dry for some people, who took it all seriously. But Lucy knew the score, and they got on well. No one else would dare call her Lucinda: she hated that.

‘Now, Mr Clarke,’ Jean continued, fixing Jez with shrewd grey eyes. ‘If you would be so kind as to expand upon your information … ?’

He was glad to. ‘Well, according to Bob, he was brought in after the Liverpool Street bomb: leg and back injuries. But something about him didn’t fit. The cops who interviewed him got suspicious. Now they reckon he probably planted the damn thing, and didn’t get clear fast enough …’ His smile had faded now. Like the rest of us who’d been on that night, he was clearly recalling the mess that bomb had made of two hapless human beings.

The second victim had survived his emergency op, and come through to us in the small hours of the following morning. He was still with us now: still struggling. Scarcely a square inch of his skin visible between the bandages, IV sites and ECG electrodes.

‘Bastard,’ Sue muttered, with a glance towards the bed. Hardly an original sentiment; but a sincere one. I added a rider, something about them probably not being sure yet. But I knew it lacked conviction.

I taxed Nick with it when I got home; he confirmed Jez’s version in a roundabout sort of way. Terrorist suspect under guard. There’d been nothing about it on the news as yet. But give it time, I thought.

What most unnerved me was the thought of armed police around the hospital – for all that they were trying to keep the profile as low as possible. I couldn’t forget the look of the pistol that PC had carried – strapped snug into its holster, but still full of latent threat: seeming much bigger and heavier in real life than the guns you see in films. I’d stepped much further aside than I’d needed to let him pass; but while one part of me had shied away, another had stared in morbid fascination.

It would have to be loaded, of course. Live ammunition. And what would happen if someone made a try for their charge? Would they draw those guns in a hospital ward, and start to shoot, with helpless patients all around (and nurses, come to that)? It almost made me shudder just to think it.

So I was glad I had other – happier – things to occupy my next day off. Besides, it was worth it just to see Nick’s face when he walked drowsily into the kitchen to find me having breakfast with a giant yellow teddy bear.

‘… who’s it for?’ he asked again, still eyeing it warily while he poured his coffee. Propped up in the chair at my elbow, it seemed to stare affably back at him through its cellophane wrappings.

‘Sandra. You know, that girl we had in with us the other week. Meningitis …’ I had another spoonful of cereal while he came and sat down. ‘She’s still in the kids’ ward, and … I don’t know, I just wanted to brighten her day.’ Which was the only way I could express it, really. I’d been thinking about her a lot of late; and buying this had suddenly felt right.

‘Fair enough.’ He made a show of leaning forward, face set, as though intimidating a suspect. The bear remained unfazed. ‘Got a name, has he?’

I shrugged, grinning.

‘Utilising his right to remain silent, eh? I know his type …’ He snorted; then reached across to take my free hand, and squeeze it. ‘That was a really nice idea, Raitch. I hope she loves it.’

‘Me too. She’s a nice kid.’

He gave me a half-suspicious look. ‘Not getting broody, are we?’

‘No, we are not.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Any more questions?’

‘Are you wearing anything at all under that shirt?’ he asked conversationally.

‘Nick. I’m having breakfast.’

‘So. We can improvise.’

‘Sod off.’

He met my smile with a look of injured innocence; then sighed dramatically, and spread his hands.

‘Well, then: can I interest you in some toast?’

At least his hope for the afternoon was realised; and mine as well. Sandra liked her present lots.

I sat back in the bedside chair and watched her hug it – pressing it up against her cheek. It looked about to smother her.

‘Oh, Rachel … he’s lovely. Thanks ever so much.’

‘Thought you’d like him,’ I murmured, feeling almost as delighted as she looked: enjoying the glow of warmth that grew inside me. Nothing to do with broodiness, despite Nick’s suspicions; just the simple, heady buzz of making somebody’s day. Someone I’d seen at death’s door, and helped nurse back to health. She was still a little pale, but her fine brown hair had its sheen back now – and her eyes their sparkle. She looked like an eight-year-old girl was supposed to look: carefree, and full of fresh life.

And I’d been her age once, of course – but I couldn’t imagine it. Not any more. Couldn’t dream of seeing the world with such unclouded eyes.

I felt my smile becoming wistful, and glanced away: around the bed-bay. The colour scheme was insistently cheerful – bright paint backing up an agreeably scrappy wallpapering of kids’ drawings. Toys and televisions vied for attention. All trying – against the odds – to make the place a little bit less scary; a little more like home.

It still smelled like a hospital, though. And no child’s bedroom was ever this clinically clean.

‘Has your mum been in to see you today?’ I asked, looking back at her. And Sandra shook her head, still cuddling her present.

‘Not yet – she’s coming tonight.’ She said it quite matter-of-factly; but I saw her squeeze the bear a little tighter as she spoke, as if seeking reassurance.

I knew what the problem was, of course. Her dad had walked out years ago, leaving her mum to manage on her own with three small kids. So the poor woman had to work her guts out to make ends meet. I’d learned as much when Sandra was in with us – her mother almost frantic with worry, yet unable to spare the time she wanted to: time that was money her family needed. It had taken me a lot of quiet talking to convince her she was leaving her daughter in safe and loving hands; and a whole lot more to persuade her that she needn’t feel so guilty.

Now that Sandra was back on the ward, I’d taken to visiting her regularly: trying as best I could to fill the gaps when her mum couldn’t make it. It would take more than giant teddy bears to manage that, of course; but she was always glad to see me, and the feeling was mutual.

‘Did you see the snow?’ I asked her, looking over towards the window. It was tall, and much in need of cleaning; the rooftops I could see through it were more grungey grey than white.

‘Oh yes. We can’t see much from up here, but Nurse Janet told me all about it. She promised to let me throw a snowball at her … if it’s still here when I go.’ Her small face fell. ‘But I bet it won’t be.’

Someone had appeared at the end of the bed: a sandy-haired young man with a serious, bespectacled smile. He acknowledged me with a nod, then turned his attention to the patient, and leaned forward to examine the bear. ‘Hello, Sandra. Is this your new friend, then?’

She stared up at him, eyes narrowed in childish suspicion. ‘Yes, he is. Are you a doctor?’

His smile widened. ‘I certainly am. Look …’ He unslung the red stethoscope from round his neck. ‘And this is my badge, see …’ It was pinned to his check shirt. ‘My name’s Dr Miller.’

She didn’t appear convinced. ‘You’re not a proper doctor, though. You haven’t got a white coat.’

Dr Miller glanced at me again. I just rolled my eyes.

‘When mum takes me to see Dr Hughes,’ Sandra went on firmly, ‘he usually wears a suit, but sometimes he’s got his white coat on. So I know he’s a proper doctor.’

So much for the medics on the kids’ ward not wearing white coats in an effort to make the place seem homelier. I grinned, and got to my feet.

‘I’m sure he’s a proper doctor really, Sandra: he looks like one to me. So I’ll leave the two of you to have a chat …’ Dr Miller winked gratefully; he’d already unhooked the clipboard of charts from the bed-end. I leaned down and ruffled Sandra’s hair.

‘Listen, I’ll try and drop in tomorrow, okay? Take care. Say hello to your mum from me.’

She nodded brightly, and gave me a wave. As I left, I could hear her proudly introducing Dr Miller to her very newest friend.