Lily’s hand went to her bare throat, her fingers trembling.
‘Oh, Sadie, what have you done?’ Belle shook her head.
‘I had to do something,’ she snapped. ‘You saw what he did to Mum!’
‘You shouldn’t have done it,’ Belle said. ‘You don’t go running to the police, you should know that. God only knows where it might lead.’
Peter Machin’s warning came back to her then. ‘Jimmy can’t hurt anyone if he’s locked up,’ Sadie said.
‘He’s got mates though, hasn’t he? Some very important mates.’
‘If they’re that important they won’t concern themselves with a nobody like Jimmy.’
‘You know nothing about it.’
Lily Sedgewick spoke up. She turned to Sadie, eyes burning in her pale face. ‘You should never have done it,’ she said. ‘You should have stayed out of my business.’
‘And watched you being used as a punchbag?’ Sadie shot back at her.
Lily started pacing, twisting the tea-stained cloth between her hands.
‘You must go down to the police station and take back your statement,’ she muttered, almost to herself. ‘Tell them you made a mistake.’
‘No!’ Sadie said. ‘Besides, they’ve got the evidence.’
‘You’ve got to do something!’ Her mother looked at her, face desperate. ‘You’ve got to save him …’
Sadie saw the despair in her eyes and realisation dawned. Her mother wasn’t afraid of Jimmy. She loved him. She was too hopelessly in thrall to him ever to save herself.
Sadie’s chin lifted. ‘I’m going to stand up in that court and tell everyone what he did.’
For a moment they faced each other in silence.
‘Then you’re no longer welcome in my home,’ Lily said coldly.
Belle gasped. ‘Now, Lily, you know you don’t mean that!’
‘I do.’ Lily Sedgewick’s face was calm. ‘This is between me and Jimmy, it’s nothing to do with her.’
‘All right, if that’s how you feel …’ As Sadie went to fetch her coat, she heard Belle whispering urgently to her mother, and Lily’s voice saying, ‘No, Belle, it’s for the best. If she can’t mind her own business, then I don’t want her around.’
‘But, Lil—’
‘It’s all right, Belle. You heard her, she’s made her choice.’ Sadie reached into her bag and pulled out the dried flower picture. ‘And you can keep this. I don’t want anything from you!’
For a moment, her mother hesitated. Then she reached out and snatched the picture back.
Chapter Twenty-Four
There was a riot going on in the Students’ Union on Christmas night.
Charlie Latimer was standing on top of the bar, flanked by Talbot and Evans, all three of them dressed in blue-striped nurses’ uniforms that exposed inches of pale, hairy ankle. Their caps sat askew on their heads as they threw their arms around each other, murdering a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus they had adapted.
Three little student nurses are we, come from a class on anatomy …
Rufus winced into his pint at their flat, high voices. But the student nurses they had invited to be their audience seemed to enjoy it. They clapped along, cheering encouragement and roaring with laughter.
‘I wonder you aren’t up there with them?’ Joan Gifford said. She sat across the table from Rufus, nursing a pink gin.
He smiled ruefully. ‘My voice isn’t up to it.’
‘Neither are theirs.’ She sized him up over the rim of her glass. ‘You could borrow my uniform,’ she said. ‘I reckon you’d look a treat in one of my aprons!’
‘I daresay I would.’
Her eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘Go on, then. Do it. I dare you!’
‘No, thanks. I’m not in the mood for cavorting around.’
‘I can see that.’ Joan sat back in her seat and sipped her gin moodily.
Rufus sighed. This was a mistake. He should never have invited Staff Nurse Gifford out tonight.
He could tell she was disappointed, and he didn’t blame her. Any other night and he would have been up there with Latimer, singing along and showing off his ankles. But tonight …
He glanced across to the next table, where Leo Carlyle sat, his arm draped around the shoulders of a pretty young nurse. He had been on the military ward today too, but he looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Across the table, Joan Gifford gave a dissatisfied sigh. ‘Well, this is great fun, I’m sure,’ she muttered. ‘I would have had a better time playing whist with Miss Sutton.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rufus said. ‘I’ve had a hard day, that’s all. We lost three men on the ward today.’
Joan Gifford shrugged. ‘Patients die all the time. You should be used to it by now.’
‘Yes, but they were only boys. One was barely eighteen.’ He caught Joan’s blank expression and stopped. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Being miserable about it won’t bring them back, will it?’ He held up his glass to her. ‘Cheers.’
She held up her own. ‘Here’s to not being miserable.’
Rufus downed his pint and stood up. ‘Another?’
‘Why not?’ She smiled.
He found himself standing next to Leo Carlyle at the bar. They nodded to each other.
‘Where’s your sister?’ Rufus asked.
Leo cupped his hand over his ear. ‘Who?’
‘Your sister,’ Rufus shouted over the din.
Leo shrugged. ‘Probably still at work, knowing Kate.’
Rufus looked at his watch. ‘At this time? It’s nearly ten o’clock.’
‘You know how dedicated she is.’ Leo turned to the barman. ‘Port and lemon and a whisky. A double,’ he added.
For the next half an hour Rufus did his best to be entertaining. He determinedly sank another pint and listened to Joan Gifford complaining about Miss Sutton and her fellow staff nurses.
He watched her mouth moving and tried hard to concentrate, but her voice turned into an annoying buzz in his head.
He looked at Latimer and the others, still cavorting on the bar. Maybe Joan was right. He should put on an apron and a cap and join them. He could forget his troubles, forget those young men who had died before their time. He wasn’t going to bring them back by being miserable, was he?
Charlie Latimer and the other medical students finally clambered down from the bar, helped by the laughing student nurses. A moment later Charlie joined Rufus, still dressed in his nurse’s uniform. He had lost a stud and his starched collar was half hanging off.
‘You’re a picture!’ laughed Joan. ‘I’m not sure what Sister would make of you.’
‘Mincemeat, probably!’ Charlie grimaced and reached for Rufus’ glass to take a gulp of beer.
He went to put it back in front of him, but Rufus pushed it away. ‘Have it,’ he said, standing up.
Charlie and Joan both looked at him. ‘Are you off already, old man?’ Charlie said.
‘I’ve just remembered, there’s something I need to do.’
‘And what about me?’ Joan looked put out.
‘Charlie will see you safely back to the nurses’ home. That’s all right, isn’t it?’ he asked Latimer.
‘Well, I—’
‘It’s not all right with me!’ Joan huffed. ‘You were the one who asked me to come out with you tonight.’
‘Latimer here is far better company than I am,’ Rufus said, already shrugging on his coat.
But Joan Gifford clearly wasn’t satisfied. ‘What is it you’ve forgotten anyway?’ she demanded.
‘I need to take some samples down to Pathology for testing.’
‘At this time of night?’ Joan snorted. ‘There won’t be anyone there. It’s Christmas Day.’
Rufus glanced at Leo.
‘I think I know someone who’ll be there,’ he said.
A crack of light spilt from the pane of glass in the door to Pathology, illuminating the dark section of passageway outside. Rufus stood loo
king in for a moment, watching Kate at her bench. Her dark hair was caught up in pins on top of her head, and there was something oddly vulnerable about the slender arch of her neck as she bent over a microscope. She didn’t look like the tense, hostile young woman he had seen on the ward. Here, she seemed peaceful, content.
And then she looked up and caught him watching her, and her scowl was suddenly back in place.
‘What do you want?’ she snapped as Rufus walked in, letting the door swing shut behind him.
‘I have a couple of tissue samples for you to examine.’
She glanced at the clock. ‘Couldn’t they wait?’
‘I’d like them done as soon as possible, if you don’t mind.’
‘Don’t you have juniors to do that for you?’
‘They’re all too busy flirting with nurses in the SU bar, I’m afraid.’ He paused. ‘I’m surprised you aren’t there too?’
‘Flirting with the nurses?’
He smiled. ‘Was that a joke, Miss Carlyle?’
She took the samples from him and crossed the lab to prepare the slides.
‘There’s no need to do it straight away,’ he said. ‘It’s just a couple of lung lesions, nothing serious.’
She glanced over her shoulder at him. ‘I thought you said they were needed as soon as possible?’
Rufus looked down at his feet, caught out in the lie. ‘I don’t want you to miss the party,’ he mumbled.
‘I’m sure I’m not missing much.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Latimer was dressed up as a nurse.’
‘It sounds rather puerile to me.’
Rufus watched her as she selected a glass slide from a box, her back turned to him. She was so cool and dismissive, he felt his old resentment against her resurfacing.
‘You made such a fuss about being allowed in to the SU bar and yet I’ve never seen you there,’ he remarked.
Kate took a pipette of fluid, holding it up to the light. ‘I only wanted the door kept open. I didn’t necessarily want to go through it.’
He stared at her dark head, bent over the slide she was preparing, and suddenly he understood. He knew only too well what it was like to have doors closed on him.
He pulled his attention away from her and glanced around the laboratory, with its rows of glass jars, each filled with ominous-looking organ specimens. The strong smell of formaldehyde hung in the air.
He turned away with a shudder. ‘How can you bear this place?’
Kate looked up from her work. ‘It suits me very well,’ she said. ‘And Dr Werner is very good. He’s taught me a lot.’
‘I’ve never cared for the work myself. I much prefer dealing with the living, not the dead.’ He paused then confessed, ‘I passed out during my first post-mortem.’
He told her the story of how he had woken up in the middle of the Pathology demonstration theatre with Dr Werner staring down at him, a bone saw in his hand, and how he had somehow got the idea that he was to be the subject of the doctor’s post-mortem.
It was an amusing tale, and usually made the nurses laugh when he told it to them. But Kate listened to him with an expression of strained politeness on her face, as if she was watching a child reciting a poem badly. A look that made Rufus wonder why he was even telling her the story in the first place.
‘Sorry, I’m rambling.’ He stopped talking abruptly. He was nervous, he realised. There was something about Kate’s cool aloofness that made him feel like a humble grammar school boy again. ‘I’ll let you get on with your work. I’ll leave the notes here, shall I?’ He placed the file down on the bench and headed for the door, then turned back to look at her. ‘Are you sure you won’t come to the bar?’
‘I don’t think I’d be very welcome.’
‘Since when has that stopped you?’
She glanced up at him. A lock of dark hair had escaped from its pins and fallen across her face, but behind it he thought he could detect the slightest hint of a smile.
Kate was studying the slide under the microscope half an hour later when the door opened behind her.
Thinking it was Rufus French, she said, ‘I’m glad you’ve come back. I have something to show you.’
‘Sounds promising.’
She looked up sharply. Charlie Latimer stood in the doorway, grinning wolfishly. He was wearing a suit but his tie hung loose about his neck.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘Looking for you.’
‘Why aren’t you at the party?’
‘It was no fun without you there.’
Kate turned back to her microscope. ‘I find that difficult to believe.’
‘It was no fun for me, put it that way.’
As he came towards her, Kate could smell the waves of alcohol coming off him. ‘That’s not what I heard,’ she said. ‘Dr French said you were the life and soul of the party.’
‘Dr French is rapidly turning into a miserable old bore.’ He pulled a hip flask from his pocket and put it down on the bench next to her. Kate stared at it.
‘What’s that?’
‘What does it look like? I thought if you wouldn’t come to the party, I’d bring the party to you.’ He pulled off the top of the flask and took a swig.
‘Put it away!’ Kate said, appalled. ‘You know you’re not supposed to drink in the lab.’
‘And who’s going to tell?’ Charlie looked around at the rows of jars. ‘Go on,’ he said, thrusting the flask at her. ‘Live dangerously for once.’
‘No, thank you.’ Kate turned away from him, back to her microscope. ‘Take a look at this slide, would you?’
Charlie Latimer squinted at her, clearly taken aback. ‘What?’
‘This sample Dr French gave me. I’d like you to look at it.’
‘Now?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind?’ Kate slid from her stool to allow Charlie to take her place.
It took him a moment to get his balance, and even longer to stare down the lens. ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?
She said, ‘Do they look like tubercles to you?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Are you sure? Look again.’
‘I think I know a tubercle bacillus when I see one, Kate.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ She looked down at the scrawled notes Rufus French had left with her. ‘You were wrong,’ she murmured.
Charlie Latimer frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kate dismissed the question. ‘But if you’ll excuse me, I have to write up my notes.’
‘Can’t it wait?’
She shook her head. ‘I need to get them written up as soon as possible.’
Charlie stumbled from the stool and she took his place, pulling her notebook towards her. She could feel him standing there, inches away from her, watching as she peered into the microscope again.
She looked up at him. ‘Was there something else?’
He cleared his throat. ‘I must say, you’re looking very lovely this evening.’
Kate studied his flushed face. ‘Are you drunk?’
‘Perhaps I am.’ Charlie’s chin lifted defiantly. ‘Perhaps I needed some Dutch courage.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘This …’ Before Kate had time to register the sprig of mistletoe he had pulled from his pocket it was too late. He lunged at her, nearly knocking her off the stool as his mouth came down on hers, wet and sloppy and tasting of beer.
Kate jumped to her feet, pushing him away so hard he staggered backwards, his legs buckling under him. He sprawled on the floor at her feet, staring up at her with a stunned expression.
‘It was only a Christmas kiss,’ he mumbled.
Kate turned away from him, shaken. ‘I think you’d better go,’ she said.
She heard him stumbling to his feet. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I thought you liked me … I’ve been waiting weeks to do it …’
‘Just go, will you?’
‘I’
m sorry …’
She held herself rigid until she heard the door close behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
For once Liesel didn’t mind sharing a room with Anna. She huddled up in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, while Anna sat at the dressing table, brushing her hair.
‘This is the night the note said they’d come,’ Liesel whimpered.
‘I told you, no one’s coming.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I know.’
‘But the note said—’
‘Liesel, will you shut up about the note?’ Anna scowled at her sister’s reflection in the mirror. ‘It’s just nonsense, that’s all.’
‘Then why is Mother so afraid?’ Liesel asked.
‘She isn’t.’ But Anna knew this was a lie. She had seen Dorothy Beck struggling to put on a brave face for her daughters all day. Every time the wind howled outside her mother would look up sharply, as if she expected the door to crash off its hinges any second.
When they went to bed, Anna had watched her carefully locking the windows and bolting the doors.
‘It’s to keep out the draughts,’ she had said. ‘It’s such a cold, windy night.’
Anna couldn’t see how a bolt could keep out a draught, but she said nothing. Nor did she argue when her mother said she was going to sit up for a while, after the girls had gone to bed. Anna had left her in the parlour, bent over some sewing by the light of the gas lamp.
Anna laid down her brush and went to turn down the lamp, but Liesel said, ‘Leave it for a while. Please?’
Anna was about to argue but then she looked into her sister’s blue eyes, wide with fear.
‘Just for a few minutes, then,’ she sighed. ‘We don’t want to waste it.’
She clambered into bed. Liesel immediately huddled against her, limbs caught in a tangle of flannel nightgown.
‘Will you keep talking to me until I go to sleep?’
‘What shall I talk about?’
‘Anything. I don’t mind. I can’t sleep if it’s too quiet.’
Anna smiled. ‘You’re usually telling me to shut up!’
‘I know.’ Then, before Anna could say any more, Liesel suddenly burst out, ‘We won’t be murdered in our beds, will we?’
A Nightingale Christmas Promise Page 20