Woman on Ward 13
Iris Lowe Mysteries Book 1
Delphine Woods
Pepper Pot Publishing
Copyright © 2020 by Delphine Woods
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For Annie, and all the faithful, furry friends who are playing up in the clouds.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
The free Delphine Woods Starter Library
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Delphine Woods
Prologue
1870
The hammer slips out of my hands.
I stagger back, stumble over the side, land in the water. My skirts drag against my legs as I climb out, and then I run.
The water drips from my gown, the wet material weighing me down, catching on the grasses. Nettles sting my palms. The ground is uneven, hard in places, soft in others; my feet crash into ridges or slide in the sludge.
The bridge is in sight. I scramble up to it, tearing my flesh on the gravel and the brambles so that my blood is mixed with his.
My shoes pound on the road. The autumn wind slices my face. My breath rips my lungs.
Past the groundkeeper’s cottage. A twitch from the window? I do not care who sees me, who hears me. Is it me who screams, or is it the sound of his soul sweeping away?
I sprint for the house, crash through the oak door. My heels echo on the flagstones of the great hall, and the eyes of the dead watch me as I dash for the stairs.
The flash of my son’s milk-pale face, eyes bulging. The whisper of his governess’s voice, telling him to come away. The thud of their door, the clink of a lock. Safe, away from me.
Round and round the staircase. I fear I am lost in hell already, cursed to spend eternity spiralling, searching, sobbing.
Then the light from the gallery windows. He will be in the library, so I run again and slam into the room.
He starts, drops the book in his lap, his mouth agape. ‘What has happened?’
I hold out my shaking hands. The blood is growing sticky, staining my own white flesh.
‘I have killed him.’
1
1956
‘Wasting your money on flowers,’ Iris’s mother said. She was in her worn-out dressing gown, the cotton so thin that Iris could see the floral patterns of her nightdress underneath it.
‘I haven’t wasted my money. I picked them from the woods yesterday.’ Iris scooped up the handful of bluebells and ferns that had been lying on the kitchen table next to her mother’s cup of tea.
‘Never get your mother any flowers.’
‘I’ll pick you some on my way home tonight.’
‘You shall not. Don’t you get going in them woods at nighttime. Lord knows who might be lurking.’
‘Fine.’ Iris finished her tea. ‘I won’t get you any flowers.’
‘Bet they won’t even know what they are.’
Iris checked her watch. She needed to go. She threw her cloak over her shoulders. ‘Actually, they know lots of flowers. They’re the only things that make them smile.’ Her mother muttered something, but Iris couldn’t catch it. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’
‘I hope they like them,’ her mum called as Iris walked out through the back door.
The sun hadn’t managed to break over the walls of their backyard yet. The cramped space, complete with a few old plant pots and the mangle and wash bucket, was gloomy and dank. She always felt she could breathe better once she had hurried down the alley at the back of their row of houses and out into the lanes.
It was a relatively short walk to Smedley from their house, something that was a relief to her and a cause for concern for her mother; too close to the loonies. Her mother often recounted the time when one of them had escaped and she had found him in their yard, naked from the waist down. She’d kept the yard door bolted ever since.
Smedley soon loomed ahead. Iris passed through its open iron gates and strolled beside the avenue of trimmed lime trees as the hospital’s golden stonework blocked out the morning sunshine and left her in the shadows. She climbed the steps and dashed through the door as one of the junior doctors held it open for her, smiling her thanks, but he had already moved on before glancing back at her.
In the main corridor, people were creeping around like ants. She turned right and trekked to Ward 13.
She nodded and smiled at the nurses she always saw at this time in the morning, the ones with the dark patches under their eyes and creased uniforms after a night shift. She said hello to patients who sat in the chairs outside their wards, still in their night clothes, hair unbrushed. Some of them said hello back; most didn’t.
The sounds of the hospital were beginning to strengthen the further down the corridor she went. A long wail rang from a ward to her right, and through the window in the door, she could see one middle-aged lady swatting at a nurse who was trying to remove her bedsheets.
The corridor veered left, and her ward door came into view at the very end of the tiled walkway. Then the smell hit her. She brought the flowers to her nose and inhaled their freshness, knowing that soon there would be only the scent of stale urine, faeces, and old age. She winced as she opened the door.
She blinked, her eyes finally adjusting to the dimness. The curtains were still closed, and the patients were still in their beds. But they knew morning was coming; the stiff sheets snapped like cardboard as they started fidgeting.
Iris tiptoed to the staff room, where the night nurses were gathering their cloaks and her fellow colleagues were hanging up their bags. She whispered good morning to them all.
‘Maeve’s been up all night. I gave her glutethimide,’ Nurse Rattan said as she yawned, ‘so you’ll have no trouble today.’
‘Very well.’ Miss Carmichael, the charge nurse, straightened her white cap, which had been knocked askew as she removed her coat. ‘See you tonight.’
Miss Rattan and the other couple of nurses clomped out through the ward.
‘They’re nice,’ Shirley – Nurse Temperton, when on duty – whispered to Iris and nodded at the flowers on the desk.
‘Thought they’d brighten the place up a bit.’
‘There always used to be so many flowers, didn’t there?’ Shirley said to Nurse Shaw.
‘Well, when you g
o and pick us some, Temperton, there’ll be some more, won’t there?’
In the ward, Iris fixed the flowers in a vase and set them on the table beside Kath’s bed. The old woman smiled at them then started coughing. Iris gave her a tissue and, once Kath was quiet again, opened the curtains.
The women squinted at the brightness, their toothless mouths grimacing for something to drink. With the light, Iris could see the beds that had been soiled, the women who would need to be wiped clean, the parts of the wooden floor that would have to be mopped.
Starting at the far end of the room, Shirley helped with the commode, and together, she and Iris lifted the old ladies out of their beds, one at a time, and sat them on the stool. The only person they did not wake was Maeve.
‘Still free Friday?’ Iris said as she placed Celia back into bed and stroked the old woman’s hair when she grumbled to get up again.
‘Iris! I’m so sorry.’
‘Oh, it’s no matter.’ Iris pulled the sheet up under Celia’s chin. ‘We can go another time.’
They moved to the next bed, and Iris tried not to be so disappointed, but she couldn’t help the sting of annoyance in her stomach. She had been looking forward to going to the pictures, to having a night away from the ward, to seeing the real world. It had been so long since she’d last had a free evening.
‘Well?’ Shirley smirked as she hoisted Flo upright. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why?’ They sat Flo on the stool. Shirley leant across the woman’s white head and whispered, ‘Dr Brown is taking me out.’
Flo slipped to the side, and Iris jumped to steady the woman. ‘You’re all right, Flo. Are you finished?’
The old woman nodded, and they lifted her to her feet so Iris could wipe her.
‘In you get.’ Iris laid Flo in bed whilst Shirley sauntered off with the full pan. ‘There, now, that’s a good girl.’ Flo’s hands, marked with brown age spots that looked like clumps of mud, clutched Iris.
‘Next one,’ Shirley said as she returned, and Iris prised herself out of Flo’s grip.
‘That explains the lipstick,’ Iris said. ‘And new rouge?’
‘What do you mean? Mr Brown likes me for my inner beauty.’ Shirley grinned wickedly, showing off her enviable white teeth. She was the opposite of Iris. She could have been made for the screen, and on more than one occasion, people had mentioned her likeness to Marilyn Monroe.
‘I don’t know how you find the time.’
‘You make time, Iris. How else do you think you’ll get a husband?’
‘Well, I hope you enjoy the film.’
‘You could come too, if you bring someone along.’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Come on, Iris. There must be someone?’
Iris shook her head. Everyone was so interested in finding her a man. The only thing her mother liked about her working at Smedley was the opportunity for her to meet a nice, young doctor. But the doctors never looked at Iris. She was too plain, too serious. She only spoke to them about patients and treatments, and she was grateful none of them had patted her bottom like they did to other nurses.
She pulled back Nora’s sheets to find them smeared in faeces. They rolled the woman onto her side and wiped the worst of it off, then sat her on the stool and stripped the bed.
‘You wouldn’t have to do this if you married a doctor.’
Iris bundled the soiled linen in her arms and strode for the wash basket. ‘Exactly!’
Inside the day room, the wireless buzzed with war-time tunes. Some of the women hummed along whilst Iris collected their lunch plates. She still had not got used to this time of day, after lunch, when the main duties had been done and a lull came over the women. Hours of nothing, of staring at walls, of watching their tea turn cold.
She loaded the plates and blunt knives and forks onto the trolley, then made her way round with a cloth to wipe the food off the ladies’ chins. There was a bit of wailing and moaning, but most let her clean them as if they were babes.
In this ward, there was very little trouble. The women, all sixty and above, were chronic patients. Most would die here. Nurse Carmichael had warned her about that when she first arrived, and had stared at her to see if she would flinch, but Iris just nodded. She was not scared of death; in this ward, she imagined it would be a welcome relief.
She set about making some tea.
‘Can I help?’ Kath said, as she always did. She took a cup and saucer in each trembling hand and began placing them on the dining tables in front of her fellow patients. The action led to another coughing fit; she dragged in an unsteady breath, then returned for the milk jug.
‘You’re very kind, Kath,’ Iris said.
Kath nodded and lifted her eyes from the floor for a second. They were the palest blue, like forget-me-nots. What a beauty Kath must have been in her youth. Her hair was thick and fell straight to her shoulders, although completely white. Her features could have been described as dainty, if years in the hospital had not made her skin grey and drawn.
Iris followed after Kath, filling up cups with weak tea as relatives came to visit. Most of the visitors were the daughters of the patients, and they’d bring sweets or birthday cards, or they’d brush their mother’s hair just for something to do. The day room grew louder then, for the visitors were never used to talking in hushed tones. Their arrival always caused a stir. A few of the patients started to cry, and Iris saw to Dot who had begun to bang against her dining chair.
‘That’s enough of that, Dot. You’ll hurt yourself.’
Dot’s face was screwed so tightly into itself that her lips had whitened. Iris took hold of her shoulders, feeling the bones underneath her cotton top, and tried to make her be still. For such a skinny woman, Dot had a lot of strength.
‘Dot, you need to calm down.’ Iris was losing the battle. ‘Nurse Temperton?’
Shirley emerged from the back room and came trotting over.
‘This won’t do, Dot. Come on, stop this.’ Shirley took Dot’s other shoulder and yanked her into place, but Dot continued to struggle. ‘You’re being silly now. Just calm yourself. What will your daughter think?’
‘Sally?’ Dot stopped fighting them.
‘Yes, Sally’s coming this afternoon. Don’t you remember? She told you that on Monday.’
‘Sally?’ Dot said, and her face un-creased itself.
‘That’s right. And she won’t want to see you if you’re being silly, will she?’
Dot pinched her lips together and held a finger over them, like a child.
Shirley smiled at Iris. ‘You know your problem? Too nice.’ Then she wiggled away.
Iris refilled the teapot, leaving Dot in her chair. Just as she was about to start the tea round again, the door opened. She was expecting to see Sally, a forty-something carpet factory worker who was almost as tall as the door frame and just as wide, but instead she found a man, so stooped he was almost doubled over. He held his cap in his hands, and a few grey hairs stretched over his otherwise bald head. His dark green suit was worn at the knees, and he lingered in the doorway, his eyes straining to see before him.
‘Hello, sir. Can I help you?’ Iris said.
He tilted his head to the side so that he could see her better. ‘I’m looking for Katy.’
‘Katy? We don’t have a Katy here, sir.’
The man frowned at his cap. ‘I was told she would be here. Katherine Owen?’
It took a while for Iris to understand that the man was talking about Kath. The whole time Iris had worked there, Kath had never had a single visitor. Iris had even asked Nurse Shaw, who had been on the ward for six years, about it, and even she had never known Kath to have any friends or family.
‘Can I ask who you are to Kath, sir?’
‘I... I’m an old friend. Albert Jones.’
‘I’ll just see...’ Iris found Kath sat beside the window at the far end of the day room, looking out at the oak tree, her favourite view.
‘Bertie,’ the m
an called, ‘she’ll know me as Bertie.’
‘Kath?’ Iris took the seat next to the woman and touched her hand. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’
Kath didn’t move.
‘Bertie is here to see you.’
Kath blinked. ‘Bertie Blackbird.’
Iris followed her gaze and saw a blackbird hopping between the thick roots of the oak tree. ‘Do you know Bertie, Kath?’
‘Bertie.’ Kath closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, they were misty. ‘Bertie Blackbird.’
‘Do you want to see him?’
Kath jerked her head towards Iris. ‘Bertie’s here?’
‘That’s right. He’s here to see you.’
Iris couldn’t bear to look into Kath’s wide, watery eyes a moment longer. She sprang to her feet and beckoned Albert to come over. He walked as if his legs were made of iron rods, and it seemed to take an age for him to cross the floor. He waited beside Iris, looking at Kath from over her shoulder.
‘Is this her?’
Iris nodded and gestured for him to take a seat. He swallowed, then sat, and finally, she could see his face more clearly. He did not manage to hide his shock.
‘How are you, Katy?’
Kath took him all in, a frown thick on her forehead.
‘Do you remember me, Katy?’
‘Bertie Blackbird?’
A smile broke over his face. ‘That’s right. How are you?’
Woman on Ward 13: A haunting gothic novel of obsession and insanity (Iris Lowe Mysteries) Page 1