by Robert Innes
Suddenly, a loud bell blasted out around them. Kelsey jumped nearly a foot in the air as the distinctive sound of Big Ben boomed from the tannoy system above them. Kelsey stared at the speaker built into the wall as pandemonium broke out around her as the noise startled the patients into waking up. The familiar chimes of the Westminster Quarters reverberated around the ward as the clock finally arrived at three AM. Kelsey could not move. There was no sense to what was happening. The tannoy system had not been used in years, and yet now she was surrounded by the ominous bong of the hour arriving.
“What the hell is that noise?” cried a patient behind her. “I was fast asleep!”
“What’s going on?” exclaimed another. “How are we supposed to sleep with that going on?”
“Where’s it coming from?” shouted Chloe as she waddled towards the desk. “What’s happening?”
But Kelsey could not speak. She was transfixed, her eyes darting between the clock on the wall and the tannoy speaker.
‘Bong...! Bong...! Bong…!’
Then, as suddenly as the noise had started, the ward fell into silence again.
Kelsey’s heart felt like it was now beating in her throat.
“Is that supposed to be some sort of alarm call?” Blake Harte was now sitting up in bed, watching Kelsey, bleary eyed and looking angry. “Is that sort of thing normal here?”
“No, I’m so sorry,” Chloe replied, shaking her head. “So sorry everybody. I’ve got no idea what’s going on. I’ve never known anything like that to happen before, have you Kelsey?”
Kelsey could not speak. Instead, she found herself running from the ward and down the corridor, arriving at the locker rooms. She hurried inside and slammed the door behind her. She felt dizzy and completely overcome with panic.
Leaning against the door, she began to hyperventilate. What had just happened? There could, as far as she could see, be only one possible explanation. Somebody knew.
Her thoughts were cut into by the sound of her mobile phone ringing from inside her locker. She hurried towards it, assuming that it must be Joe, calling from home to see how she was, as he had promised to do just before he had left, ready to return early the next morning for his own shift. She pulled the door of the locker open and grabbed her phone, which was vibrating against the metal floor of the compartment.
But as she stared at the screen, it was an unknown number. She shook her head in confusion as she watched her phone flash. Joe had never called her from an unknown number before, and yet who else could it be at this time of night?
Cautiously, she pressed answer and held the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she said, her voice shaking.
There was a long pause, though there was clearly someone there. She could hear the sound of breathing.
“Hello?” Kelsey repeated.
What she heard next made her blood run cold.
“Hello, Kelsey.” It was a low, automated voice. It was low and gravelly, but obviously altered.
Her legs almost gave out beneath her as she looked at the phone, as if it would provide her suddenly with the identity of the caller. “Who is this?”
“I’m your past. I’m your secrets,” replied the voice in the same sinister tone. “I’m what you want to keep hidden.”
This time, Kelsey’s legs really did give way. She sank to the floor, more terrified than she had ever been in her life. “I don’t understand,” she exclaimed. “Who is this, who are you?”
“Can’t you guess? The past has come back to play. You’ve got a secret. A dark secret. And I know what it is. Lucy Pennock says hello. She’s been in your nightmares. That’s where I’m from too.”
Kelsey could not speak. She was pressed against the locker, her whole body rigid with fear
“Did you like my bells?” the voice asked. “I made them just for you. The hospital tannoy still works after all these years. Isn’t that fortuitous? You’ll be hearing from me again and so will that murderous boyfriend of yours. Just one last thing.”
Then, the voice disappeared. A moment later, it was replaced by another that Kelsey did recognise. It was the sound of the speaking clock.
“At the third stroke, the time will be three AM precisely.” The usual beep preceding this announcement did not come though. Instead, the sound of a heart monitor bleeped in her ear, the final stroke being the long, monotonous tone of a flatline.
Kelsey threw the phone away from her, letting out a sob of terror. It slid across the floor and clattered against the wall, finally coming to a stop underneath a set of lockers on the other side of the room.
Somehow standing up, her legs shaking, she pulled the door to the locker room open and sprinted down the corridor. She did not stop till she came to the room she had been sleeping in before she began her shift. Bursting inside the room, which was thankfully empty, she slammed the door closed behind her and locked the door, before stumbling to the bed. She curled herself up in the corner and pulled her knees up to her chin. Somebody knew. Somebody knew what she and Joe had done, and they were after her. Her mind raced as she blinked away tears. She could not understand how any of what had happened in the past few minutes were possible. She needed to speak to Joe, but she was too scared to go and retrieve her phone from the locker room.
She lay down on the bed in the darkness and closed her eyes. All she could think now was that the man in ward 7A, Detective Sergeant Blake Harte, could be the only person who could save her from whoever had discovered her darkest secret.
4
By the time Blake finally fell back to sleep, the birds could be heard singing outside and daylight was already threatening to stream through the large glass windows on the wards. After what had felt like only minutes, the trollies were rattling around, and more sleep soon became impossible.
“Still, you’ll be able to sleep when you have your operation,” Stan said cheerfully when he did his rounds with cups of tea.
Blake grunted in reply. “I’m not allowed tea, am I?”
“Not just before your op, no,” Stan said as he passed a cup to an elderly patient opposite Blake.
“Fine with me,” Blake said, hitting his pillow with some force to try and get the bumps out of it. “I don’t know what you put in that tea, but my guess is that it’s where they keep the penicillin.”
Stan chuckled. “Not the first time I’ve heard that. I hear it wasn’t exactly a quiet night?”
Blake shook his head. “I dunno what was going on. Very strange. Is that nurse alright? Kelsey?”
Stan shrugged. “I haven’t seen her. Don’t you worry yourself about it though. They’ll be investigating whoever is responsible for what was going on with the tannoy last night. It was probably one of those nerds sat in front of a computer twenty miles away. You hear about these cyber-attacks. You can do anything now.”
“Seems like a pretty strange cyber-attack to me,” Blake said suspiciously. “Unless terrorists are now partnering up with Greenwich Mean Time. It seemed to me, judging from Kelsey’s reaction, there was something else going on. Have you found she’s been acting strangely at all?”
“Not really,” Stan said, leaning on the rails of Blake’s bed. “Mind you, nobody tells me nothing. I’m just a porter, that’s an odd job man to the rest of the world. I go about doing my job, trying to make staff and patients’ lives easier. But whatever goes on between the staff, I’m not privy to it.”
“You seemed to know a fair bit about Kelsey and her boyfriend when I saw you last night,” Blake suggested.
“They row a lot, I told you that,” Stan replied. “I remember one row a few months ago. I was changing a bulb in the loo and I could hear them through the wall.”
“What were they arguing about?”
Stan frowned. “Why? What are you, some sort of detective?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Blake responded. “I’m a detective sergeant. Strange behaviour is my forte. And anyway, it’s not like I’ve got a lot else to keep me occupied in here.”
/> “Don’t you worry,” Stan said, chuckling. “You’ll be out of here soon enough. Then the daily dramas of Clackton General Hospital will be the last thing on your mind. A detective sergeant, eh? I bet you’ve got your own problems to be dealing with.”
At that moment, Blake noticed Harrison hovering around the reception desk, trying to attract the attention of one of the nurses.
“Yes, you could say that,” Blake replied.
Stan wandered off to give out more tea as Harrison was pointed in the direction of Blake’s bed. It was the first time he had been to see Blake since he had arrived at the hospital.
“Morning,” Harrison said quietly as he arrived at Blake’s side.
“Hello there,” Blake replied. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me.”
“Don’t be daft,” Harrison replied, as he sat down. “I’ve just been working, that’s all.”
Blake nodded but did not reply.
“How are you?” Harrison asked. “Is it still hurting?”
“It’s not too bad,” Blake replied. “I’ve been having some quite strong painkillers on a fairly regular basis. I can still feel it though.”
There was silence for a few moments. Blake was unsure of what to say. The argument they’d been having just before he had collapsed had been by far their worst one yet and there had been things said on both sides that were clearly still stinging.
“All’s quiet in Harmschapel anyway,” Harrison murmured. “Jacqueline’s got herself some new curtains. She was bragging about them to me this morning.”
“Harrison,” cut in Blake. “Shall we skip the pussyfooting around, move on from our landlady’s curtains, and discuss what we actually need to talk about?”
Harrison bit his lip. “Now? You’re in hospital.”
“Yeah, and I’m not exactly going anywhere, am I?” Blake replied. “I want us to try and sort this.”
Harrison sighed. “I just came to see how you were before your operation, Blake, I don’t want us to get into an argument now.”
“It doesn’t have to be an argument,” Blake protested. “All you need to do is realise that when I’m busy at work, I’m busy at work. I’m a police officer. The public don’t stop committing crimes just because you want us to spend an evening in front of the telly.”
“I know that Blake, but I have barely seen you these past few months. You’ve been leaving first thing in the morning, you come home last thing at night, when I’ve already got to be in bed because I have to get up early for the shop myself.”
“You know how busy we’ve been at the station,” Blake told him. “We had that hit and run, that went nowhere, so we’ve had to work so much overtime. We owe it to the family. That’s my job, Harrison. I’ve told you all this.”
“Okay, alright, fine,” Harrison said sharply. “I told you, I don’t want to do this while you’re stuck in hospital. I already feel bad enough that you’re in here in the first place.”
“Why? You didn’t burst my appendix.”
“No, but it happened when we were arguing.”
“So? That doesn’t make you responsible. It’s not stress related.”
There was another silence between them. Blake could tell there was a lot more Harrison wanted to say. He briefly wondered whether he was being selfish, but then reassured himself with the thought that Harrison knew how important Blake’s work was to him. He had also known right from the start of their relationship that there would be times when Blake’s work would take priority.
“What time’s your operation?” Harrison asked at last.
“Whenever they come and get me,” Blake replied. “They said it would be this morning though.”
“Is it alright here? Are they looking after you?”
“Sort of. There’s been some weird stuff happening though.”
“Weird?” repeated Harrison. “Like what?”
Blake told him about the conversation he had overheard between Kelsey and Joe, and then about the bells being played over the tannoy and Kelsey’s subsequent reaction. When he had finished, Harrison looked confused.
“Why would she have anything to do with bells being played? It sounds like it was some weirdo in a basement hacking into the hospital sound system for a laugh.”
“That’s sort of what the staff have been saying,” Blake replied. “And honestly? I don’t believe it for a second. The way that nurse ran from the ward last night, it almost seemed like it was some sort of message.”
“A message? For what?”
“I don’t know,” Blake murmured. “But I’d like to find out.”
Harrison sighed and chuckled, though Blake was not sure if he was laughing with any sort of humour. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t stop yourself investigating things, can you? Something vaguely mysterious happens and you’ve got to find out why.”
“It’s my job, Harrison,” Blake replied, lowering his voice as Stan rattled past them with the tea trolley. “There’s something weird going on around here. And remember when they were talking in that office she was worried that I was here because she found out I was a copper because Angel came in earlier and wanted to speak to me. She’s worried about the law catching up with her about something.”
“Blake, it could be a parking ticket for all you know,” Harrison replied irritably. “Can’t you just focus on resting and getting yourself better?”
“Oh, I can rest when I’m dead, Harrison,” Blake said waving a dismissive hand. “If there’s something I need to know about going on in this hospital, then I need to see what I can find out.”
“Yeah, well keep on going like this and you might actually end up being dead. Can’t you just let it rest? For once?”
Before Blake could answer, a nurse appeared beside them. Blake was slightly taken aback by her appearance. She had short spiky hair, buck teeth which were visible from the slightly deranged looking smile she was giving him, and a large red stain on the front of her tunic which looked suspiciously like blood. Her badge read “Chloe Prendergast – ANAESTHETIST.”
“Hello, Mr Harte,” Chloe said cheerfully. “I’m Chloe. I’ll be taking you down to theatre shortly. Get you all dosed up and counting down and we’ll have the problem out of you in no time, alright?”
“That would be lovely, thank you,” Blake replied, glancing at the stain again.
Chloe followed his eyeline down to her tunic. “Oh, sorry,” she said, looking embarrassed. “Just had my breakfast.” She hastily blotted the stain away and took hold of Blake’s clipboard from the end of his bed. She read briefly through his notes and looked down at Harrison. “So, you’ll probably want to be saying your goodbyes. Well, not goodbyes exactly, you’ll see him again, hopefully.”
Blake raised an eyebrow. If this was an attempt at medical banter, Chloe was failing miserably.
“Okay, can I just have a couple more minutes?” Harrison asked her.
“As long as you’re quick,” Chloe replied. “The doctor will be along in a minute. I’ll see you down there, Mr Harte.”
She waddled away, clutching Blake’s clipboard.
Harrison watched her leave then turned back to Blake. “I don’t like leaving it like this. Especially just before you’re getting an organ removed.”
Blake shrugged. “It’s fine. I’ll ring you when I wake up. If I wake up.”
Harrison shook his head. “Blake.”
“I’m joking.”
“Well, I’m not,” Harrison replied, standing up. “I love you. I’ll talk to you later. Good luck. Or whatever the appropriate thing to say before operations is.”
“Break a leg?” Blake suggested. He thought he was being quite witty, but it appeared Harrison was not amused. He merely kissed Blake on the head and disappeared from the ward. Blake watched him leave and sighed. The argument had apparently left Harrison more annoyed than Blake had ever seen him, and Blake did not like it. It was unusual
for them to disagree on anything other than what to watch on television, but it seemed that it was going to take more than the +1 channels to solve this.
Soon, Blake was being wheeled down to the operating theatre, and he was glad of it. Just before the doctor had arrived, he had felt a very sharp pain in his side, the worst yet.
“Don’t you worry,” Chloe kept saying as he was wheeled along. “A few days and you’ll be as right as rain.”
As the sign for the operating theatres came into view, they passed a room marked “Staff bedroom.” Blake would not have noticed it if it had not been for Kelsey appearing from it. She looked awful. Her eyes were as red as the dye in her hair, her makeup was streaky, and she had a haunted look about her.
“You alright, Kelsey?” Chloe said, stopping the bed in the middle of the corridor. “You don’t look great.”
Kelsey seemed to barely recognise her. “What? Where’s Joe? Have you seen Joe?”
“Joe?” Chloe repeated. “No, not since last night. He was on his way home, I think. Hope that rain didn’t hold him back, it was terrible!”
“Right, yeah,” Kelsey mumbled. Her eyes then landed on Blake, and she immediately put her head down and hurried away down the corridor.
“Oh dear,” Chloe said, to nobody in particular. “Trouble in paradise, I think.”
Blake frowned. He was now surer than ever that Kelsey Richards was hiding something. As he was wheeled down to theatre, his mind did not stop spinning over what he had witnessed since he had been at Clackton General. The last thing he remembered thinking as he was counting down after he had been given the anaesthetic was how glad he was that Kelsey had no part in his operation.
5
Kelsey ran into the locker room and immediately threw her head into the sink, dousing herself with as much cold water as she could gather in her hands. She had not meant to fall asleep in the bedroom last night, especially as she had been in the middle of a shift. The thought that she would be in trouble with the sister on the ward was the last thing on her mind. She had woken up on the floor of the bedroom, the memories from the night before flashing through her mind. She did not know where to even begin working out how any of it had happened, who had been responsible and how they had found out about her secret.