by Abbie Taylor
‘I see.’
‘Yes. And you’ll be pleased to hear he’s doing very well now. He came off the ventilator this morning.’
‘Well, that’s good news.’ It was. And it was good of Dr Coulton to tell her about it. He must have known how concerned she would be.
‘Of course,’ Dr Coulton added, ‘Mr Benson isn’t the only person for whom you’ve made a difference. I also admire what you did very recently for another patient of ours.’
‘Oh? Who was that?’
‘Mrs Ivy Walker.’
Dawn looked sharply back at him but he didn’t seem to notice. He had turned to the snack stand and was busy studying the sausage rolls and pasties.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
Dr Coulton selected a pastry and placed it on his tray. He turned back to Dawn.
‘Hmm?’ he said. He turned back to Dawn. ‘Oh, the other day. On the ward round? When you asked Professor Kneebone what else could be done for her pain. I admired the way you were the only one of us who seemed to be thinking laterally about the issue.’
‘The ward round …’ Dawn became aware that the queue had moved forward. A large gap had opened up in front of her. The ward round! Of course! She shook her head at herself. Talk about paranoid. Clearly Dr Coulton was one of those people who couldn’t help sounding menacing even when he was just trying to make perfectly civil conversation. In fact, this was the most pleasant she had ever seen him. Perhaps they had all misjudged him. His previous arrogance could simply have been due to shyness.
‘Thank you.’ She slid her tray forward again on the rack. ‘It’s just a shame that Mrs Walker couldn’t have been helped.’
Dr Coulton followed her. ‘But she can. I spoke to the pain team about her yesterday. They’re coming to see her today.’
‘Today?’ Dawn stopped pushing the tray. ‘But – Mrs Walker is dead.’
‘Dead?’ Dr Coulton’s eyebrows climbed on his forehead.
‘Yesterday afternoon. I thought you would have heard.’
‘No one told me.’ He seemed astonished. ‘What happened? I examined her thoroughly myself, only yesterday morning. I wouldn’t have thought she was anywhere close to dying.’
‘She was just … found.’ Dawn gripped the edge of her tray. ‘We think it might have been a blood clot.’
‘I see.’
‘Anyway,’ despite herself she had started to babble, ‘I don’t see how the pain team could have helped. Professor Kneebone said she was too frail for any kind of surgery … You heard him … He said she’d never survive it.’
Dr Coulton waved his hand dismissively. ‘Palliative care isn’t Professor Kneebone’s area. The pain team is used to dealing with very frail people. They said there was plenty they could do. In fact, with proper pain management, she might have been fit enough for surgery. We might have had a shot at taking out that tumour …’ His pale eyes were staring at her. ‘I’m sorry, Sister. Are you all right?’
‘Excuse me.’ Dawn put her tray back on the trolley and made for the exit.
The Ladies was a few feet down the hall. Dawn pushed open the door. The room, with its row of sinks and plywood toilet cubicles, was garishly lit, smelling of disinfectant, and, thankfully, empty of people. Dawn leaned on the edge of the nearest sink. With proper pain management, she might have had surgery … Mrs Walker could have been cured! She’d got it all wrong. No! No, she hadn’t. Rude Ed was the one who was wrong. Professor Kneebone was the senior consultant. If he said Mrs Walker was unsuitable for treatment, then …
It was with a shock that it came to her. Rude Ed and his diagnosis were not the issue here. The issue was that an elderly, ill, vulnerable woman had looked to her – the Matron – for help and protection. And what had Dawn done? She had gone to her room and deliberately injected her with a syringe full of poison. The edge of the sink was slimy beneath her fingers. First Do No Harm! What she had done went against everything she had ever learned, taught, practised as a nurse.
It was murder.
The floor seemed to tilt under her feet.
She had murdered someone. That was the reality. No matter how she tried to justify it to herself, that was how others would see it. What in God’s name had she done? What had possessed her? How had she ever thought it was OK?
The bathroom door clattered open. Dazed, Dawn swung to the taps. Two middle-aged women, festooned with umbrellas and raincoats, entered midway through a conversation: ‘… so he told her to keep her feet up, and she said, “Love, you try doing that when you’ve got three kids …”’
The women made for the mirrors, patting down their hair, wiping the rain from their faces. Dawn kept her head down, rubbing her hands over and over under the sloshing water. She had no idea which tap was hot and which cold.
‘I said it to Denise,’ one of the women shouted over the roar of the hand-drier. ‘I said to her, “If it was me I’d have had out years ago.”’
The other woman, standing next to Dawn, was looking at her with a curious expression. Dawn realized that she had been washing her hands continuously for the past five minutes. A streak of dried soap was smeared on the wall behind the sink. She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and began to scrub at the smear.
The women nodded to each other.
‘Good to see that,’ one of them said. ‘Standards. The return of the Matron.’
They exited the bathroom. The doors clattered closed, the talk and footsteps faded. Dawn turned the taps off and threw the paper towel in the bin. She placed her hands on the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. Her washed-out face and thin, fair hair were much too pale for her navy uniform. The spaces under her eyes were scooped-out, purplish shadows. She could be seventy-five, not thirty-five. Still, she looked normal enough to return to the ward. It was time to pull herself together and get on with her afternoon.
As soon as she saw the side room again, however, she knew she couldn’t face looking at it for the rest of the day. The bed was stripped to its waterproof mattress, the bare, scrubbed surface a blatant reminder that someone had recently died on it. The ECG wires trailed over the monitor, dangling towards the ground like strands of dead ivy.
Dawn found Mandy in the staff room.
‘Mandy, are we still quiet?’
‘Quietest we’ve been for a while,’ Mandy said cheerfully, rapping on the wooden arm of her chair. ‘No real sickies today.’
‘In that case,’ Dawn said, ‘I think I’ll take off early.’
‘Ooh.’ Mandy stared. Dawn never left work early. ‘Something nice planned?’
‘No. I’ve got a headache.’
‘Oh, poor you. You do look a bit peaky. Have you tried taking a paracetamol?’
‘I will do,’ Dawn said. ‘In the meantime, I’ll take some paperwork and do it from home. If you need me, I’ll be on my mobile.’
‘Yeah, course.’ Dawn could feel Mandy still gaping after her as she went down to her office. She picked out a couple of bulging files from the cabinet and left the ward, turning her head away from the side room as she passed. She went along the hall to the changing-room, tapped the code into the security pad and opened the door. Then she stopped.
Her locker being one of those nearest to the entrance, she saw it right away. The metal door with her name on it swung open, the lock buckled and twisted on the floor. Her coat lay beside it in a crumpled heap. Her bag had been emptied and flung under a bench. The contents – keys, papers, her wallet – were scattered all over the room.
Dawn went straight to the phone on the wall and dialled the number for security. Within minutes, two large men in navy ribbed sweaters were prowling the room. This was a serious incident. A Matron didn’t get burgled every day.
‘Anything missing?’ Jim Evans, the head of security asked, hoisting the radio-laden waistband of his trousers up under his belly.
‘Just some cash.’ Dawn had gathered her belongings back into her bag and checked the contents of her wallet. ‘Maybe ten pounds.�
��
‘Any other lockers affected?’
‘No. Just mine, as far as I can see.’
Jim looked at the locker and clicked his tongue. ‘Nearest the door. Unlucky. We’ve had a few incidents like this recently. Patients’ bedside lockers being cleaned out while they’re in theatre; nasty stuff like that. We’ve got our eye on a couple of members of the public but the trouble is proving anything. We need cameras on every floor, not just the main hall, but the problem is funding. There’s always some doc needs a new scanner or kidney machine or something. Which I respect, Matron; but a hospital needs security as well. If you get a chance, you might mention that at your next meeting.’
The other man was examining the door.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘This is how they got in.’
On the wall beside the security pad was printed a row of numbers in biro. Jim Evans shook his head. ‘That’s the junior staff doing that,’ he said. ‘So they remember the code. Trouble is, other people can see it as well. Gives them access to all sorts of places they shouldn’t.’
‘I’ll send a memo around. Thanks, Jim.’ Dawn just wanted to get home. She really did have a headache now. She went to put her arm into her coat and found the sleeve coming away in her hand. It had been ripped – or slashed – completely away from the shoulder.
Jim pursed his lips into a whistle shape. ‘Now that’s a new one. I’ve not seen that before. Normally they just take the money and scarper. This is nasty, this is. Damaging property like that. Take the money if you have to, but there’s no need for that. Don’t you worry, Matron. We’ll get them.’
Behind the macho, eighteen-stone, radio-clad exterior was a genuine kindness and concern. To Jim Evans, this was just one more random, opportunistic burglary. But to Dawn, walking down the hill outside the hospital with her ruined coat on her arm, it was much more than that. In all the time she had worked here, nothing like this had ever happened to her before. It was as if St Iberius, the place where she had always felt wanted and needed, was sending her a warning: Get out.
Chapter Five
Mrs Walker’s funeral took place on Saturday morning.
‘Ten o’clock,’ the brisk-sounding female manager of The Beeches had told Dawn on the phone. ‘At Bixworth Park Crematorium. Do you know where that is?’
‘I’ll find it.’ Dawn was writing the address into her notebook. ‘Will it be in the chapel, or …?’
‘The chapel, yes. We’re assuming Church of England … although, in fact, we’re not actually sure … You wouldn’t happen to know, would you, Matron?’
‘No,’ Dawn said. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t actually know Mrs Walker very well. I only met her when she was in with us.’
‘Oh, right?’ A hint of curiosity in the Beeches manager’s tone. Hospital staff didn’t normally attend the funerals of patients they hardly knew.
On her way to the crematorium, Dawn stopped at a florist’s in Thornton Heath. The tiny shop was crammed with flowers: bright pink and yellow carnations, orange, sunshiny gerbera wrapped in cellophane, tall, purple irises in vases. The Sympathy section down at the back had a more sober, respectful colour scheme. Dawn spent several minutes looking over the muted cream and pale pink bouquets and chose the nicest arrangement she could see: a spray of white and red roses nestled in dark, waxy leaves.
‘Red and white together.’ Dora would have tutted. ‘Very bad luck for an ill person.’ But it could hardly matter now, and the roses were beautiful, luscious and velvety, dotted with tiny droplets of water. The air around them was filled with a delicate fragrance.
She was the first to arrive at the crematorium chapel. Jerusalem was playing on pan-pipes through a set of hidden speakers as she entered. The air smelled warm and scratchy – most likely due to the brown carpet tiles lining the walls and ceiling. Walking up the aisle between the rows of chairs, Dawn thought how much the room resembled one of those American courtrooms you saw on TV. Except for the coffin at the front.
The vicar, a middle-aged woman in a grey shirt and dog-collar, was at the lectern, adjusting the microphone. Dawn took a seat in the third row. The first row would be presumptuous; the family would want to sit there. She sat with the roses on her knee, feeling the dampness in her palms. Not for the first time she wondered what Heather Warmington would look like. She had to admit to herself now that one of the reasons she had come here was to meet Mrs Walker’s niece. To talk to her about Ivy, maybe even go for a coffee afterwards and have a proper conversation about her. Dawn would gain some insight into what Mrs Walker had been like before she’d become ill. What sort of person she’d been – lively, curious, kind. What she might have thought about what had happened.
The sound of the chapel doors opening made her turn. A woman was hurrying down the aisle, dressed in trousers and a white blouse, clutching a large leather holdall to her chest. She looked to be somewhere in her forties. Breathing hard, she sat a few seats away from Dawn and began to rummage in the holdall. Her hair, shoulder-length, dark and thin, with strands of grey, fell down over her face.
Dawn leaned across the intervening seats. ‘Mrs Warmington?’
The woman stopped rummaging and looked up. Smiling, Dawn held out her hand. ‘My name is Dawn Torridge. I’m the Matron at St Iberius Hospital. I think we might have spoken on the phone the other day?’
The woman continued to stare at her, a faint crease between her eyes. Then the crease flattened out.
‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘Oh no, no, no. I’m not the niece.’
She took Dawn’s hand and gave it a hearty shake.
‘Celia Dartson,’ she said. ‘Manager of The Beeches. I’m a bit late, I know, but with the weather today the traffic’s been appalling. Bumper-to-bumper all the way from Morden.’
The vicar gave a small cough. ‘Anyone else to come?’
‘No,’ Celia Dartson said. ‘This is it.’
Dawn whispered, ‘What about her niece?’
‘Can’t make it,’ Celia Dartson said out of the side of her mouth. ‘Phoned this morning to let us know.’
The vicar began the service. ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life …’
Dawn looked around the empty chapel in dismay. Dora’s funeral had not been large either: twenty-five people at the most, such elderly neighbours and relatives as could make it to the tiny St Saviour’s Church in Silham Vale. Dawn’s father had been Dora’s only child. But the gathering, small as it was, had been infused with genuine emotion. Judy, Dawn’s good friend from her nursing training days, had sat beside her and squeezed her arm. Francine had maintained a comforting presence on her other side. Afterwards in Crocus Road there had been tea and cake, speeches and reminiscences, even a sing-song. The guests had crowded around the piano to hear Eileen Warren from number 62 play, ‘When You Were Sweet Sixteen’ – the song that had been a hit the year Dora turned that age and which she had always loved.
But this. The rows of bare seats, the thin, cheap coffin, the harried-looking Beeches manager glancing at her watch.
I’m sorry. Dawn beamed the telepathic message forwards to the forlorn coffin on its wooden stand. I’m so sorry.
But Mrs Walker had wanted this. Hadn’t she? She had looked so peaceful, her face free of suffering. She had said to Dawn, ‘I want to go to heaven.’
But the truth was, Mrs Walker had not known what she was saying. Only a few days before that, she had told Dawn she wanted to go to Dagenham. Dagenham, heaven – it was probably all the same to her.
‘O grave,’ the vicar was asking, ‘where is thy victory?’
If only they could have controlled her pain. That was what had rattled her. The way she’d been suffering, on and on, and it had been there all the time, no matter what they did.
But of course, they could have controlled it. That was exactly what the pain team was for. Only Dawn had never thought of contacting them. And the way Mrs Walker had looked so peaceful at the end … of course she had. Her pain was gone. Who knew? Without the constant disc
omfort she might have been more alert, more able to communicate. She might have asked to see her niece. Even at this late stage, they might have found a closeness. Mrs Walker would not have spent her final days with strangers, would not have been forced to endure this soulless ceremony alone.
The pan-pipes were playing ‘Abide With Me’.
‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God …’ The vicar had reached the committal stage of the service. The blue curtains in front of the coffin slid back to reveal a shadowy space behind.
‘Earth to earth,’ said the vicar. The coffin moved forward on its wooden platform. ‘Ashes to ashes.’ The coffin jerked, then stopped. It appeared to be stuck. No – there it went again. ‘Dust to dust.’ A final jolt and the coffin was through. ‘… in the sure and certain hope of Resurrection to eternal life. Amen.’
The blue curtains slid shut.
Abruptly, ‘Abide With Me’ was cut off.
‘I’ve got to go.’ Celia Dartson stood up and hoisted the leather holdall on to her shoulder. ‘I’m going to be late for … er …’
She didn’t bother to finish. She waved at Dawn and headed off down the aisle at a half-trot. The vicar left too, though more sedately, chatting to the chapel attendant about another service.
Dawn sat on in the muffled, carpet-tile silence. Twelve minutes. From beginning to end, that was how long the service had taken. The hands on the clock beside the blue curtains stood at eighteen minutes past ten. The spray of roses still lay across her knee. She hadn’t had a chance to ask where to put them.
In the end, she got up, went forward and placed them on the wooden platform where the coffin had lain. The summer-garden scent of the flowers rose, drifting towards the curtains.
‘I was trying to help you.’ Dawn aimed the words towards anyone who might be behind them, listening in the darkness. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing.’
But there was no answer. All she was talking to was a pair of dark blue curtains.
In the afternoon, she took Milly for her walk. They walked farther than usual, all the way up to Tooting with its curvy, crooked streets and red and white Victorian house fronts. As they passed the common, a giant drop of rain platched a star shape on the sleeve of Dawn’s good black coat. The sky was low and threatening, vivid purple at the edges. Sometimes when Dawn was out walking like this, the light from the sky would fill up her eyes, the brightness making it seem as if something extraordinary was about to happen. But of course, nothing ever did.