by Abbie Taylor
Ocean Ward, the e-mail had said.
When Dawn came out of the lift on the second floor, two men were in the hall, working with a ladder. One held the base, the other was on the top rung, hammering at something near the ceiling. Jim Evans was watching from the side.
‘Afternoon, Matron,’ he called. ‘You’ll be glad to see we’re getting those cameras in at last. Next time there’s a break-in we’ll have it all on record. We might even find that no-good who broke into your locker that time.’
Jim’s voice was rising and falling, as though someone was turning a radio up and down. Beyond him was the set of white doors with ‘Ocean Ward’ printed in blue lettering above.
‘I always did think it was strange,’ Jim’s radio voice was still rising and falling, ‘the burglar flinging your stuff around like that and damaging your property. All the other robberies, they just took the money and scarpered. But with you, they went the extra mile. Like it was personal. But don’t you worry, Matron. We’ll find him.’
With you it was personal …
Of course. Of course it had been. Her locker had had her name on it. The break-in that afternoon, the vandalism of her coat – all had happened the day after her row with Clive. The day she had humiliated him in front of the ward for abusing Mrs Walker.
You’ve had a taste already.
So obvious. So obvious, when you were looking back and knew all the facts. But no time to think of that now. Here she was at Ocean Ward, and behind those blue and white doors, a man in great danger was waiting for her.
‘Thank you, Jim,’ she said.
She opened the doors and went in.
Ocean Ward, being in the tower block, was more modern than Forest: warmer, brighter, cleaner-looking. Each room had a maximum of four beds and its own bathroom and shower.
‘Hello, Dawn.’ Daphne, the orthopaedic sister, came bustling out of a side room, holding an IV tray. ‘Here on one of your inspections?’
‘Actually, I’m here to see a patient. A Mr Farnley.’
‘Farnley. Farnley …’ Daphne took her ward list from her pocket and opened it out. ‘Oh, yes. Gordon Farnley. Admitted today. Having a hip replacement this afternoon. Is that the person you want?’
‘I think it must be.’
Daphne waited, smiling, her head to one side. It was unusual for a nurse from another ward to come to see a patient. Dawn being the Matron of course, she could visit whoever she wanted; Daphne wouldn’t have dreamed of questioning her. But it was natural to wonder.
‘Bed management phoned,’ Dawn said, when Daphne showed no sign of moving on. ‘They said they might put Mr Farnley on Forest Ward after his surgery. I just thought I’d come and check on his care needs.’
It was unconvincing to say the least, but Daphne didn’t question it. ‘Keen of you, I must say,’ she said. ‘Would you like to see his notes?’
‘Please.’
Dawn followed Daphne to the chart trolley. ‘Poor old chap,’ Daphne said, riffling through the notes. ‘If you ask me, a good holiday would benefit him far better than a hip replacement.’
‘Is he a drug user?’ Dawn asked.
‘A drug user?’ Daphne looked up. ‘Mr Farnley?’
Dawn shrugged. She didn’t know why she had asked. Whether or not Mr Farnley did take drugs was hardly relevant any more.
‘Highly unlikely, I would have thought,’ Daphne said, riffling through the charts again. ‘Sure you’ve got the right person?’
‘I think so.’
Daphne found the notes and pulled them from the trolley.
‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘Room six. He’s the only patient in there at the moment so you’ll have some privacy.’
‘Thank you.’
When Daphne had left, Dawn studied the notes. The chart was very thin, just two pages, one printed with Mr Farnley’s personal details – address, GP, next of kin – the other a single scrawled sheet from the admitting doctor: Eighty-four-year-old male. Admitted for hip replacement. Alert. Vitals stable. Meds: Nil. Allergies: Nil.
Eighty-four! Why would anyone want to murder such an elderly man? If the admission note was accurate, Mr Gordon Farnley was in good shape for his age. He didn’t appear to have been an inpatient before – not at St Iberius at least, or the record would have been there in his notes. He had an address in Tooting. Dawn knew the street; she had often noticed the turn-off for it on her bus journey to and from work. Mr Farnley’s next of kin was a Mrs Helen Cummings. That was it; that was all there was. Nothing whatsoever in the notes to suggest why someone might want him dead.
Room six, a two-bedded, was at the very end of the ward. The door was partly open. The bed nearest to the door was empty. A towel folded on the pillow and a blank set of notes on the locker suggested that an admission was expected but had yet to arrive. The second bed, next to the window, had its curtains pulled around. Dawn went to the cubicle.
‘Mr Farnley?’
From inside the cubicle, she thought she heard a snore. Lightly, she tugged at the curtains, deliberately rattling the rings to give the occupant a warning. Then she pulled the curtains back. Behind them, an elderly man lay dozing in the bed. He had a long jaw, thick, white, bushy eyebrows, a high, bald forehead. Most of what remained of his hair was concentrated in tufts above his ears.
‘Mr Farnley?’
The man gave a loud snort and moved his head. Then he opened his eyes. He looked about him in a startled way. ‘Who’s that? Who’s there?’
‘It’s only me,’ Dawn said. ‘Sister Torridge.’
Mr Farnley turned his head towards her. His vision didn’t seem to be very good; he was clearly having difficulty focusing on her face. On his locker lay a pair of glasses, folded next to a plastic case.
‘Edith?’ he said, peering at Dawn in a hopeful way.
‘No,’ Dawn said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Mr Farnley peered at her for another moment. Then he let his head fall back on the pillow.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, of course. I’m sorry. My wife died. A year ago …’
His speech was slurred, fading off at the end. Dawn’s heart sank. She recognized the signs. Mr Farnley had been given a pre-med. This was going to make things a lot more difficult.
‘Mr Farnley,’ she said, ‘I need to talk to you about something very important. I need you to wake up and listen.’
‘All right …’
‘Is there anyone you know here who might … who …’ She couldn’t think of any other way to put it. ‘Who might have a grudge against you? Someone who might want to harm you in some way?’
‘No.’ It came out as faint as a sigh.
‘You’re sure? Maybe someone you know from outside the hospital? Or who you might have met on a previous hospital visit?’
‘This is my first time in a hop … a hop …’
‘Mr Farnley, please. You must try to stay awake. Mr Farnley.’
It came out more sharply than she had intended. Mr Farnley flinched and opened his eyes. Then he sucked his breath in and grimaced, lifting his hand to his hip. Dawn winced too, guessing what he must be feeling. A sharp, scraping pain, like a knife running over the joint. When Milly’s hips had been bad, any sudden movement like that had made her yelp and cringe to the floor.
‘I’m sorry.’ She put her hands on his arm. ‘I’m so sorry. But this really is important. You’ve got to listen. I think you’re in some kind of trouble …’
Mr Farnley nodded but he was starting to drift again. His eyelids were drooping. It was hopeless. If only there was someone with him. A family member or friend whom she could talk to and warn to keep an eye on him. But the only visitor’s chair was sitting neatly under the window, undisturbed since the room had been cleaned. His locker was as bare as Mrs Walker’s had been. The only personal objects on it were his spectacles and a set of dentures, floating at the bottom of a glass of water. The sight of the dentures gave Dawn a little squeeze to her heart. Patients in a hospital were so very vulnerable; she had o
ften thought it. Their dignity stripped away, their belongings and clothes removed, all kinds of strangers coming in and out, doing things to them and ordering them around, and half the time the patients never had the faintest idea who they were.
Mr Farnley had begun to snore again. His breathing deepened, became more obstructed. On the fourth snore, he stopped breathing completely. His chest moved but no air went in or out. A second later, he gave another loud snort. His eyes flew open. At the sight of Dawn standing by his bed, he jerked back his head.
‘Edith?’ he said.
His tone was piteous. His blue eyes were watery. He was so frail. So very old and alone. What could a man like this possibly have done to anyone that would make them want to harm him? His pyjama jacket was frayed and missing a button. The material hung in loose folds around his shoulders. He looked to have lost quite a bit of weight recently. Older men often went like that when their wives died. They just couldn’t cope with being on their own.
Dawn sat on the edge of the bed.
‘It’s OK.’ She touched the long, papery hand on the blanket. ‘It’s nothing. You go back to sleep. Have a rest.’
Reassured, Mr Farnley closed his eyes again. Apart from his breathing, the room was quiet. From the far end of the hall came the distant sounds of voices and bangs and clatters. Daphne had arranged her ward in such a way that the post-ops, who needed the most care, were at the top end along with most of the staff. Down at this end were the pre-ops, bored and dozing, with an occasional nurse popping in to check that all was well. Another rattly snore from Mr Farnley. He was very tall. His large, knobbly feet stuck out over the end of the bed. The bones in his face were strong and sharp. He must have been a powerful man once. Now the effect of his pre-med, combined with the looseness of his pyjamas, underlined to Dawn once again how helpless, how vulnerable these patients really were. If someone were to come in here right now and do something to Mr Farnley – give him something, say, or press a pillow to his face so that he couldn’t breathe – he would be utterly powerless to fight them off or to defend himself.
And if something like that were to happen … in a quiet, isolated room like this … who would ever see or know?
The e-mail on her laptop that morning: If you do this, it will be over …
‘Hu-llo!’
Dawn spun around on the bed. She hadn’t heard the curtains pull back. Two large men in dark green scrubs were shouldering their way into the cubicle.
‘Gordon Farnley?’ one of the porters shouted matily. ‘For theatre?’
‘Yes.’ Dawn got up off the bed. ‘Yes, this is him.’ She must have stood too quickly. A cobwebby veil billowed inwards from the sides of her vision. She groped for the corner of the locker and pressed her hand hard down on it until the pain brought the bed back into focus. The porters were bustling about, helping Mr Farnley from his bed to the theatre trolley.
‘All right, boss. That’s it. Got you now.’
‘Here you are, guv. A nice, warm blanket for the journey.’
In their casual, cheery way, they fussed around the old man until he was comfortable. The trolley wheels squeaked, eek eek, as they manoeuvred Mr Farnley out of the room. Dawn stood, still with her hand pressed into the corner of the locker, as the trolley made its noisy way up the corridor. Eek eek eek the wheels went, all the way up the hall, until the squeaking faded, blending with the distant voices, and the cold, morgue-like silence closed back around the bed.
It was only when Dawn came out into the corridor herself that she realized just how stuffy Mr Farnley’s room had been and how little air had been circulating. She shivered in the breeze from the ceiling vents. Strange, how dizzy she had felt in there. For a moment she had hardly known what she was thinking.
Daphne appeared.
‘Hello, Dawn. Got everything you wanted?’
Dawn could still see Mr Farnley’s bed from the door. The blanket gone, the sheets stripped right back so that the mattress was bare. The dentures in the glass on the locker, like the remnants of a skull.
She turned sharply to Daphne.
‘I’ve got a favour to ask,’ she said. ‘When Mr Farnley comes back from theatre, could you arrange to have him moved further up the ward?’
‘Don’t worry, Dawn. We’ll make sure he’s kept nice and peaceful—’
‘No! Not peaceful. He must be watched. He’s got to be in a busy ward, with people with him at all times.’
Daphne frowned. ‘Is there some sort of medical issue?’
‘There may be. Promise me he won’t be left alone. Not for one minute, not at any time during the night.’
‘Well …’
‘Promise me?’
‘All right.’ Daphne sounded startled. ‘All right. I promise.’
In offended tones, she arranged for Mr Farnley to be moved to a bed in the room directly across from the nurses’ station. Dawn watched as a junior nurse plumped up the pillows. There were three other beds in the room, all occupied. She breathed more easily as Mr Farnley’s belongings were moved from his old wardrobe and locker up to his new. But it was a short-term measure only. She still hadn’t warned Mr Farnley of the danger he was in. Now she would have to wait until he returned from theatre. The trouble was, he could be there for hours. And when he did come back, he would be drowsy and sedated from the anaesthetic. Even if she could manage to make him listen, there was a good chance he would remember none of it.
She tapped her thumbnail on her teeth. She could still remember Mr Farnley’s home address from his chart. How many times had she passed that street on her way to work? The turn-off was just beyond Tooting Bec Common. What if she called round there? Now, while Mr Farnley was in theatre? There might be someone there that she could talk to. Some family member he trusted, someone whom she could persuade to keep an eye on him. The person might even know why he was in trouble. She could be at his house in half an hour, back at the hospital within two. It had to be better than hanging around here for the afternoon.
She left Ocean Ward and took the lift back down to the main hall. She had passed the green Pharmacy cross on the wall and was heading for the entrance when a voice called, ‘Sister! Sister!’
Years of responding automatically to people calling her by her title meant that before Dawn knew what she was doing she had stopped and turned. A girl in a blue tunic came hurrying over from the fountain.
‘Thanks for stopping, Sister. I was just about to try to find you on your ward.’
‘You wouldn’t have found me there,’ Dawn said. ‘I’m not actually working today. I came in to the hospital for something else.’
‘Oh.’ The girl’s face fell. Dawn thought she recognized her. Wasn’t she one of Francine’s junior nurses from ITU? Salma. No – Seema. Timidly, the girl held out a green-covered ledger. ‘It was just to ask you to sign this, Sister.’
‘What is it?’
‘Our drug book. We borrowed some medication from your ward a couple of weeks ago, and I’m sorry, Sister, but we still haven’t been able to replace it. Pharmacy says it’s been discontinued.’
‘What was the drug?’ Dawn asked.
‘Oh.’ Seema looked down at the ledger. ‘I’ll have to check.’ She began to flip through the pages. ‘It’s a funny one. Dip … Dipyrid …’
‘Dipyridamole,’ Dawn said. ‘I never noticed it was missing. I didn’t even know anyone still used it.’
‘Neither did I, Sister. But Dr Carmichael came up to the ITU one day and got it into his head that he wanted to try it on one of his patients. He got very upset when we said it was obsolete and no one stocked it any more. Finally Sister Hartnett said she’d run down and see if you had any on your ward. Didn’t she tell you?’
‘No.’
‘Because it was quite funny – we kept telling Dr Carmichael that Dipyridamole wasn’t used at St Iberius any more and he said, you just try Sister Torridge’s ward, I bet she’ll have some. And of course when Sister Hartnett went down there, you did. Dr Carmichael was v
ery triumphant and kept saying, See, I told you. I was sure Sister Hartnett would have mentioned it to you?’
‘No,’ Dawn said. ‘She must have forgotten.’
‘Oh.’ Seema shrugged. ‘Anyway, Pharmacy says that if you confirm you don’t need it replaced, they’ll strike it off your budget. If you could sign here – I’ve got the details filled in for you already …’
She was holding out the ledger, opened at a particular page. Dawn scribbled in the space indicated. The date at the top of the space caught her eye. April twenty-seventh.
She said absently, ‘That date looks familiar.’
Seema leaned in to look. ‘Wasn’t that the day of the big research conference?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Dawn said. ‘That’s what it was.’
‘Thanks, Sister. Thanks ever so much.’ Beaming, Seema took the ledger and left. Dawn walked on through the glass doors, out on to the steps.
That date on the ledger. She had known, of course, as soon as she’d said it why it was familiar. April twenty-seventh. The day of the research conference.
The day Mrs Walker had died.
The day Francine had come to the stock room on Forest Ward to borrow some Dipyridamole and had never mentioned it to Dawn.
The sun was in her eyes. The tower block cast a sharp, black shadow on the hill. The car park smelled of traffic fumes and tar. And like a cool rain, the answer came dropping into Dawn’s head.
Francine. Delicate, silvery Francine, rummaging around in the stock room with its bird’s-eye view of the side room next door. Francine who had smiled and bought Dawn flowers when she had won the Matron post and assured her that she didn’t mind. Francine, who looked as fragile as a porcelain doll but who always got her own way when it mattered.
Francine, who had said that if looks could kill, she would send a man to the bottom of the Thames.
Dawn turned her head to move the sun from her eyes. She felt nothing. What did it matter now? Whether Gordon Farnley was a shareholder in a crooked company, whether he was a monster responsible for job losses and misery who deserved his fate. He was her patient, and she had a mission to achieve. Until she had done it, she would allow herself to feel nothing. She could not afford to be sidetracked. Everything else she had got so wrong. This, at least, was the one thing she knew was right. The one thing she could allow herself to think about.