by Jodi Taylor
And then, suddenly, behind us, there was an almighty crash and a door spun off its hinges and fell into the passage. Two dark indistinguishable figures shouted. We ran towards them. One seized my arm and almost threw me through the doorway. Someone caught me on the other side and I was dragged up a flight of stone steps and out into the suddenly cold night air. Someone else seized me and I was flung from one person to another until I was clear of the building. It was rough, but it was fast. Seconds only from start to finish.
Behind me, I heard the crash of falling masonry. I tried to call out for Jones but the words caught in my chest and I was overcome with a fit of coughing. Someone laid me out on the cold ground. I pushed myself up on my elbows, trying to see and cough at the same time.
The fire wasn’t too bad. The flames seemed confined to only the back of the building where we’d been. It certainly wasn’t widespread. Looking at the snake of people being led away, I wasn’t sure there were even any major casualties. Just our nursing sister. Without us, they would never have got to her in time to pull her out. She would have been buried alive beneath the burning ceiling. We had saved her from a terrible death.
They had laid her on the grass beside me and I crawled to her side.
No, we hadn’t. Yes, we’d saved her from burning, but death had come for her tonight, regardless of anything we had done. Somewhere not too far away, a man was shouting for a doctor. With some surprise, I realised it was Michael Jones.
I bent over her. She lay on her back, not moving. Her gown was covered in dark bloody patches. A lot of it had burned away. Her face was blistered and red. A fireman, his own face black and streaked with his sweat and her blood, was shaking his head at me.
Even I could see she didn’t have very long. The last seconds of her life were flying away like swallows swooping in the sunlight. We hadn’t saved her at all. I felt the anger of impotence. This wasn’t right. There should be a happy ending. She couldn’t die. She had brought us here to save her. She should have lived. I felt an enormous sob well up inside of me. We’d failed. We’d been just those few minutes too late. Ten minutes earlier and we could have got her out. We could have got her out before the ceiling came down. We’d been in the right place at the wrong time.
She was trying to speak, blindly holding out a burned and bloody hand in my direction. Very carefully, because I didn’t want to cause her any more hurt, I took her poor, blackened hand in mine.
She whispered, ‘Thank you.’
I was crying. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We were too late.’
‘No,’ she said and her voice was just a sigh in the night. ‘You saved me.’
I shook my head, tears stinging my eyes.
‘Please … I want to see … before I go … help me …’
Her voice failed. She was leaving us but I knew what she wanted. She slipped softly away, but not before I gently lifted her head and showed her the stars.
Chapter Eleven
I sat holding her hand as people milled around us. I didn’t know what else to do. I was desperate for a drink. Someone large loomed over me. ‘We should go,’ he said, pulling me to my feet. ‘While we still can.’
Yes, we should, but where to? How would we get back? What if we were trapped here for ever? Well, at least it would get Sorensen off my back.
He looked down at her lying on the crushed grass and sighed. ‘I thought we were here to save her.’
‘We did,’ I said. ‘Well, you did.’
He shook his head. ‘If we had found her earlier …’ Even in the dark I could see his colour curdle. His face was expressionless but there was emotion there. ‘Another woman I failed to save.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, time to go, Cage.’
‘How? Where?’
‘Well, away from here to begin with. There’s a war on and we don’t have any papers or identification.’ He looked down at the body on the grass. ‘Rest in peace, sweetheart. Now then, Cage, can you run?’
I looked down at my shoes. ‘Low-heeled courts. Smart yet practical.’
‘I don’t believe you. Here we are, about to be arrested as spies, lost in time, more than slightly scorched around the edges, and you’re talking about shoes.’
He was hustling me away into the darkness. Shouts behind us slowly faded away.
We reached some shrubbery. I took a final look behind me. Flames billowed from one side of the building. I could see small black figures running to and fro, silhouetted against the fire. Whistles blew and men shouted. A score or more of ambulances, tradesman’s vans and farm vehicles were parked at a safe distance. Patients were being helped towards them. Shouts indicated they’d found our nursing sister.
‘We never even knew her name,’ I said.
‘Evelyn,’ said a voice behind us. ‘My name is Evelyn Mary Cross and I’m from Bournemouth.’
And with those words, we were back in my room.
Nothing had changed. Although, as Jones said, ‘Why would anything have changed? One minute you’re outside on the cold, wet grass a safe distance away from a burning building seventy-something years ago, and the next minute you’re in a well-appointed bedroom in a secure government establishment. Happens all the time.’
Actually, I think even he was a little fazed by recent events. He, however, was handling things much better than me. I was again fighting back nausea and disorientation. I hung on to the bedhead and waited for the world to stop spinning.
We kept the lights off because I was supposed to be asleep and Jones wasn’t supposed to be here at all. Neither was the shadow figure standing by the window. My first thought was – why is she still here? My second thought was – she can stand up. My third thought was that I was going to be horribly sick any moment now.
Jones crossed the room to stand by the door, occasionally peering out through the viewing window and keeping watch.
I swallowed hard and said, ‘We couldn’t save your life. I’m so sorry.’
She was just a whisper in the dark. ‘I didn’t burn. I can’t thank you enough.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘So what now?’ said Jones from over by the door. Presumably you’ll … cross over.’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s good because I felt really stupid saying that, but what will you do?’
‘Nothing. Nothing has changed.’
He seemed confused. ‘But we saved you. You can … move on. Or whatever it is dead people do.’
‘I don’t want to move on. This is my home. You were all mistaken about me. I don’t kill people. I don’t take life. I simply go to those who would have died anyway and I ease their passage from this world into the next. I’m a nurse. I don’t harm. I try to help. There is so much unhappiness in this place. I cannot stop death but I can try to take away the pain.’
She stepped towards the door and by the dim light of the moon, I saw her face. Young and serious. ‘You should leave this place. You should not stay. You will die here. This place is not good for you.’
She was already drifting away, becoming less substantial every moment, and with those final words, she was gone and we were left alone.
Now what? Jones was still staring out of the viewing window into the corridor beyond. ‘I can’t believe any of that just happened.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘But apparently, it did.’
‘How are your hands?’
‘Hurting.’
‘How will you account for the burns?’
‘Smoking in bed. Fell asleep and set fire to the sheets. Burned myself beating out the flames. Not the first time.’
‘Won’t you get into trouble?’
‘I’m always in trouble, Cage. It’s only the depth that varies. With a bit of luck, they’ll chuck me out.’
‘How is that lucky?’
‘Because, once I’m outside, I can get you out too.’
‘You mean you’ll go to the authorities.’
He sighed. ‘Will you stop wi
th this touching faith in authority to solve all your problems? Again – it’s the authorities who have put you in here. If you want to get out, then you’ll have to do it yourself. With my help, of course.’
‘Why would you do that?’
He shuffled his feet. ‘Ted’s wife deserves better.’
‘What if they don’t chuck you out?’
‘Then we’ll break out together.’
Twenty-four hours ago, I wouldn’t even have considered it. Now however …
Jones looked at his watch. ‘Bed-check due. I’d better push off.’
I was jolted. I don’t know why. I thought he would want to stay and discuss what had happened. ‘Oh … yes … of course. You’ll have some explaining to do.’
He smirked. ‘Nurses. Putty in my hands.’
Personally, I thought he was kidding himself, but he seemed confident and I didn’t want to burst his bubble.
‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ he said, easing the door open. ‘Meet me in the garden.’
The door closed behind him.
Typical Michael Jones. Meet me in the garden, he said. There was the Summer Border Garden, the Sunken Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Water Garden. To say nothing of four acres of lawns and garden walks. I covered every single inch looking for him, finding him eventually, sitting on a bench in the middle of a vast space, miles from anywhere.
‘Why here? Everyone can see us.’
‘Very true, but no one can hear us.’
‘Ah.’
‘Well,’ he said as I joined him on the mossy bench. ‘Any fallout from last night?’
‘No, none. Although I had to hang my clothes out of the window to get rid of the smell of smoke. You?’
‘Oh God, yes. I was up before Sorensen at the crack of nine o’clock this morning.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Not a lot. He, on the other hand, burbled on for hours about my desire to escape my past. My unwillingness to face the future. My lack of cooperation. My disregard for the rules. How difficult I was making life for nearly everyone on the planet. You know how he goes on.’
‘Doesn’t he … worry you at all?’
‘Not really. I’m just an uncooperative patient. He takes people like me in his stride.’
‘He worries me.’
‘Not as much as you worry him, I suspect.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
‘No, Cage, it’s supposed to galvanize you into getting out of here while you still can.’
‘How?’ I demanded. ‘All I have is what I stand up in. More or less. Where would I go? Who would I go to?’
‘You don’t need possessions. A couple of changes of clothes is all you need. And a toothbrush of course. Never neglect dental hygiene, Cage. Leads to all sorts of problems in later years. As to where you would go – you can go anywhere you like. You don’t answer to anyone but yourself. There must be somewhere you’ve always wanted to live. Go and live there.’
‘But,’ I said, bewildered by what he was saying. In my world, people were anchored by houses, and possessions, and relations, and jobs, and … things.
He turned to me. ‘If I could get you out, would you come?’
‘How could you do that?’
‘Leave that to me. Would you come?’
Would I? I wasn’t safe here, but at least I knew where the danger was coming from. Out there – on the other side of the wall – was a whole new world of which I knew very little. A world without Ted. And then I thought – why not? I wasn’t destitute or penniless. People made new starts all the time. I could find a little house in a little town and … make a new start. I could live quietly. On my own, obviously, but I wouldn’t have to watch what I said or what I did. And the things I could see would be my own business and no one else’s.
‘Oh ho,’ he said softly, watching me. ‘Have I started a new train of thought?’
I looked at him. Big, blond and capable. ‘How would you get me out?’
‘Successfully. And I’ll help you get established, if that’s what’s worrying you. For God’s sake, Cage, I’m not going to just drop you off at the railway station and drive away. You’re Ted’s wife. Of course I’ll help you.’
I was thinking about his when he took his hands out of his pockets and I saw they were bandaged. I’d been so busy thinking about the future, I’d forgotten the past. And it was only last night.
‘What did they say about your hands?’
‘I had a thirty-minute lecture on Smoking Kills, although I suspect that if I set fire to my bedclothes again, it will be the nursing staff who do for me, never mind nicotine. And do I know what a nuisance I am? And do I know I could have burned down the hospital? Quite honestly, at that point it was hard not to make some smart comment about been there, done that, but I didn’t think that would be helpful, so, Cage, hard to believe it may be, I held my tongue, allowed myself to be bandaged up and went meekly to bed. Although one of them did bring me a mug of cocoa later on, so I haven’t completely lost my touch.’
He stared complacently at his feet.
No – he hadn’t lost his touch. The soft golden patch was growing larger all the time, and now golden tendrils suffused the dirty patch over his heart, instead of the other way around. He was good-looking in an unconventional way, and he did possess a kind of careless charm – none the less effective because he really didn’t try very hard – and now that he was lost and sad I could imagine nurses tumbling for him by the bucketload.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Any thoughts on last night.’
‘Not really. I saw what you saw.’
‘Actually, I was meaning your … unique contribution … to the night’s events.’
I shook my head, staring at the ground.
‘You can trust me, you know.’
I nodded my head, staring at the ground.
There was a long pause.
‘OK,’ he said, getting up. ‘Another day, perhaps. Although you’re going to have to learn to trust me sometime. However,’ he thrust out his chin, looking noble. ‘I can wait.’
I smiled reluctantly.
‘That’s better. I wonder, would you care to be my guest for dinner this evening.’
‘Me?’
‘Is there anyone else here? Really, Cage, you do have moments of complete lunacy, don’t you? I’m beginning to wonder if this might not be the best place for you after all.’
‘I meant, you’ve just gone to all this trouble to ensure we’re alone and not disturbed and now you want to … flaunt me in front of everyone this evening.’
I didn’t think flaunt was quite the word I wanted, but I was still tired from the previous night.
His lip twitched, but he let it go. ‘I was simply thinking that you and I need to be seen together occasionally so that when we do eventually get around to tunnelling out of this place, our togetherness will not attract attention.’
‘Oh I see. I’m camouflage.’
‘Yes, of course you are. What did you think?’
‘Nothing,’ I said hastily, before he got the wrong idea.
‘Besides if I don’t ask you then that idiot Jenkins in Room Two will and I tell you now, Cage, you don’t want to have anything to do with him. Man’s got more personality disorders than you can shake a stick at.’
I appreciated his efforts to distract me. Doubts, fear and grief were all nibbling away at the edges of my mind. I sometime felt as if I was holding shut a door behind which all sorts of dark things waited.
I managed a small smile. ‘And how do you know that?’
‘We’ve worked together for years. Close friends. All right, yes, I’m slightly odd, but he’s well over the event horizon.’
‘So,’ I said, filing this away to be thought about later. ‘It’s not just the rich and famous who are patients here.’
‘God no. They’re just the window dressing. There are all sorts here. Some are like me, poor overworked sods in need of a bit of TLC. Some have seen too
much and have to be enticed out of the warm fuzzy worlds in which they’ve taken refuge. Some need to be induced to talk. Some need shutting up. Some need to be induced to cooperate. You must have guessed, Cage. There’s a very dark underbelly to the Sorensen Clinic.’
I suddenly realised that, yes, I had guessed. I’d just never admitted it to myself. This was a very dark place. My fears about the basement had been more than founded. Would my fear and dislike of Sorensen turn out to be justified as well? Or was I confusing dislike with fear? After all, Ted had worked here.
I said to Jones, ‘What about Ted? What was his role here?’
‘Ted was Head of Security. Nothing more – nothing less. Relax.’
‘This is why I’m here, isn’t it? I’m one of those to be induced to cooperate.’
‘And after last night’s little party …’
My heart stopped. I couldn’t believe it. ‘You’ve told him?’
‘Of course not, Cage. What do you take me for? But you can’t carry on like this. He knows there’s something dodgy about you and he’s determined to find out.’
‘How? How can he know?’
He shrugged. ‘As I said before – I don’t know. But you don’t want to hang around here while Sorensen dusts off his cooperation-inducing techniques, do you?’
I shivered. ‘No.’
Chapter Twelve
I wore my black dress for dinner.
‘You smell like a bonfire drenched in Chanel,’ said Jones, amused.
‘Hush,’ I said, looking around. ‘We’re in enough trouble as it is.’
‘Not you,’ he said easily, opening the dining room door for me. ‘I think it’s the injustice that’s so galling. You’re the cause of all the trouble and you come out smelling like a bed of roses. Figuratively speaking, of course.’