John Pritchard - Angels of Mourning

Nick came back from the kitchen a few minutes later, and passed me my mug; watching with some concern as I took a first, grateful sip.

‘You got some of those from Liverpool Street, then?’

I nodded; drank again. ‘Two. One died. The other was still in theatre when I left …’

‘It was on News at Ten : the bomb was down in the Underground. Four dead, and more than fifty injured, they said …’ He shook his head. ‘They’re just scum, Rachel: they really are.’

He seemed to be expecting a response to that. When I didn’t oblige, he sat wearily down beside me, slipping his arm around my shoulders.

‘Come on, Raitch. I know you want to believe there’s good in everybody, but it isn’t true. Some of the people we deal with are just plain evil …’ His tone was gentle, persuasive; inviting me to see reason for myself. ‘The ones who’ve been planting these bombs – they’re past forgiving.’

I shrugged: still staring at my drink. ‘Oh, don’t worry – I think they’re scum as well. I’m just trying not to be judgmental …’

‘Nothing wrong in judging,’ he came back evenly. ‘It’s what the bastards need. Christ, they even had the gall to make a statement denying it was their people doing it. That was on the news as well …’

I could see our old capital punishment argument looming up again. Enjoyable enough when I was in the mood – and just the kind of debate that had first brought us together, in the pub following a fund-raising five-a-side match. But tonight I really wasn’t up to it. Besides, with the eyes of five grieving people still wide in my mind, I just wouldn’t have been objective.

‘One of your lot brought the relatives in,’ I said, rather obviously changing the subject. ‘Still wet behind the ears.’ I glanced across, and managed a faint grin. ‘Reminded me of someone …’

‘Gerroff,’ he grinned back, and squeezed my shoulders. His clean-cut features were boyish enough, to be sure; but Nick had been on the beat quite long enough to know his business.

‘Oh, yes …’ he said, as I finished my drink. ‘Someone rang for you earlier. From your church. Wanted to know if you could help with the soup run tomorrow night.’

I pulled a face, I couldn’t help it. ‘Well …’

‘Don’t worry: I said you probably couldn’t. Pressure of work and all that.’

‘Thanks,’ I murmured; not even trying to feel guilty.

‘Come on,’ Nick added brightly, getting up. He turned and took my hands, his grin fading to a knowing little smile. ‘“ Time for bed ,” said Zebedee. BOINGG!’

Which succeeded in giving me the giggles – and so left me completely at his mercy.

And so I ended up where I’d begun – as though this long and gruesome day had never been. Deep under the soft duvet, with Nick cuddling me close: a warm, safe refuge from the night. And yet my mind just would not rest. Even after I’d screened out all the evening’s traumas, it kept on niggling.

That strange little thing: that gizmo. For some reason I couldn’t get it out of my head. Could almost feel its coldness in my fingers.

That windy night I hardly slept at all.

Chapter 2

A flick of my fingers and thumb and it was off again – veering over the desktop in a black-and-white blur.

I watched it, mesmerized, chin in hand: my pen laid aside on the sheaf of Off-Duties; the requests ledger forgotten at my elbow. My turn to do the rosters this month, a chore at the best of times – but this was more than just distraction. The thing had virtually found its own way to my fingers; they’d itched to make it move. There was something morbidly compelling about its inevitable progress: it held my attention like a hook.

It spun like an ordinary top at first; then with the weird, wobbling motion of a gyroscope, leaning out at forty-five degrees for longer than I’d thought was possible. But finally it fell, and rolled, and came to rest in front of me.

The Ace of Spades, of course.

So what game of chance could you possibly play? No matter how you spun it, you’d never beat its bias towards bad luck.

I halfway reached for it again – then changed my mind, and let it lie. It almost felt like a test of my resolve: being able to leave the bloody thing alone. In (and out of) my desk five days already, and I still hadn’t got round to handing it in. No one had rung to enquire, but even so … This afternoon, then, I decided. This time I won’t forget.

Maybe my fingers just needed something to keep them busy; maybe it was nerves. Like when I sometimes caught myself fiddling with the rings on my fingers, or the cross round my neck: an unconscious, edgy reflex.

The sort I knew I’d shown this morning, while I listened to Lucy weep.

It’s not just the relatives who need a quiet cry sometimes; the stress can wear the best of us down. I’ve needed a good, hard hug myself before now. But poor Lucy had more than the workload or the death of a patient on her mind. She’d just lost one of her friends.

Quite horribly.

I hadn’t known the girl myself: she’d worked over on one of the surgical wards, and our paths hadn’t crossed. Anna Stubbs, her name was. And yesterday she’d got into her car, just round by the nurses’ home; turned the ignition – and been burned alive.

No warning: no hope. The car had been a fireball in seconds. We’d known nothing at the time – all sirens sound the same on a busy day – and it wasn’t until I got home and saw the TV that I realised where the commotion had been coming from. There’d been a fleeting clip on South East News : the gutted hulk that had once been a trim Mini Metro. ‘… a tragic accident ,’ according to the voice-over ‘ claimed the life of a young nurse in London today …’ And watching, I’d lost my appetite completely.

How much worse for Lucy, who’d been sitting on a birthday present, ready-wrapped, for Anna’s twenty-third: next Thursday. She’d come in this morning with a brave enough face, but couldn’t hold it. And when I suggested a quiet chat in my office, it wasn’t long before she let herself go completely.

In between sobs and sniffles she’d tried her best to talk it all out – and I’d done my best to help it come. An awful, awkward job; but one I felt oddly at ease with. Perhaps because I knew just how she was feeling.

‘Really I do,’ I’d insisted, while she watched me miserably, and wiped her reddened eyes. ‘I mean … I lost my parents when I was just your age. That was an RTA. And then … a couple of years ago … my flatmate was … was murdered by her boyfriend …’ And oh, there’d been more to it than that, of course. Much more. But it was enough to sit her up, quite startled – then sympathetic herself.

‘Oh, Rachel. I’m so sorry …’

I shrugged, and quickly steered the conversation back to her. Her problems. I felt guilty dwelling on my own.

And really didn’t want to.

But they’d already started stirring again, at the back of my head. The memories of darkness, and burning, and bloody death. Stuff it had taken me months to get over; and years to begin to forget. As Lucy talked on, her voice getting slowly stronger, I fingered my crucifix – feeling its ends digging in under my nails – and tried very hard just to follow her words.

‘Did you … ever get depressed or anything?’ she’d ventured after a while; having said all she’d felt necessary on her own account. Ready to listen in turn now: the first step back up the ladder. I was grateful for that, at least.

‘Well …’ I hesitated. Then: ‘Yes, I was – for quite a while. Reactive depression, you know?’ And she nodded, the term familiar to us both. Except that mine had been the reactive depression more commonly associated with surviving fires or train crashes. The sort that gives dreadful dreams – and waking weeks of utter hopelessness. I’d been fine for a while, too – coping really well, or so I’d thought. Then the tears from nowhere had begun. The conviction that getting up in the morning would not be worth the trouble. The thoughts of suicide.