John Pritchard - Night Sisters

Kessler shrugged. ‘I couldn’t agree more. Anyway … that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’ He paused for a moment, watching me finish my cigarette. ‘You coped admirably tonight, Rachel. It won’t be forgotten.’

I thanked him and left. Mike was hanging around by the duty room, ready to go now, but not before he’d said goodbye. I really felt like hugging him and just holding on: what we’d been through tonight had left the both of us shaken up. I think it was only the fact that I’d had Angela to worry about that had kept the real shock from setting in much earlier.

‘How is she?’ I asked, looking past him into the empty room.

‘They’ve taken her back to the ward; the WPC’s going to sit with her. Poor kid wanted to wait for you, but upstairs were anxious to have her back and under obs.’

‘I’ll look in on her before I go off,’ I said, feeling rather warm and pleased inside to know my efforts had been so appreciated: not just by Kessler but by the girl whose life I’d saved. I noticed one of the policemen then, still lingering at the far end of the corridor, and that put something of a dampener on things. ‘Oh, don’t tell me they haven’t caught her.’

‘Afraid not. Though they reckon she must have done a runner, got well away. This is just precautions.’

‘Well I hope they’re right.’ Because the place was a honeycomb of places to hide – from cleaners’ cupboards and service corridors, to the empty wards up in the north wing. And whoever the woman McCain really was, I knew she’d try for Angela again. And possibly for me.

‘Anyway …’ Mike said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘I’ll see you, Raitch.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, snapping out of it; smiling. ‘See you, Mike. God bless.’

Eight

I promised I’d just be a minute, and the Staff Nurse showed me into the side-room where Angela lay. Despite the fatigue apparent on her pale, drawn face she was still awake – struggling to raise herself as the door opened. She relaxed visibly when she recognized me, though still unable to manage a smile, and lay wearily back once more.

‘Hi,’ the policewoman in the bedside chair said. ‘You just off?’

I nodded. The night-light was still on, but the sky outside had already faded to a pre-dawn grey. I was still in uniform, apart from my cap, and wearing my long black nurse’s cloak – just the thing to encourage that unkind rumour that Night Sisters have to be back in their coffins before sun-up or they’ll crumble to dust. I approached the bed.

‘Hello again. How are you feeling?’

She made a noncommittal sound. Something told me she wasn’t going to say much at all with the policewoman there; maybe she did have criminal connections at that. I glanced at the WPC – a pretty, cheerful-looking girl with short blonde hair and a freckled nose. ‘You’ve been keeping her company, then?’

She nodded. ‘We haven’t exactly talked the night away’ – she smiled across at her charge – ‘but it’s best not to be alone on a night like this. I keep telling her to get some sleep, but she won’t listen – will you, Angela? Won’t consider a sedative or anything.’

Angela confirmed this with a silent shake of her head.

‘She’s right,’ I told her, ‘you’ll feel so much better for it.’ And as she miserably returned my gaze, I recalled what she’d said to me the last time.

I’ll never sleep again. Not safe to sleep.

‘Actually …’ the WPC said, getting to her feet and stretching, ‘if you don’t mind staying with her for a minute, I’ll just go for a wee.’

I waited till she was out of the door, then sat down on the end of Angela’s bed. ‘So how are you? Really?’

She just stared at me for a moment; then moistened her lips. ‘They didn’t catch her, did they.’ It was more a statement than a question.

‘Not yet, no. But I think they will soon. And anyway, there’ll always be someone here to look after you.’

Tiredly, she shook her head. ‘Forget it. If she wants me, you won’t be able to stop her.’

‘So who the hell is she?’ I insisted. ‘Look, I won’t tell anyone, I promise … but she could have killed me and two of my friends tonight; I just need to know why .’

‘She wants me to come with her,’ was her indirect answer. She rolled her head on the pillow, staring out of the window at the promise of day; then turned her shadowed, haunted eyes towards me once again. ‘And I want to. I really do. But I’m so scared.’

That left me speechless for a moment. Then: ‘Come with her … where? I mean, doesn’t she want to harm you, then?’

She shook her head. ‘She says she wants to save me, and I believe her. I have to. But if they find out …’

‘Who? Who would she be saving you from?’

But the last of the colour had gone from her face now, faded down to the bone, and she shook her head. ‘Look, forget I said that, all right? Please?’ The quaver in her voice confirmed it: she was scared all right. She was terrified. Despite her plea, I was about to pursue the point, when a sudden recollection shut me up. Alison Scott had been terrified too: scared into silence by something that later killed her right downstairs in my department. Scared of the Clinicians …

And the word was suddenly on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to say it aloud, see what reaction it got. I moistened my lips … and didn’t speak. Perhaps because I didn’t want to trouble her further; perhaps because I was afraid of her reply. It was so much easier to believe that this was all some squalid vendetta between vice gangs, and nothing more. People capable of hideous cruelty, to be sure; but people none the less.

‘All right,’ I told her. ‘I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to. But that woman … She’s ill. You’d be crazy to go with her …’

Angela said nothing; I was suddenly afraid she’d clammed up on me completely. But then she murmured: ‘Oh, she’s ill all right. At least … I hope she is.’

I waited, not quite understanding. The WPC would be back in a moment, if those weren’t already her returning footsteps.

‘Because she thinks she’s an angel,’ the girl continued dully – and looked me right in the eye. ‘She thinks she’s the Angel of Death.’

Not surprisingly, I found it hard to get to sleep when I got home; just lay there, snuggled up beneath the duvet and staring at the ceiling. For all the familiarity of my surroundings … despite the sunshine outside, and Sarah on a day off and quietly knitting in the living room … the gnawing unease just would not go away. A new thought had entered my head on the bus home – and plummeted straight to my stomach, where it rested now like a cold lump of lead.

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