Night Sisters. John Pritchard

might have found her way up here. She was talking about one of your patients, Angela James, and … er … she’s got a knife.’

      That took the colour out of her cheeks somewhat, but she retained her composure admirably. ‘Have you bleeped the porters?’

      ‘Not yet – none of our phones were working …’ And no fault of mine, but I still felt myself flush at her disbelieving look. She went over to the desk and turned the phone around towards me. ‘You’d better do it now, then.’

      Smarting, I moved to do so – while Mike turned to the distinctly unimpressed-looking Staff Nurse. ‘I think we’d better check that Angela’s okay, right now,’ he suggested evenly, and the two of them set off down the corridor. I watched them go, tucking the receiver under my chin as I punched in the number. There was a crackly pause; then the dull whine of number unobtainable. Fuck, I mouthed, and tried again; frowning in disbelief as I got the same result. It seemed the phones were playing up everywhere. I slammed the receiver down – belatedly realizing there were people trying to sleep all around me – and was wondering what to do next when there came a rustle of movement from right behind me. I spun round.

      The girl who stood there looked about fifteen – though she must have been older, or they’d have put her on the kids’ ward. She was wrapped in an overlarge hospital dressing-gown that made her seem even frailer than she was. Her face was pale, with dark shadows around the sunken eyes, and her fair hair hung in strings. She looked as if she was feeling really awful.

      ‘I’ve been sick again, nurse,’ she reported miserably; and as I stared at her, I realized who she was, who she must be.

      ‘Angela,’ I ventured, ‘we___er, thought you were asleep.’

      She actually smiled at that – if smile was the right word for the rictus that spread across her thin features. ‘No …’ she almost whispered. ‘No, I’ll not be sleeping again. Not safe to sleep …’

      I gave an understanding sort of nod. ‘Where were you? The toilet?’ I glanced down the corridor to see if Mike had re-emerged from her room yet. And as I did so, something caught my eye – a shift of shadow in the darkness of the bay beyond her. Someone was on their feet in there, and coming out. Another patient needs the loo, I found myself hoping with surprising fervour – but in vain. Because the figure who emerged was fully-dressed, in dirty black. And wearing shades.

      Angela might have sensed the movement at her back; she certainly saw the horror on my face. She turned quickly – and recoiled against me with a stifled sob. And the woman who’d called herself McCain stepped fully into the corridor – her clothes still blending with the gloom, but her face as calm and pale as a cadaver’s – and extended a gloved hand towards the girl. Palm open, like an offer to a drowning man.

      ‘Angela. Come with me now. It’s not too late …’

      Me she ignored completely, as if I wasn’t even there: although Angela was rigid against me, and my hands had instinctively gripped her shoulders. The two of them might have been alone here in this darkened ward: sharing in a secret tryst while the lesser world slept. But as I slowly eased the terrified girl backwards, away from her visitor’s slow-paced advance, I glimpsed something slip into McCain’s dangling left hand – and a moment later, with a sinister click, the blade of her knife licked out and locked.

      ‘Never too late to follow me,’ she breathed, her blank stare still not acknowledging my presence.

      I risked a fast, frantic look down the corridor – but it was empty: no sign of Mike or the Staff Nurse, though they must surely have discovered that Angela was out of her bed by now. At any moment they’d reappear, and see, and come sprinting to my rescue; but I knew that even the very next second would be one too many.

      Spinning Angela round, I grasped her wrist, and ran.

      Round the corner we went, and on down the link corridor towards Radcliffe Ward, feet thudding on the carpet, dimly-glimpsed doorways and bed-bays veering madly past on either side. Just like a crash-call, I thought breathlessly; and an old nursing phrase flashed with idiot incongruity through my mind. A nurse should only run in cases of fire or haemorrhage …

      Behind, McCain was coming at a walk. My fleeting look saw her stride increasing. When I next glanced back a moment later, she was running.

      … haemorrhage …

      We fairly crashed through the set of fire-doors separating the wards and raced on through Radcliffe. A Staff Nurse and a student were sitting at the desk, writing quietly by dusky lamplight. Both heads jerked up as we appeared, the unison so perfect it should have made me laugh. No time to explain, of course; nor to call for help, nor even shout a warning. We just kept running – Angela stumbling now, but even if she’d fallen I’d have dragged her – and the woman with the knife was at our heels. So let them call the porters. Let them find a phone that fucking worked.

      Please, God. Jesus. Please.

      Round the next corner and back towards the central corridor now – and suddenly there was someone in our path, shuffling across from toilets to bed-bay. A grey-faced old man in a faded dressing-gown, mobilizing laboriously with a walking frame. His head was slowly coming round, but nothing had time to register. I slowed for just a second, and swerved past him, and yanked Angela with me through the gap.

      McCain hit him full on.

      The two of them went down together, with a rattle of metal and a sickening thud. The sound made me wince: despite myself I slowed again, glancing round. My every nursing instinct cried out against leaving the poor guy gasping there on the floor, his rheumy eyes rolling as he fought for breath. And even as I hesitated, I saw Mike appear at the far end of the corridor, pushing past one of the stunned ward nurses, and come racing towards us. There was surely no need to keep on running; we could corner her here; restrain her. But McCain had already struggled to her knees, her knife still glinting through the gloom, and now she lifted her head and looked at me, and bared her teeth in a vixen grin.

      We kept on running.

      Through the next set of doors, and the next, and we were back in the Medical Unit reception area. That left us with a choice of the main stairway up or down. For a moment I could think of nothing but Mike back there, maybe tackling that mad bitch, struggling to disarm her – and then I saw that one of the lifts was open wide and waiting.

      Someone must have just used it – maybe a nurse trailing back from the fag-end of Break, or returning from delivering specimens to the lab, or whatever. It didn’t matter. We ran for it, as behind us we heard the doors of Radcliffe Ward burst open.

      Over the threshold, past the photoelectric beam, and I jabbed the button, any button, and held it down.

      Nothing happened, of course.

      Wrong button, I realized after a stupefied pause, you’re pressing for this floor, shit. And I put my thumb to the ground-floor button with all my weight behind it as Carol McCain shoved her way through the last set of doors into the reception area, and saw us.

      The door began to close, so painfully slowly that for a horrible moment I thought it would fail to connect properly and automatically reopen. And McCain came running anyway, aiming to get her foot into the narrowing gap and block the beam. I shrank back against the far wall, pulling Angela with me, and the last I saw of McCain was a glimpse of her frustrated snarl as the door closed in her face.

      Stillness for a second. Then the lift lurched, and started to descend.

      I let my breath out in a gasp that left me drained. My legs were suddenly kitten-weak, and I had to slump back against the wall to save my balance. Beside me, Angela James was weeping silently, the tears rolling down her hollow cheeks; but I sensed she still had all her wits about her – primed with adrenaline, and ready to run again.

      But who the hell was she was running from?

      I’d ask her later, to be sure; but right now, as the lift reached ground level, we both had other things to think about. I knew there was no way I could stop