The Nurse by J. Corrigan (list of ebook readers txt) 📕

his book. Straight after seeing Rose, he’ll go to Marion’s house in Nottingham.

He scans his notes about Abe again.

To understand the crime, it’s absolutely imperative to penetrate the victim’s mind as well as the murderer’s.

14

2 April 2016

The next day, with the help of Google Maps, Theo navigates his way from Manchester to Peterborough in just over three hours.

He walks across the prison car park with a faint bounce in his step. His optimism is caused not only by the thought of moving on with Rose’s story, but by the anticipation of seeing her again too. He’s been in love only once in his life. When did he know it was all over with Sophie? Properly over? When she told him she’d met someone else? We’re getting married. To a man five years younger than Sophie’s forty and with two daughters, five and eight. He was crass enough to ask her how she felt about acquiring two new children. She didn’t falter. I love them already. Theo told her he was pleased for her, and he was. One of them deserves to be happy.

After putting his pocket contents in the box, he makes his way through the prison’s fluorescent-lit corridors, but is jolted when he hears ‘Mr Hazel!’

He turns his head; Don Whiting, the counsellor Rose sees on a twice-weekly basis, is striding towards him. Theo met him briefly on his first visit but didn’t have time to chat, as he was keen to get away to miss the rush-hour traffic.

Don seemed like a nice bloke, though. Theo takes a small detour towards him. ‘Good to see you again, Mr Whiting.’

He nods. ‘Please call me Don. Do you have time for a five-minute chat?’

‘Of course.’

They sit down on the chairs lining this part of the corridor.

‘How’s it going with Rose?’ Don asks.

‘This is only my second visit, but I think the first went very well.’

Don leans back in the chair. His trousers are too short and he has quite possibly hemmed them himself. A flap of iron-on braid caresses a thread-veined lower calf. ‘It would be good if you shared anything with me that she might tell you.’

‘I’m not sure how Rose would feel about that,’ Theo responds.

‘I want to help her, Theo, not get a story.’ Don bends forwards and pulls at the trouser hem.

‘I’d like to help her too,’ Theo replies. Don sighs, and despite the therapist’s spiky comment, a wave of pity sluices over Theo. ‘Of course I’ll let you know if she tells me anything pertinent to her… well-being.’

Don relaxes. ‘That’s good. Obviously I can’t share anything she divulges in our sessions.’

‘I understand that. Although I’d like to ask you one thing, but I’ll understand if you can’t answer.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Has Rose had any visitors recently, apart from her husband and mother?’

Don inclines his head fractionally and fingers the top button of his shirt. ‘I’d like to know anything you know, Theo.’

‘I will absolutely tell you.’ A few seconds’ pause. ‘Don.’

‘A student from Manchester University. Rose has been different since her visit.’

‘Has she visited again?’

Don shakes his head.

‘Does the visitor have a name?’

‘I really can’t say.’

Theo waits a few beats. ‘I do feel, Don, that you might be well served looking into Rose’s relationship with her mother.’ He has to give him something.

‘An English lit undergrad. Bella Bliss.’ Don has the grace to colour. ‘I did not tell you this,’ he finishes, wiping his brow.

Bliss. A connection.

Don carries on. ‘Has Rose mentioned her visit to you?’

‘She hasn’t.’ It was good not to have to lie.

‘Anything hitting you on the nose about Rose?’ Don asks.

‘To be honest, the only thing hitting me “on the nose” at the moment,’ Theo says, ‘is that despite media frenzy about the medical profession and such, it is, in fact, highly unusual for a trained nurse, a woman who was once at medical school training to be a doctor, to murder a patient in her care. There was no way Rose was sane the day she killed Abe Duncan, and it was a travesty that her defence didn’t encourage her to pursue a plea of diminished responsibility.’

Don shakes his head with vigour. ‘It’s amazing what people are capable of. You can’t go by what you see on the surface.’ He smooths down the fabric of his trousers and glances at his watch.

Theo jumps up. ‘Great to talk, Don.’

‘It is, Theo.’

Theo lowers himself down into exactly the same chair he was sitting in a few days before, thinking how weird it is that habits form so quickly. Rose looks different today. Calmer, less agitated. Perhaps talking about the past is helping, although that’s supposed to be Don’s job. Theo has an inkling that Don isn’t doing his job that well. Maybe if and when he gets to know Rose better, he can delve into this. And ask her about Bella Bliss too.

Today Rose is wearing a dress. It’s long and black. Sophie would call it maxi length. Her legs are jutting out sideways from the table. It’s a wrap-over style. He wants to think she’s wearing it for him.

‘Good to see you again,’ she says.

‘Ditto.’ He knows he’s looking too intently at her dress.

She smiles. ‘I have an interview with the director later. A progress report. Old habits die hard, like making an effort for a meeting.’

‘You look nice.’ He cannot believe he’s just said that.

Silence descends between them, although it feels companionable. It’s Rose who breaks it. ‘I’ll carry on?’

‘Please do. Daniel has taken you home in a taxi. I take it you saw him again?’

‘I surely did, Theo.’

And Rose continues with her story.

15

Rose

31 March 1991

From the depths of sleep I heard a gentle tapping on my bedroom door. I tried to rouse myself, but it was difficult. I’d hardly slept the past two nights.

‘Rose, you awake?’

By then, I was. Totally. ‘Come in, Tom.’

My ex-boyfriend but closest friend opened the door. ‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine, just tired.’ And I really was. The reason I’d been unable to sleep was because I