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

‘Is that really true?’

‘No.’ She watches me. ‘But I know you feel guilt, and you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t be in here. You’ve been dealt the worst of hands, Rose.’

Only Cathy has known the truth since the beginning. The real truth about Abigail, Spain, my pain, my distress, and what happened that day on the unit.

‘But you loved your children?’ I ask.

‘When I was with them I did. When I wasn’t, I forgot about them. As if they didn’t exist. Or existed somewhere else.’

‘I don’t really understand,’ I reply.

‘I know you don’t, and neither do I.’ She pauses. ‘What’s going to happen with you and Theo?’

‘I think about him all the time.’ And I do. I’m glad I have someone I can tell about my feelings for Theo, because it’s the first time in years I’ve felt something other than chronic desolation.

She takes my hand. ‘You think you’ve helped Miles, but you’re destroying him.’ She scoops up a mouthful of paella. ‘It’s time you let him do what he wanted to do.’

I stroke the palm of her hand. ‘It can’t get any worse, can it, Cathy?’ I hear the hoarseness of my voice.

She looks me in the eye, so unusual for Cathy. ‘You won’t die, Rose. You will get better with treatment… but there is something more.’

I wasn’t asking Cathy about my mortality, and there is the chance that it’s already too late to worry about that. Cathy, though, does seem to have an intuition about the future. The missing part of her has been filled by something other, or maybe she just has a crystal-like understanding of the world in which she cannot participate and she’s not a seer at all. I’ve never questioned this aspect of her, only accepted it. It’s why she accepts me; why she understands so much about me, even the things I don’t.

‘What is the “something more”, Cathy?’ I know, though. Deep down, I know. And so does she, I believe. Alison Greenwood’s visit and her news has confirmed it for me. About Abe and the feeling I experienced so vividly the day he died.

Cathy looks at the plate of dehydrated vegetarian paella sitting in front of her. She cannot eat dead animals. ‘You need to talk to Miles.’

For the rest of the meal she does not look at me and she does not speak.

52

Theo

27 April 2016

Theo has woken up with the insidious beginnings of a headache; his temples are throbbing and he’s feeling very slightly sick. He swallows, and then lifts his head to look at the bedside clock and squints. Christ, it won’t be many years before he’ll need glasses. 7 a.m. He turns over and buries his head beneath the pillow, trying not to think but thinking anyway – of Rose, and what really happened in the hospital in Chesterfield.

The pillow isn’t working and the morning noise is finding its way through the tiny window of his room. And then he hears the abrasive sound of his intercom.

He gets up, pulls on trousers and a T-shirt and makes his way down the communal stairs. He can see through the glass of the front door that it’s a woman and a man. For a moment he thinks about ignoring them and returning to his flat, back to bed. This early it has to be someone selling something, or religious types, but then the man takes out his ID.

Wishing he’d combed his hair, because he knows it’ll be looking like a bush, Theo opens the door. The woman smiles at him. Her face and features are as dazzling as the laser-like morning sun. Theo grimaces into the brightness.

‘Good morning, sir. Mr Hazel?’

He nods.

‘DI Alison Greenwood, and my sergeant. May we have a very quick word with you?’

‘Of course, come in. I’m on the third floor.’ He turns, and as he does, he pulls the free weekly newspaper from his delivery box. Gives it a quick glance. Does a double-take and forgets about the police in his foyer.

Deanes Disappear As Allegations Against the Mount Clinic Escalate.

Front page.

‘I take it you haven’t read the papers yet this morning?’ DI Alison Greenwood says, but as she does, a mobile phone calls out and the sergeant pulls his device from his jacket pocket.

‘Other case we’re on, guv,’ he says.

‘Go take it in the car.’

The sergeant disappears outside and Alison Greenwood follows Theo upstairs to his flat. In the kitchen, he asks her if she wants coffee and is glad when she says no. He’s out of milk, and when he looks inside the coffee jar to make himself one, he’s out of caffeine too.

‘What can I do for you, DI Greenwood?’ he asks, attempting to smooth down his hair while at the same time trying to read the front-page story in the newspaper now lying on his counter. Nothing like being on top of things; he now knows why he’s getting a police visit.

‘I visited Rose Marlowe yesterday, Mr Hazel.’ She nods towards the newspaper. ‘I’m investigating the Deanes’ disappearance. I was hoping Rose might be able to throw some light on the allegation. Actually, make that plural. Allegations. We received the first one a few months ago. Unfortunately, just when we’d gathered enough evidence to question Daniel Deane concerning illegal activities at the Mount Clinic, he and his wife did a bunk.’

‘I knew nothing about this… not until just now.’

‘I gather.’ She glances at the paper and leans against the kitchen wall. ‘The prison director and Rose’s therapist tell me you have a friendly relationship with her… You’re about to make a killing with this story, I’d guess, Mr Hazel.’

Heat envelops him. He’ll never write Rose’s story. Never. Women like Alison Greenwood would hate him. But that’s not the reason. The reason is much more profound. He’s fallen in love with Rose Marlowe.

Finally he replies. ‘From the beginning, it was my gut feeling that everything was not as it appeared.’

‘And it seems you were correct. Is there anything Rose has divulged to you