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

front of the dilapidated terrace in the wrong part of Nottingham. Our landlord was useless. Nothing ever got done on the property’s upkeep. I was glad Daniel didn’t want to come in. It made it easier. That was another thing I liked about him: the way he seemed to know what to do. I supposed that might have been because he was older. He hadn’t asked me if I had a boyfriend, and that was another reason I was glad he was staying in the car. My ex was one of my housemates. Tom and I were cool, but our break-up was relatively new and I didn’t want to rub anything in his face.

‘Take your time, no rush.’ His expression broke into a smile, the dimple on his left cheek deepening. He really was gorgeous.

‘Give me ten minutes.’

7

Theo

30 March 2016

Finding the prison in Peterborough is more difficult than Theo anticipated. He really does need to buy a new sat nav to replace the one that was nicked a month before, but then he thinks of his bank balance, or lack of balance, as well as the two maxed-out credit cards, with a third on its way. His ex-wife’s offer of financial help is still stubbornly lurking inside his mind, but there’s no way he’ll take her up on her proposal, despite being grateful for the thought behind it. Their meeting a week before at the cemetery, when she’d made her offer, was bittersweet. As it always was.

Stuck at traffic lights after yet another wrong turn, he takes a gulp of the latte he picked up at the service station and thinks about his son. Tears threaten and he places the coffee on the passenger seat. He unzips his North Face jacket as heat overwhelms him. He always cries on Elliot’s birthday, although as a rule he doesn’t allow himself to weep for him at any other time. Sophie and he agreed they couldn’t be sad for ever. It was one of the few things they did agree on, although since their split, they’ve been more united than they ever were during their fifteen-year marriage. He closes his eyes for a moment and recalibrates his emotions. Opens them and turns his brain away from his son and Sophie, back to his work and the task in hand.

He will make this book about Abe and Rose a success. He has to. And he can, because with what Rose Marlowe has already revealed, he has a small piece of dynamite. Throughout Rose’s hearing, no one was aware that Abe Duncan’s father had been her boyfriend in the early 1990s. Theo spoke with his editor yesterday and heard the enthusiasm in his voice, and he hasn’t even mentioned this connection yet. He’s keeping it to himself for now.

Eventually he pulls into the only available space in the prison car park and the decrepit Fiesta shudders to a stop. Unclipping his seat belt, he grabs Rose’s file from the passenger seat and takes out her letter. It was certainly a turnaround. Her reply to his initial enquiry had been a very polite no, but her second letter arrived within a week of the first, and included pages of handwritten text describing her initial meeting with Daniel Deane. Theo could hardly believe his eyes, and is still questioning what has changed her mind – because his instinct tells him something has.

From the file he pulls out the notes he made on his meeting with Marion Trahern, Rose’s mother. It was Rose who suggested he contact her. If you’re really serious about writing my story, she said, my mum will be able to give you information about my childhood.

Returning everything to the file, he jerks the rear-view, checks his reflection, pushes the mirror back, and swings aching legs from the cramped space of the car. He opens the back passenger door and takes out the holdall. Rose asked him to bring her some clothes, specifying Topshop, plain and boring. Size 10, 34inch-leg jeans. He suggested it might be better if her mother did the clothes shopping, or Miles. My mother doesn’t visit me and my husband loathes shopping. He was surprised that prisoners were allowed to wear their own clothes.

He can almost smell the conflict and missing information in Rose’s story. This really is the most optimistic he’s felt about his career for a long time. He’s certainly been going through a barren period. Very barren. After four okay-selling books, he sank into oblivion with the fifth. Several gruesome years followed when nothing he sent to his editor was commercial enough. Your work’s lost its edge, the grey-haired wolf said.

An investigative non-fiction book about Rose Marlowe and Abe Duncan is his big chance.

It’s begun to rain, so he flings a coat over his head and, with the holdall slung on his shoulder, makes his way to the prison entrance, where he waits with at least ten other visitors, getting soaked, until the security officer unlocks the door.

Theo has never been inside a prison in his life and has no idea about the protocol. He’s told to drop his phone, wallet and the entire contents of his pockets into a box. Collection on the way out. The holdall will be searched and taken directly to Rose.

Following a grumpy custody officer, he makes his way through newly painted corridors to the visits hall, which features a collection of cheap plastic black tables and even cheaper electric-blue chairs placed either side. Two windows sit up near the room’s high ceiling, giving the space its only natural light.

There are around twenty prisoners dotted around, but Theo recognises Rose immediately. Dark blonde hair, corkscrew curls. Symmetrical features, wide-set eyes, a fine nose, as though it were sculpted from sandstone. Her hair, though, is spritzed with white, more so than when he’d seen her in court and her skin, normally the colour of pale honey, is almost grey, like a sunless English day. Her demeanour is guarded, sunken, but when she raises