He stood outside the hospital as other visitors gathered. He had been early. Now he had to wait among the gathering crowd, the box of chocolates under his arm.
The normality of it felt ridiculous; obscene. He had just seen a man crushed to death. None of the people waiting here to see their loved ones knew that. It was not their fault that they were carrying on with their lives, chatting, laughing.
He felt alien, distant. An observer.
At three the crowd of visitors began to push through the doors; he made his way up the stairs to Female Surgical. The lifts were already full.
But when he reached the ward, her bed was unoccupied; the sheets were crisp and neatly tucked, as if no one had ever lain there. The bedside table was empty.
He found a nurse. ‘Where’s Helen Tozer?’
‘They for me?’ joshed the nurse, holding her hand out for the chocolates.
‘Helen Tozer. Where is she?’
‘I was just joking around. No need to be so mardy about it.’
‘She was in this bed yesterday. Has she been moved?’
The nurse was thin, pretty, with corkscrews of fair hair escaping from under her white cap. ‘Young woman. Head wounds? Pregnant? I didn’t move her.’
Perhaps she had been admitted to the maternity ward? She returned a minute later saying, ‘No. She’s not there.’
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘You can’t just lose her. Somebody must know.’
‘Keep your voice down, sir. You’re disturbing the ward.’
Patients and visitors looked at him, disapproving. He must have been shouting, he realised. He tried to lower his voice. ‘You don’t understand. She might be in some danger,’ he said.
A passing matron, broad-chested and starchy, butted in. ‘Miss Tozer? Oh no. She insisted on leaving this morning,’ she said.
Breen stopped. ‘Leaving?’
‘Yes. She went home about two hours ago. Against advice.’
‘Home? But…’
Had she gone home to find him – surprise him, maybe? But he had not been there. Instead he had been a mile south, watching Haas die. There was a payphone on each floor. He ran to the end of the ward, dug change out of his pocket and called home. The phone rang unanswered for a minute. He rang again. Still no answer.
Of course. He banged his head against the wall. She could not be at home. She would have had no way of getting in. Two days ago she had been brought from home, semi-conscious and she wouldn’t have had a key. Had she tried to get in? Was she waiting outside?
Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to go back to his flat at all. He remembered the way she had looked at him when he’d given the ring. The look of disgust on her face.
He ran back to the matron. ‘What was she like, when she left?’
‘When we told her she was in no condition to leave, she was unpleasant. We don’t like to hear bad language in our ward,’ she said.
She was still angry, then. He thought of Elfie in Maternity and turned on his heels. Helen wouldn’t have gone without talking to her, would she?
‘No running in the ward,’ shouted the matron after him.
Up in Maternity, he pushed open the door. ‘I need to speak to Elfie Silverstein,’ he said.
‘She’s feeding. It’s not convenient.’
‘I’m a policeman. It’s urgent.’
The beds were all surrounded by curtains. A reluctant nurse led Breen to Elfie’s bed. The baby was tucked under a blanket, stuck to her chest, sucking at the round warm flesh.
Breen turned his head away, embarrassed.
‘Helen persuaded me to start,’ she said. ‘I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to. She said it’s just like the calves on the farm.’ She giggled, then stopped and looked at Breen. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? What that man did to her? I didn’t realise.’
‘She was here this morning?’
‘No. Yesterday after visiting hours. In the evening. Sit down,’ she said. He looked around but there wasn’t a chair, so he perched on the edge of her bed. ‘She sneaked in last night. We had a long talk. She asked if she could borrow my clothes because the ones she had were covered in blood. Poor girl. Why didn’t you tell me about what had happened to her? I was upset.’
‘I don’t understand. Why didn’t she ask me to bring her clothes?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she was a bit angry with you.’
‘Angry?’
‘She said you asked her to marry her. Did you?’
‘Sort of. I gave her a ring.’
‘She showed me it. It was horrible.’
‘Did she?’
Elfie pulled the boy out from under the blankets and turned him around, pulling down her nightie on the other side so the baby could lock on to the nipple. ‘Maybe I should go outside,’ Breen said.
‘I don’t mind, Paddy.’
‘She’s checked herself out of the hospital, but she didn’t have a key to get in. I’m worried about her. Did she say she was worried about anything?’
Elfie looked down at the boy and said, ‘Come on, little man. Come on.’ With her new baby, she seemed to be in a world of her own. ‘What did you say? Worried?’
‘There was a man she’d seen when she was looking for Kay Fitzpatrick. I think it may have been the man who attacked her. He might have come looking for her…’
Elfie frowned. ‘A man? No. I don’t think so. Ow!’ she said, looking down. ‘Not so greedy.’ She giggled. ‘Actually, she wanted to find out all about Kay. What I knew about her. I wasn’t able to say much. You shouldn’t have given her that ring. It was one of those vulgar Andrew Grima things. She’d want something much simpler.’
Breen was puzzled. ‘Why did she want to know about Kay?’
‘She said she had figured everything out,’ said Elfie. ‘You know when she gets that look?’
‘What do you mean, figured everything out? About Julie Teenager?’
‘What? Yes. I think so. She was upset.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she was angry with you about giving her the ring. I didn’t quite understand what she was saying. My head’s like cotton wool.’ She tickled the baby’s head.
‘She didn’t want to marry me?’
‘No. It wasn’t that. She felt bad about it.’
‘She did want to marry me?’
‘Christ sake let me finish, Paddy. It wasn’t that. She was agitated because when she opened it, she saw what it was and she said it was Kay’s ring.’
Breen, sitting with the flowers and the chocolates on his lap, was stunned. ‘Kay’s ring. I don’t understand. She said it was Kay’s ring?’
‘I’m sorry. I was tired. I haven’t been able to sleep. There are babies crying in here all the time. I wasn’t really listening.’
‘That’s what she said? That it was Kay’s ring?’
‘Weird, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t like that Grima, either, but I thought it was quite sweet of you, too. Do you really want to marry her?’
‘Concentrate, Elfie. Kay’s ring. You sure she said that?’
‘Yes. Ninety-nine per cent. She looked at it like it was poisonous or something.’ She reached out her free hand, took his and squeezed it. ‘Are you OK?’
Breen sat there on the edge of her bed saying nothing.
She had seen the ring and she had reacted with horror. He had assumed it was because she was revolted by the prospect of marrying him, but it was simply the ring that had made her behave that way.
Something about the ring.
‘Paddy?’
It had not been about him, her revulsion; it had been because seeing the ring had allowed her to figure something out.
‘What’s wrong, Paddy?’
But if seeing the ring had made her understand something, what was it?
‘I worry about you, Paddy.’
Slowly he stood. ‘I have to go,’ he said.
Elfie was staring at him. But it was not him she should be worrying about, it was Ronald Russell. He didn’t understand what the ring had signified to Helen, but the rings had originally been bought by Russell. Whatever it was, it was about him. And now he knew where she had gone: to find him.
‘Don’t you want the chocolates for Hel?’
‘You have them.’
Breen took the stairs down, two at a time. In the lobby, a man in a brown coat blocked the door, standing on a chair, putting up a poster with drawing pins. Life is for living. Live it. Don’t be stuck on DRUGS.
‘I need to get past,’ said Breen.
‘Keep your hair on.’
‘It’s urgent.’
‘Steady,’ he shouted as Breen ran past, out into the car park, looking for a taxi.