APRIL 22 Last night he came back round to check on me again. I was awake, waiting. It has got so I can recognise the smell of him now. He is a smoker and doesn’t wear aftershave. He carries the scent of freshly washed clothes. I kept my eyes closed and pictured my heart slowing down. I can make that happen now. It is just practice. There was a moment when his breathing slowed too, as if he had realised. The two of us, paused in the darkness, wondering if this might be a good time to kill. Both waiting for the other to make a move. I didn’t flinch and neither did he. I heard him walk closer to the end of my bed, where the charts are. He came forward, took my wrist. His fingers were cold against my pulse. He must have felt my heart leap. Then he walked away slowly, his feet barely making any sound against the floor. Only his clicking ankles gave him away. He stopped outside my door for a while, hoping he had tricked me. Or maybe he is becoming afraid. He should be.
I heard him head off down the corridor and moved quickly, slipping out of my bed and across the room. The ward is different at night, a strange place of half-light and half-noises. The gurgles and murmurs of tranquillised sleep, crazy people having crazy dreams, probably not even realising.
I walked slowly, hearing everything, the faint tune from a radio turned down low in the nurses’ station, my bare feet breaking free of the sticky floor. Movement further down the ward, the second room from mine, or maybe the third. The Doctor finishing his rounds, looking in on real patients, patients he doesn’t need to silence. I headed to the visitors’ room, thinking I would follow him when he came back past. I tried to move without making any sound, wishing I didn’t have to spend so long out in the open. I made the shelter of the darkened room and slid behind the half-open door, listening to my heart slowing down. I crawled to the chair with the screw-out legs and removed one. My heart sped up with the feel of it in my hand. I waited.
I heard his footsteps approaching and I imagined how he would look, his tall, unsuspecting strides, his exposed forehead and long face, empty of guilt. I imagined how it would feel to strike the first blow and my hand became slippery with perspiration. But the clicking of his ankles stopped before he reached me. By the sound of it he was standing outside my room, looking in. I had clumped the bedclothes into a ridge, so that from the doorway it would appear I was still sleeping there. Not if he went inside though. Click. His feet moved forward. A pause, then him hurrying out again, down the corridor, past me too quickly.
‘Nurse! Nurse!’ I heard him whisper urgently.
‘What? What is it?’ Margaret’s voice.
‘He’s missing. He’s not in his bed.’
‘Who?’
‘Who do you think? The boy.’ No need for names or further questions. She understood straight away.
‘He might have gone to the toilet,’ she whispered. Not ‘so what?’ Not ‘it hardly matters’.
‘Why is he awake at all? He should be sleeping all night on fifteen milligrams.’
‘You can’t always predict...’
‘Don’t tell me my job.’
They were edging back towards the nurses’ station and their whispers became unintelligible. Not the feel of them though, the urgency, the hint of desperation from the Doctor, telling me that with Margaret he has nothing to hide. And her replies, short, clipped statements, spat out into the corridor like little arrows of warning. I stood there, not daring to move, wondering how much she must have worked out, how much she must have told him. If he knows I have stopped taking the drugs then he must be close to making his move. He must have a plan.
I heard feet moving off towards the toilets. Only one pair I thought, one of them left standing guard. I counted to twenty, willing them to move off too, but there was nothing. I moved out from behind the door and, crouching down, my head close to the ground, allowed myself a glimpse outside. The Doctor stood with his back to me, watching for Margaret’s return. He was five metres away, maybe less, suspicious and alert. A bad time for an attack.
I stood slowly and considered my chances of making it back to my room. The door was almost directly opposite, four paces away, maybe five on the diagonal. I had to try.
I gently balanced on one foot, then the other, rotating the free ankle each time, to make sure they were loose, so they wouldn’t creak and give me away. I moved. Quick bounds, landing and pushing off in the same movement, only the balls of my feet touching down. I didn’t have the nerve to do it slowly. If he had turned I would have kept moving, down the corridor, back around the other side, away from the ward, away from everything.
He didn’t turn. I made it back to the bed without hearing his voice. The fear had pumped me full of adrenalin and my mind was still racing, looking for a way out, a chance to keep the upper hand. I didn’t climb into my bed but instead lay down on the hard floor on the far side, where he might not have looked earlier. I closed my eyes and I waited.
It was ten minutes before they returned, together, still talking in broken, impatient whispers.
‘You see, I told you. He’s gone.’
‘No wait, look over here.’ Margaret’s footsteps came around to my side of the bed. ‘Here he is, look. He’s climbed down onto the floor, silly thing.’
There was a long pause, the Doctor looking closely, making up his mind about what he was seeing.
‘Has he done this before?’ ‘I don’t know.’
‘Get him back into bed then.’ Still angry. Still uncertain.
Margaret shook me and I let myself seem half-awake, groggy and confused. I saw the Doctor had already left. Margaret didn’t say a word as I climbed back into my bed.
Now I’m hurrying to get this down, writing so quickly I can barely recognise my words. It is the last thing I know, the only thing I am still sure of. Time is running out.