AT THIS TIME of the morning, the residents’ wing of the hospital was still quiet. He had become a familiar sight in the ward. Nobody stopped him to check his identity card any more. He passed a solitary nurse in the corridor, then arrived at the room.
The strong spring sun was trying to bleach its way through the blinds, so he opened them a foot or so. The band of light fell across the bed just above her waist, illuminating part of a pale shoulder. As always, he changed the flowers in the vase beside her bed, dropping the old stems into a plastic carrier bag. If it wasn’t for the intravenous drip suspended from her arm, she might merely have been asleep, waiting to be woken with a kiss.
One of the nurses regularly combed her hair when they turned her, arranging it neatly on the pillow. Lately it had lost its lustre, and Ixora’s face had grown more sallow, but the doctor assured him that she was still maintaining a sufficient level of health. Was she dreaming, he wondered? Her smooth features betrayed nothing. Perhaps she was in her own hell now, the reigning bride of a far-off place, safe where no mortal could ever reach her. Behind him, the door opened and closed.
Inspector Hargreave gave a tentative smile and held out his hand. John reciprocated. The detective looked down at the immobile bed. Ixora’s breathing had become so shallow as to be imperceptible. ‘I was in the next ward on a case,’ explained Hargreave. ‘I thought I might find you in here. Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ said John, ‘fine. How is your lady friend?’
‘Er, um . . .’ Colour flooded to Hargreave’s face. ‘Janice is fine.’ He turned back to face the bed. ‘The doctor tells me the charts are a little down this week.’
‘I know. He said if they get below a certain level she’d suffer brain damage, and they’d have to consider turning her off.’
Hargreave sighed sadly. ‘She’s been here for over four months, John. There’s been no flicker of life since the night we found her on the roof. She’s experienced some form of catatonia. Given her anguished mental state at the time, the emotional tug-of-war she says she was going through in those diary notes, perhaps it’s not so surprising. If she had undergone intense therapy before this happened, she might have broken the hold this thing had on her mind.’
‘It wasn’t in her mind,’ said John. ‘She wasn’t crazy.’
‘You can’t honestly think she’d signed a pact with the Devil,’ said Hargreave.
‘There was no piece of paper, just a voice that called to her at the height of the storm. Why must the Devil perform parlour tricks to prove his existence? He simply invades our minds and bends us to his will.’ He sat beside her, studying Ixora’s waxen face, and reached for her hand. ‘There’s no magic to good and evil, just people and power.’
‘She killed your wife,’ said Hargreave.
‘And I still love her. I guess that’s pretty sick, isn’t it? She really tried to save us both.’ He rose from the bedside. ‘Next week the graph will have slipped a little farther down the paper, and they’ll want to shut her down. And part of me will die with her.’
There was a knock at the door, and a large constable with cropped blond hair stuck his head in. ‘There you are, sir,’ he said loudly. ‘You’re wanted back down the hall.’ He noticed the body in the bed. ‘Blimey, is that the actress that murdered all them people? What a bitch! Women, eh? You can’t trust ’em.’
‘Get out, Bimsley,’ said Hargreave. He turned to John and placed his arm on his shoulder. ‘Did they tell you Mancuso was found guilty? Thirty years, more for the drugs than murder. You know, it’s not my business, but if I were you I’d leave this place. Spend the time with your son.’
‘I have to be here,’ said John. ‘I brought this on us both. I had everything a man could possibly want, but I looked at Ixora and for the briefest of moments I wanted more.’
‘That’s understandable,’ said Hargreave with a gentle smile. ‘I guess we should all be careful what we wish for, just in case we actually get it.’
He closed the door quietly behind him. John stood for a moment at the head of the bed, watching the inert figure, then bowed his head in silent prayer.
‘It wasn’t my responsibility to check!’ cried the staff nurse. ‘I’m not even due on the ward until three!’ Everyone began talking at once. A number of orderlies and nurses were milling around the outpatients’ reception desk, where the matron stood with a telephone receiver in her hand.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said threateningly. ‘I’ll soon find out who’s responsible for this. It’s a criminal offence. I’m on the phone to the police this minute.’
‘What’s going on here?’ said one of the doctors.
‘It’s the patient in 122,’ said the staff nurse. ‘She’s disappeared.’
‘She couldn’t move of her own volition. Somebody must have abducted her.’
‘How do you know?’ asked the matron, holding her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘She might have made a sudden recovery and become disoriented. She could be wandering around somewhere, lost and frightened.’
The doctor peered at her above his spectacles. ‘My dear woman,’ he said, ‘that’s quite impossible. At 2.00 p.m. this afternoon she was declared clinically brain dead, and the support system was turned off. You’re talking about a corpse walking out of the hospital. They might have already removed her to the morgue. Have you checked with the orderlies?’
‘Of course,’ she said angrily. ‘The clearance order for 122 hasn’t even come up on the computer yet.’ The receiver crackled beneath her chin. ‘Hello? I’d like to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Ian Hargreave, please.’