The Weight of Angels Read online

  I took a step back. ‘Their language is a bit much and there was some name-calling, but . . . Is there a danger of assault? With either of those two?’

  Dr F glanced over his shoulder before he answered me. ‘This is the thing with para-therapy,’ he said. ‘With any of the ancillary staff in a small facility like ours. There are so many moments in any day where a cleaner or Hinny in the kitchen or indeed you might be faced with a situation you’re not equipped for.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. It made sense of my pay anyway. ‘I was kind of surprised how much freedom they have, if I’m honest. Out in the garden, roaming around the house. I suppose I thought it would be more . . . confined. More . . . supervised.’

  ‘Is that how they did things in Australia?’ he said. We were walking along in step now. The boys were still shouting somewhere in the other wing, their voices ringing off the bare walls and lino floors. ‘I’ve never been there. I’m always surprised by how comparatively old-fashioned the American system seems when you consider that they’re at the cutting edge of medicine overall. Hospice care too. But I have no contacts in Australia.’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘It was ten years ago.’ I found all my breath leaving my body in a huge huff. ‘I was ten years younger too,’ I said, exhausted suddenly.

  ‘Why not call it a day for today?’ said Dr F. I was sure I could hear the clip-clop of his wife’s shoes somewhere on the parquet and I was just as sure his suggestion was connected to him hearing it too. ‘I’ll take care of sorting all this out,’ he added. My table was locked in my room and I had put my washing in the car after Julia, so I nodded and made my escape before those heels could clip-clop their way to finding me.

  I thought about it, parked outside the house an hour later. I had wondered why her husband wasn’t there for my interview, thinking that maybe he disapproved of me. But maybe he disapproved for me. Maybe he worried I wasn’t trained enough to handle the patients. There was something funny going on between the pair of them. Then I looked at my own front door. I’d have to sort out what was going on in there too. I gathered my bags and papers and got out, glad at least that there were no press still hanging around. Next Door’s door opened as I was walking up the path but I broke into a trot and got inside before he could catch me.

  ‘He’s asleep.’ Marco met me just inside the door and whispered, nodding towards Angelo’s bedroom. ‘This thing with the cops and his phone’s really knocked him for six.’ So, I thought, Angelo hadn’t told him about the girl sending her friends to the Mercat Cross.

  ‘Last straw,’ I said. ‘After everything.’

  I could have kicked myself, dragging it up like that. I watched him struggle not to act hurt as he cast about for something kind to say.

  ‘Been treating yourself?’ he said, with a look at the DE Shoes bag I was carrying. It wasn’t really kind, but it was good-natured. Marco’s never been the sly type.

  ‘They’re not for me,’ I said.

  ‘Pick-me-up for the boy?’ Marco said, beaming at me.

  ‘Something I need for work,’ I said, turning away. I should have got a treat for Angelo, but I’d gone to town and chosen new slippers for Sylvie.

  Chapter 10

  I always told Marco not to wrap me in cotton wool so I could hardly complain that he had the breakfast news on. I came out of the bathroom and he was already sitting on the couch, cereal bowl just under his chin, scooping it in, glued to the telly. I rubbed my hair. It was so cold up in our bedroom I wanted the worst of the water off it before I went to dress, but the bathroom was so tiny and the window not even a foot square, opening just six inches at the bottom, that if I took my clothes in on a hanger, like I used to in our real house, they’d be damp for the rest of the day.

  ‘Angel awake?’ I said.

  Marco gulped down a mouthful of milk. ‘I’ve left him sleeping. He put a note out saying he was taking another day off.’

  ‘And are you—’

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  ‘I’ll make up for it at the weekend . . .’ I began, but Marco had seen the TV picture change from the floods, still high at Carlisle, to a shot of the abbey. He leaned forward and stabbed the volume button up to drown me.

  ‘. . . match so far with missing-person records from the area, as the search widens. The cause of death has been confirmed as blunt-force trauma to the back of the skull and the case is being treated as murder. There was no identification on the body. Preliminary examination suggests that this was not a vagrant. “This was a man who would be missed,” said the chief investigating officer. However, only the belt buckle . . .’ Here the picture changed to a shot of a silver-coloured Kangol buckle, like you could buy anywhere in the country. It was new and shiny and rested against a pale blue background, with a label underneath saying ‘example’. The voice was still droning on: ‘. . . the zip from a pair of Asda’s own-brand jeans . . .’ another picture of the top of a pair of jeans against that blue card, as if anyone needed to see what jeans looked like ‘‘. . . and part of the earpiece to a pair of spectacles’ no picture ‘has survived the years underground.’ The picture changed to a plainclothes guy standing outside the offices in Dumfries. He looked cold and tired. ‘The wire from the glasses is our big hope for identification. That and the dental work.’ He huddled deeper into his coat collar as a squall of rain hit him side on. I tried to think when it must have been filmed to catch weather like that. ‘We’re working with opticians to try to reconstruct the look of the complete pair of spectacles and we’re very hopeful that this might lead to an ID.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Marco said. ‘Every photo’s going to have his specs in it. Not like his belt or his flies.’

  Back in the studio the newsreader was staring out at us with the solemn look they keep for tragedy, then ditch for the weather five minutes later. ‘Police have asked for the public’s help in compiling a full list of males, aged twenty-five to forty-five at the time they went missing, between 1990 and 2010. Any additional photographs to add to missing-person documents already filed might be of value.’

  ‘Aye, right,’ said Marco, stretching forward and dumping his bowl on the coffee table. ‘Damn sure the cops are dying for everybody’s aunty to go rootling through the photo album and come clogging up the office.’ He pointed at the newsreader. ‘She’ll get her arse handed to her for that.’

  Lars and Hinny were full of it too.

  ‘What does that mean then, “not a vagrant”?’ Hinny was saying, when I ducked into the kitchen. It was only half past seven and I needed one more cup of coffee to be ready for the ‘change’. It was starting to loom over me, I’d thought about it so much – telling myself that after it I’d be up to speed and ready for anything.

  ‘That’s what I wondered,’ said Lars. ‘A dirt-cheap pair of jeans and a Kangol belt? It’s not as if some jakey dressing out the charity shop couldn’t have them.

  ‘Teeth, maybe,’ Hinny said. ‘Veneers or posh crowns and that.’

  I shot a swift look at Lars to see if mention of good teeth and social standing might hurt his feelings. But he was shaking his head, his mind on the question and no sign of upset.

  ‘Aye, but anyone can hit the streets at any time,’ he said. ‘Things I saw in the big wards in Glasgow, you wouldn’t believe. Guys still with their Beamer key rings, no keys, no car anymore, but they kept it to remind themselves what they’d had once.’

  ‘That’s tragic,’ Hinny said. I was sure she looked at my bag as she spoke. My Coach bag that I’d got in the duty-free on our last trip to Orlando.

  ‘You know what I don’t understand,’ I said, trying to move the conversation on. ‘How could somebody be killed and moved and buried and still have one of his specs legs hooked round his ear?’

  ‘Moved?’ Lars said. ‘Have they let that out, like? Do they know it wasn’t done there where they found him?’

  ‘I just assumed,’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s a public place. It doesn’t seem that likely.’

  ‘Aye,
but it’s digging a hole and filling it up that takes all the time,’ said Hinny. ‘A bash on the head with a shovel’s the least of it.’

  I shook my head. I knew something about that bothered me and it wasn’t just the notion of it happening so close to where we lived. It was years ago and we hadn’t been there.

  Lars clicked his finger and winked at Hinny. ‘Genius,’ he said. ‘That’s how come he’s still wearing half his specs, isn’t it? The blow from the shovel smashed them into the wound and then all the blood made them stick. Eh? Do you not think?’

  ‘I don’t want to think,’ said Hinny. ‘And Ali’s gone as white as a ghostie. Never mind him, hen.’

  ‘We’re getting late anyway,’ Lars said. ‘Come and share the joy and love of the shift change, Ali. That’ll put you right.’

  ‘Is it okay to bring my coffee?’ I said. I needed sugar as well as the caffeine now. My lips felt thick and numb from the blood leaving them.

  ‘Christ, aye,’ said Hinny. ‘Dr F practically wheels his in on a drip stand.’

  We met Marion coming downstairs, yawning and rubbing her face with her palms.

  ‘I know what it is,’ I whispered to Lars, as we waited outside Dr Ferris’s office door. She was on the phone and she held up a hand like a traffic cop to stop us trooping in. ‘Why I don’t think he was killed right there where they found him.’

  ‘Is this the bones in the monk house?’ said Marion.

  ‘It’s because— What are the chances of having an argument that got out of hand and made you bash someone with a shovel exactly in a place where you could just start digging a grave? I mean, fights happen in pubs and car parks, don’t they? Not at historic monuments.’

  ‘Unless you asked the person to meet you there,’ Hinny said. ‘Had it all planned, like.’

  ‘Or,’ said Lars, ‘unless you had the shovel there for digging anyway and then you used it to kill him. Because that was bothering me too. Kind of handy, eh, no? Getting away with just one tool for both jobs?’

  ‘But digging what, though?’ I said. ‘You mean maybe it was two archaeologists? People who were there officially? If a historian went missing actually from the site, they’d have ID-ed him already, wouldn’t they? They’d have looked for him there and seen the earth disturbed right away.’

  ‘That’s actually— How didn’t they see it?’ said Marion. ‘Someone. There’s tourists all over that place all the time.’

  ‘Depends on the time of year,’ I said.

  ‘Leaf litter,’ said Lars. ‘There’s letters in the News about the council works department every week. Leaves lying, graves all dandelions, but never mind that. I didn’t mean Indiana Jones digging up monks – they don’t use shovels anyway. They scrape away with toothpicks. That’s how come it takes them so long. I was thinking of someone digging a grave to put a body in and someone strolling up and seeing it. Then bash bang wallop. Two graves instead of one. I’m surprised they’re not digging the whole place up, checking.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s a serial killer,’ Marion said. ‘Yeah, you’re right. They should be checking.’

  It hadn’t even crossed my mind. One grave, one body – and Angelo’s phone mixed up in it all – was horrendous enough. Imagination had been silenced. That voice that had been dripping poison into my ear since the first positive pee-test (‘What if, but what if, but if you’re not careful’) had for once been reduced to a grinning goblin just sitting on my shoulder, watching the show.

  ‘Don’t say that!’ I said. ‘I live right across the road, you know. My front windows look out at it. I’ll never sleep again.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Lars. ‘You stay in the row at Dundrennan?’

  ‘I was meaning to say, actually,’ I began, ‘if anyone goes past, I’d chip in for petrol.’

  But Dr Ferris was winding up her phone call, clicking her fingers at us to tell us to come in. ‘It’ll blow over, sweetheart. Don’t worry about it, and don’t text everyone under the sun, for heaven’s sake. Everything dies eventually if you don’t feed it . . . I know . . . I know. But listen to your mother.’ She smiled fondly at her desktop, listening to the quacking from the phone. ‘Urchin,’ she said. ‘Wretched child. Home at the usual. Lots of love. Lots and lots.’ And she hung up and clicked her phone a few times, turning it to mute. ‘My daughter Dido,’ she said to me. ‘The usual drama,’ she said to the others, with a rueful smile around the room, as if asking the other parents to share the moment with her. I couldn’t get her words to stop echoing – Everything dies eventually if you don’t feed it. It wasn’t my idea of comfort.

  More staff were filing in, but not many. I had thought on my visits that the life of Howell Hall was going on somewhere else, that I was managing to find the quiet corners. But was this it? Lars and Marion, four more nurses in different colour-coded uniforms that I couldn’t decipher, Hinny and another woman in the same white overall as hers, the two doctors, a man in a tracksuit who must be the physio. And me.

  ‘And we’re missing . . . Oonagh and I’ve had a long string of texts from John,’ Dr Ferris was saying, as I started listening again.

  ‘Who are they?’ I said. It would be easy to sit shtum but I had promised myself I would be the squeaky wheel and leave the room feeling like I knew enough to get through the rest of the day.

  ‘Oonagh is Marion’s opposite number and John’s our current bank night nurse,’ said Dr F. I scribbled it down. Eight nurses, at least one hired by the shift from an employment agency. ‘And speaking of which, let’s do a round of introductions, shall we?’

  ‘I’ve got Lars, Marion and Hinny,’ I said. I turned to the other kitchen worker who had taken the seat next to mine. ‘I’m Ali McGovern, beauty and art therapist.’ I stuck my hand out and the woman shook it, her eyes so wide I could see the whites all round, but she said nothing.

  ‘Thank you, Alison,’ said Dr Ferris, as sour as a pickled lime. ‘I think I can handle this. This is Alison, everyone. She’s a beautician who’s joining us to do some para-therapeutic work on personal care and some recreational art. And from left to right: Amana is a kitchen assistant, Yvonne an enrolled nurse. Dick is a registered nurse. They’re both usually on the acute side so you’ll have few dealings with them. Belle and Surraya are registered and enrolled on the open side. Marion is the deputy charge nurse. Lars is the charge nurse. And then there’s Dr Ferris, who’s deputy director, and at the top, of course, me. You should direct all questions to me.’

  ‘And this is Jed, our trainer and fitness expert,’ Dr F added. ‘You’ll probably be working quite closely with Jed so you should—’

  ‘Darling?’ said Dr Ferris. ‘Perhaps we could start the meeting.’

  Dr F clamped his lips shut so quickly they actually made a smacking noise and I could see Lars bite his cheeks trying not to laugh. Surraya was wearing a hijab and she put her head on one side so it swung forward hiding her face from the doctors. She looked right at me, crossed her eyes and mouthed, Bitch, so I had to bite my cheeks too and couldn’t look at Lars for the rest of the meeting.

  Anyway, there was plenty to do. I scribbled furious notes, cross-referring to my patient list, as the departing night shift rattled off reports of meds and checks and hours.

  ‘And apart from that I spent the shift sitting with Rosa,’ Marion finished up.

  ‘You did?’ said Dr Ferris, turning a sharp eye on one of the other nurses. One in a dark green uniform. Yvonne, maybe. I would have got them all if she’d let them say their own names.

  ‘I did,’ Marion said. ‘We can have a review of nursing practice, if you like, Doctor.’

  There was a long moment of stillness. Then Dr Ferris spoke again, in a voice like liquid nitrogen: ‘Moving along, then. Lars?’

  I had only heard him gossiping and joking so far, but as he laid out the patient plan for the day he was a different man: rattling off the appointments for the ‘substance dependents’, the one-on-one schedule, the drug regimes and changes. I filled in my list, blockin
g out who was free and when among it all. My days could have been filled four times over. He finished up with the group he called simply ‘Drew, Posy, Roisin, and the new admission’. I guessed from the vintage of the names that they were the anorexics. ‘I’ll take Drew for breakfast and lunch today and see if it goes better. If we’re right in thinking it’s gender that’s the problem with the mealtime supervision, I’ll text John and get him in early for tea and supper. Okay, Belle?’

  Belle snorted and shook her head, making that ‘mp-mp-mm’ noise that only very large black ladies can make without sounding daft. ‘Thanks for the kind words, Lars,’ she said, in a West Indian accent that sounded like honey dropping off a spoon into a bowl of cream. ‘But I think we know it’s not gender!’

  There was a burst of tittering that lasted until Dr Ferris killed it. ‘Before we degenerate into a book club . . .’ she said, and I saw a couple of people frown as they tried to follow the thread. Book club? ‘. . . does anyone have any questions?’

  I put my hand up and heard the tittering break out again.

  ‘This isn’t a classroom, Alison,’ she said.

  I pulled my hand down again. ‘I’ve got some,’ I said. ‘But I don’t want to waste everyone’s time. Maybe I should just ask you.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Dr Ferris. ‘My time not being as valuable as, say, Amana’s.’

  Bitch, mouthed Surraya again, on another hijab swing.

  ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Only you said to bring things to you.’

  ‘In the meeting, naturally,’ said Dr Ferris.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ali,’ said Dr F. ‘What is it you want to know?’

  ‘Couple of things,’ I said. ‘One, can I group people together willy-nilly? I mean, if three patients are all free at the one time, can I get them together for a class or do I have to check that they want to or are allowed to?’

  Dr F began, ‘That’s a very g—’

  ‘Of course you can,’ said Dr Ferris. ‘With permission, of course. But there’s no overtime available simply because you try to eke out your work by over-focusing.’