‘Or Australia,’ Dorothy suggested with enthusiasm. ‘You can cook and use a computer – I’m sure you could get a job there.’
‘It’s an idea,’ Miranda agreed. ‘I’ve often thought of having a holiday in Australia and working there would be fun.’
Ten minutes later Nurse Embry arrived to wheel her back to her own ward.
‘I’m sorry to break up your chat, but a consultant is expected soon and visitors cannot litter the wards while he’s here. He’d be outraged. He likes a tidy ward.’
‘He’s one of the older generation,’ Dorothy tartly explained to her daughter. ‘Thinks the world revolves around him, treats patients like dolls, not human beings.’
As she pushed Miranda back to their own ward, Nurse Embry said with a chuckle, ‘Your mother is very funny. I wonder how she gets on with Sister? She is one of the old-fashioned variety, runs her ward as a military operation. These days hospitals are very different, they aren’t as strict and nurses won’t put up with being snapped at and bullied. Nor will patients.’
‘My mother certainly won’t.’
‘I could see that.’
They passed the waiting room where Miranda had sat for a while talking to Charles Leigh. There was someone else in there now. Another man whose profile seemed familiar, unless she was becoming paranoid. Miranda turned to glance at him and felt her heart crash inside her ribs.
‘What’s wrong?’ Nurse Embry asked, bending over her. ‘Hey, you’re hyperventilating. What is it?’
‘Don’t stop,’ Miranda gasped. ‘Go on, take me back to the ward, please.’
Nurse Embry hurried her along the corridor. ‘Can’t you tell me what’s wrong? Are you in pain?’
‘No, just . . .’ Miranda took one quick look backwards as they turned the corner but he wasn’t in sight, he hadn’t followed them. Perhaps he hadn’t seen them.
‘Upset? About your mother?’
‘Yes,’ she lied, because she couldn’t tell the nurse the truth. Had he really been there, in the waiting room? In a black leather jacket and a black shirt with no tie, casually relaxed. Didn’t he ever wear any other colour?
Had she simply imagined seeing him? What would he be doing in the hospital? Who could he be visiting? Whatever the truth, it was another of these unbelievable coincidences which kept happening to her. Her life, her world, had become chaotic with them.
Was he going to come to her ward? Her ears beat with the sound of her own blood. Her blood pressure must be sky high. What would she do if he walked in here? Every time she set eyes on him something terrible happened. When she was a child, her mother had often told her she had a guardian angel looking after her, night and day. She had never told her the Angel of Death was likely to follow her around, haunt her.
Nurse Embry put her back to bed then insisted on taking her pulse, her temperature, her blood pressure, looking concerned as she took that.
‘Your pulse is a bit fast, but it’s your BP that bothers me. It’s far too high. You know, there’s no need to worry about your mother. She’s going to be fine. She’ll be going home tomorrow.’
And I’ll be left alone here, thought Miranda. What if he comes tomorrow, after she has gone? She grasped wildly at a way out.
What if she spoke to Neil Maddrell? Told him she was afraid of having visitors, apart from him, got him to ring the ward and insist that she had no visitors without warning, without the staff asking her if she wanted to see whoever had come.
‘Can I have the phone brought over?’ she asked Nurse Embry who looked uncertain, but finally agreed and went away and came back wheeling the portable phone. Neil had given her his number at the police station.
‘Sergeant Maddrell isn’t here at the moment,’ she was told. ‘He’ll be back later today. Can I take a message?’
She tried to think but her mind was in such a tangle she couldn’t work out what to say.
‘Hello?’ the operator at the police station asked.
Pulling herself together, she hurriedly said, ‘Yes, would you tell him Miranda would like him to ring her at the hospital?’
She hung up. When Nurse Embry came to take the phone away Miranda said, ‘I’m tired, I think I’ll have a sleep. Don’t let any visitors in, will you? Except the police. And if I get a phone call from Sergeant Maddrell will you bring the phone over to me?’
‘Are you OK?’ The nurse hesitated, looking anxious.
‘I’m fine, just sleepy.’ She kept her eyes shut and after a moment heard the phone rattling away. She hadn’t expected to sleep, it had just been an excuse, a way of making sure she had no unwanted visitors. But as she kept her eyes shut and refused to listen to the desultory chat going on in the ward, from one bed to another, she slowly slid into a light doze.
Neil Maddrell rang hours later when she was eating her light supper. It wasn’t disgusting, but on the other hand she would rather have had something else than