‘I never miss your series, it keeps you on the edge of your seat – and that Mike Waterford’s so sexy. I love it when you and him have one of those fights. Mind you, in your shoes, I’d grab him before someone else does. Are we going to see you two get closer together? I did laugh this week, when he frisked that girl and she slapped his face! Tell him from me I’d let him frisk me any time.’
Annie managed a watery smile and escaped. Sean laughed softly as they walked miles along narrow, shadowy corridors to find the ward.
‘You see? The authentic voice of the great unwashed. She wants more of you and Mike – especially the fights, and she wants the two of you in bed. Billy’s right, damn him. Sex is what sells.’
Annie wasn’t listening to him, she would normally have snapped back angrily, but she couldn’t care less at that moment. She was too anxious.
The ward sister, tall and willowy, in white and blue, came out to meet them and gave Annie an eager smile, recognising her.
‘Oh, Miss Lang … it is you! You got our message, then? The TV people told us you might not get here for hours. You were quick.’
‘How is she?’
The sister’s face took on a more professional look. ‘Well …’ She glanced quickly at Sean and her expression changed, she seemed taken aback, even startled. ‘Are you related to the patient, too?’
Annie kept forgetting he was there. She shook her head. ‘A colleague.’
‘I didn’t feel she should come alone,’ Sean said curtly. His eyes narrowed. ‘Haven’t we met before somewhere?’
‘You’re a policeman, aren’t you? I met you a couple of times when you visited patients,’ said the sister drily. ‘In a professional capacity. And once when you came in to have stitches in that cut on your face – a bottle, wasn’t it?’
He grinned suddenly. ‘Of course – I remember you now, you weren’t a sister then. Staff Nurse Collins, wasn’t it?’
‘What a memory! Typical policeman. Policemen and elephants never forget.’ Sister Collins was laughing, flattered.
‘Was my mother badly injured?’ Annie asked, and the sister sobered.
‘Broken hip, I’m afraid; very painful and it will be a long time before she can get about again. She is sedated at the moment, but you can see her. She isn’t making much sense, though – shock, of course. At her age any trauma can be serious. She doesn’t have the reserves needed to recover quickly from an accident like that.’
‘What exactly happened?’
‘Apparently she was running away from a policeman,’ the sister said, giving Sean a sideways look.
‘A policeman?’ His brows shot up.
‘Was it you?’
‘Running away?’ Annie was bewildered. ‘I don’t understand. Why was she running away? Where did all this happen?’
‘In Albert Park, just ten minutes from here. And your mother was in her nightie and dressing-gown!’
‘What? But how could she have got out of the house like that? There should have been someone with her.’
‘Well, she was alone.’ The sister glanced at Sean. ‘I’m sorry, you can’t go in – just Miss Lang. This way, Miss Lang.’
She led Annie into the long, cream-painted ward closely packed with beds from which old, worried faces stared. Trudie was in a bed near the door. She looked frail, face lined with pain and age, bluish stains under her eyes, around her bloodless mouth. Annie picked up her clawlike hand and held it, her mother’s skin like thin, crinkly tissue over the protruding bones.
Tenderness moved inside her chest. She stroked the workworn roughness of her mother’s palms, the bony knuckles, and thought of Trudie working in the greengrocer’s shop all those years, up at first light, getting to bed late every day, looking after her when she was small, doing the shopping and cooking, running a home as well as running the shop. Trudie had had a hard life. It was ten minutes before Trudie sighed and opened her eyes, looked at her and pulled her hand free.
‘Who’re you?’
‘It’s me, it’s Annie, Mum.’ Annie wanted to burst into tears.
‘Annie? You’re not my little Annie.’ Trudie looked around the ward wildly. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’
Annie tried to take her hand again and Trudie slapped her away.
‘No, let go of me! What are you after?’