She was pretending to examine a drinks vending machine when Holmes sauntered through the swinging ward doors and walked slowly down the corridor away from her. She waited a full two minutes, counting up to one hundred and twenty. He wasn’t coming back. He hadn’t forgotten anything. Tracy turned from the vending machine and made for the swing doors.
For her, visiting time was just beginning.
She hadn’t even reached the bed when a young nurse stopped her.
‘Visiting hour’s finished now,’ the nurse said.
Tracy tried to smile, tried to look normal; it wasn’t easy for her, but lying was.
‘I just lost my watch. I think I left it at my sister’s bed.’ She nodded in Nell’s direction. Nell, hearing the conversation, had turned towards her. Her eyes opened wide as she recognised Tracy.
‘Well, be as quick as you can, eh?’ said the nurse, moving away. Tracy smiled at the nurse, and watched her push through the swing doors. Now there were only the
patients in their beds, a sudden silence, and her. She approached Nell’s bed.
‘Hello,’ she said. She looked at the chart attached to the end of the iron bedstead. ‘Nell Stapleton,’ she read.
‘What do you want?’ Nell’s eyes showed no fear. Her voice was thin, coming from the back of her throat, her nose having no part in the process.
‘I want to tell you something,’ Tracy said. She came close to Nell, and crouched on the floor, so that she would be barely visible from the doors of the ward. She thought this made her look as though she were searching for a lost watch.
‘Yes?’
Tracy smiled, finding Nell’s imperfect voice amusing. She sounded like a puppet on a children’s programme. The smile vanished quickly, and she blushed, remembering that the reason she was here was because she was responsible for this woman being here at all. The plasters across the nose, the bruising under the eyes: all her doing.
‘I came to say I’m sorry. That’s all, really. Just, I’m sorry.’
Nell’s eyes were unblinking.
‘And,’ Tracy continued, ‘well … nothing.’
‘Tell me,’ said Nell, but it was too much for her. She’d done most of the talking while Brian Holmes had been in, and her mouth was dry. She turned and reached for the jug of water on the small cupboard beside the bed.
‘Here, I’ll do that.’ Tracy poured water into a plastic beaker, and handed it to Nell, who sipped, coating the inside of her mouth. ‘Nice flowers,’ said Tracy.
‘From my boyfriend,’ said Nell, between sips.
‘Yes, I saw him leaving. He’s a policeman, isn’t he? I know he is, because I’m a friend of Inspector Rebus’s.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘You do?’ Tracy seemed shocked. ‘So you know who I am?’
‘I know your name’s Tracy, if that’s what you mean.’
Tracy bit her bottom lip. Her face reddened again.
‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’ Nell said.
‘Oh no.’ Tracy tried to sound nonchalant. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I was going to ask …”
‘Yes?’ Tracy seemed keen for a change of subject.
‘What were you going to do in the library?’
This wasn’t quite to Tracy’s liking. She thought about it, shrugged, and said: ‘I was going to find Ronnie’s photographs.’
‘Ronnie’s photographs?’ Nell perked up. What little Brian, had said during visiting hour had been limited to the progress of Ronnie McGrath’s case, and especially the discovery of some pictures at the dead boy’s house. What was Tracy talking about?
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Ronnie hid them in the library.’
‘What were they exactly? I mean, why did he need to hide them?’
Tracy shrugged. ‘AH he told me was that they were his life insurance policy. That’s exactly what he said, “life insurance policy”.’
‘And where exactly did he hide them?’
‘On the fifth floor, he said. Inside a bound volume of something called the Edinburgh Review. I think it’s a magazine.’
‘That’s right,’ said Nell, smiling, ‘it is.’
Brian Holmes was made light-headed by Nell’s telephone call. His first reaction, however, was pure shock, and he chastised her for being out of bed.
‘I’m still in bed,’ she said, her voice becoming indistinct in her excitement. ‘They brought the payphone to my bedside. Now listen. …”
