Hidden

by Derick Parsons

  She poured herself another coffee to keep her eyes open and finished preparing the edited copy of Grainne’s file for Morrison, hoping that she was doing the right thing. Doctor-patient relationship or not, she could only pray that she wasn’t removing anything that might have given the policeman the key to the mystery. But if so there wasn’t much she could do about it; although not a medical doctor she was bound by rules almost as strict as those governing members of the medical profession. Or the police force, for that matter. Every profession has its own morality, its own code of ethics. Thinking this made her think of Sarah McGrath and what she had said about Trevor; could it possibly be true? She didn’t want to believe it, and after all he had made no bones about his lapse from professionalism as far as Grainne was concerned, when there had been no need for him to mention it at all. All he had needed to do was keep his mouth shut and she would never have known that his interest in Grainne was anything other than professional. And he hadn’t actually done anything, to be fair. After all, no one can help how they feel.

  When she had finished she placed the amended copy into a separate folder for Morrison and looked at her watch again; almost eleven! This was getting ridiculous; was she meant to sit there all night waiting for him? She was ready to leave when she heard the door of the outer office opening and someone coming in; at last! Unless it were the cleaners, of course. But before she could call out the door to her inner office swung open, revealing a tall figure framed in the doorway. A tall figure clad head to toe in black, with his face obscured by a black balaclava.

  Kate’s stomach dropped into her boots and her mouth went dry, her heart suddenly pounding. A glint of steel caught her eye and she realised, to her growing horror, that the man held a long naked blade in his right hand. Kate rose to her feet without conscious volition, as if raised by invisible wires, her body still crouched forward over the desk. She stared at the dark figure in hot, scarlet terror, praying that he would not hurt her, that this was somehow a mistake, that he was not there for her. Her legs were trembling with the adrenaline pumping through them and her brain was screaming at her to run, to run, to run… Yet she could not. They stared at each other in a frozen tableau, neither seeming capable of speech or movement. Kate’s face was gaunt with fear in the yellow light from her desk-lamp, her eyes immense pools of horror. The intruder was just a dark silhouette, still and unemotional and infinitely menacing.

  Long-buried fear rose within her and for one weak, humiliating moment Kate thought wearily, Kill me then. Go ahead. Just please don’t hurt me. Not again. I couldn’t take it a second time. Then she swallowed her fear with a convulsive effort and looked around for a weapon to defend herself, finally snatching up her heavy lamp from her desk and holding it aloft in spite of the tears coursing down her face.

  Even then the black figure did not move, seeming frozen himself, and at that point Kate saw another shadow, this one sliding across the floor as Sean Morrison entered the outer office behind the stranger. Sean’s eyes drank in the scene before him and he reacted instantly, moving swiftly forward to tackle the intruder. But the dark figure was quicker yet, spinning on his heel and lunging forward with the knife in one swift, fluid motion. The long knife slid into Morrison’s belly with frightening ease, instantly disappearing as far as the suddenly red hilt. The policeman stopped as if he had run into a wall, all colour and emotion draining from his face. He doubled over in slow motion, his hands slowly reaching up to the red rose suddenly blooming in the middle of his white shirt. His assailant withdrew the knife and let his arm fall to his side. Then he turned back to Kate. The sight of the blood freed her from her paralysis and she threw back her head and uttered the loudest and most piercing scream she had ever emitted in her life. The intruder froze again, seeming suddenly uncertain, but a shout and a clatter on the stairs at the end of the corridor galvanised him into life again. He slipped across the outer office in a flash and vanished through the open door before sprinting down to the second flight of stairs at the other end of the corridor.

  Kate stopped screaming and shut her eyes for one second of blessed, shameful relief; I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive! Then her better self reasserted itself and her eyes snapped open again; Sean!

  Morrison had slumped to the floor, his eyes staring and his ghastly pale face in stark contrast to the crimson pool forming beneath him. Kate grabbed the entire contents of the tissue box on her desk and ran around to fling herself on her knees beside him.

  ‘Move your hands!’ she said in a low, urgent voice, ‘Sean, let go of the wound! I need to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding!’

  Morrison made no reply but his death-grip on his belly loosened and she pressed the wadded mass of tissue against the bloody hole in his shirt, knowing that whether or not it hurt him she had to stop the flow of blood.

  Footsteps pattered into the room and a voice shouted ‘Jaysus fuckin’ Christ! What’s goin’ on?’

  It was the night porter and Kate turned to him and screamed, ‘Call an ambulance! Tell them we have a man stabbed in the abdomen just below the sternum! Move it! And then call the police, tell them the attacker was dressed all in black and just ran out into the Quad. Tell them he has a knife, that he already stabbed a Gardai! Call Security too but tell them not to tackle him, he’s armed! But call the ambulance first!’

  The porter stood staring down at them in frozen horror for a second and Kate screamed, ‘Fucking move it or he’ll die! Move, move, move!’

  The porter snapped out of his trance and stepped forward to pick up Sally’s phone and Kate turned back to the policeman, ‘Can you hear me, Sean? Don’t try to answer but help is on the way, okay? Just hang on, help is on the way!’

  He had slid down onto his back, supine on the polished wooden floor, and now she cradled his head into her lap with her left arm while pressing down onto the wound with her right hand, pushing down as hard as she could even after first her hand and then her whole arm went numb. Pressing down frantically even after her whole arm filled with pain like liquid fire. Pain that was nothing compared to his but which somehow consoled her all the same, made her feel she was sharing at least part of his burden. Wishing she could do more, Kate started to cry softly, her tears pattering down onto Morrison’s upturned face. Don’t die, don’t die. Not for me, not in my place. But thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

  It seemed an age before the police arrived, and a lifetime before the ambulance got there and the paramedics took over her station, but Morrison clung to life. Only too glad to be relieved by professionals who had at least a chance of saving him, Kate pushed herself backwards away from him with her blood-stained hands, sliding across the floor on her backside until she hit the opposite wall. Unheeding of the blood on her hand she wrapped her arms around her cold body and held herself tightly, rocking back and forth as she watched with frightened eyes as the paramedics tended to the fallen detective. Their movements were swift and deft and sure, and immeasurably comforting as they expertly staunched the blood and began hooking him up to a portable drip.

  Kate’s lips moved but no sound emerged as she silently prayed, Please God, don’t let him die! I’ll do anything you want, just don’t you dare let him die! Don’t you fucking DARE!

  After an apparently endless period of time one of the uniformed Gardai, who were suddenly filling her little office, put a blanket around her shoulders and pushed a steaming mug into her hands. Coffee, she noted dully. The coffee Sally had made her, to be precise, kept hot inside her trusty thermos. Kate fought a hysterical giggle as she thought; But what will Sally say about the state of the office? All that blood, for example. Though cleaning it up really isn’t one of her duties, now is it? I shouldn’t wonder if she never makes me coffee again. Shouldn’t wonder at all. Shouldn’t...

  One of the policemen gently helped her to her feet and guided her to a chair, though she had been quite happy on the floor, and somehow afraid to move, as if she were the one who should not be moved rather than Se
an. In a low but to her astonishingly calm voice she said, ‘Why are they taking so long about getting him to the hospital?’

  The uniformed policeman, who looked impossibly young, hesitated and looked around before admitting, ‘I don’t know. But I’m sure they know what they’re doing. Best to just let them get on with it.’

  Kate nodded dumbly, filled with a cold, unspeakable misery; I really hope they know what they’re doing. I really fucking hope so.

  ‘I know you’ve been through a terrible ordeal,’ said the policeman awkwardly, looking at her with gentle, compassionate eyes, ‘But if we’re to catch the man who did this we need a description of him as soon as possible. All we’ve got is that he was dressed in black and was wearing a balaclava. But he’ll have ditched that, of course.’

  Like Johnny Cash, thought Kate dazedly, the man in black. And she said in a mechanical tone, ‘That’s all I’ve got too. He was just a black shadow; I couldn’t make out any details. Um, he was tall, I could see that. At least three or four inches taller than me. Average build. Dressed all in black, as I said. And as well as the black Balaclava I think he had black leather gloves. Though they’ll have blood on them now, of course.’

  The policeman turned and shrugged towards two others, who nodded and vanished from the office. Not that the description would be of any help in a crowded city thronged with people wearing dark winter clothes.

  The paramedics finally, and carefully, lifted Morrison onto a stretcher and began slowly moving him out of the office and down the hallway. There was no urgency, none of the frantic rush from the movies or television; everything seemed slow and calm, even subdued. And infinitely reassuring.

  Kate followed him out into the hall and watched him disappear down the stairs until the young policeman gently touched her arm and said, ‘I need a few details of what happened here tonight, and I need to know your name, address and your position here. Do you feel up to it right now or would you rather wait until tomorrow before making a statement?’

  Here we go again, thought Kate dazedly, still in shock in spite of the sugar and caffeine now coursing through her body. How many policemen had she talked to in the last few days? Hundreds, it seemed like. But she described the night’s events for him anyway, speaking in a low, preternaturally calm voice that was her only alternative to screaming. And screaming and screaming and screaming.

  In an emotionless voice she told him what had happened, and when she was finished the policeman said, ‘Have you any idea who the assailant might have been?’

  Kate shook her head, ‘It could have been anyone. Any man, at least.’

  ‘What about his voice?’

  Kate shook her head, ‘He never spoke a word. He just stood there, looking at me.’ Her throat closed up and her voice tailed away, causing the young policeman to gently take her hand. Wishing there was a Ban Gardai there to help he asked quietly, ‘This might sound a little melodramatic but do you have any enemies that you know of? Anyone who might want to hurt you. You’re a psychiatrist, right? Could it have been a patient of yours, or an ex-patient?’

  Kate actually managed a smile and slowly shook her head, ‘I only have one patient, and it certainly wasn’t her. And all my ex-patients are in Oxford. I know why it happened, though. It happened because I’m jinxed. Cursed.’

  Hot, heavy tears began to slowly trickle down her cheeks, ‘That’s why things like this keep happening to me! It was probably just a passing psychotic who happened to pick on me because I’m cursed. Being attacked and abused seems to be my destiny in life.’

  The young Gardai patted her hand, then released it, ‘Look, you’re upset and that’s perfectly natural. If you really can’t think of any enemies we can leave this for now. You can make a formal statement tomorrow. A good night’s sleep will set you up and might help you think of a possible suspect. Would you like to be taken home now? There’s a Ban Gardai on the way if you want to wait for her. She’ll be happy to spend the night with you if you’ve no family or friends there to look after you.’

  Kate shook her head wearily, ‘I’m going to the hospital. I want to be with Sean tonight. Even if I’m only allowed to sit in the waiting-room, I want to be there. It’s the least I can do since he saved my life.’

  The policeman smiled, ‘I know. And you probably saved his, if that’s any comfort. The paramedics said that if you hadn’t kept your hand on the wound he would almost certainly have died before they got here.’

  Kate uttered a half-laugh, half-sob, ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid! If he hadn’t tried to save me he wouldn’t have been stabbed! If it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t even have been here!’ She looked up at him with haunted eyes, ‘He told me earlier that he was married; has he any children?’

  The policeman shook his head, ‘I don’t know. But if he was married his wife will be alerted as soon as possible, and brought to the hospital. You can count on that. We look after our own, don’t you worry.’

  Kate got unsteadily to her feet, ‘Can you take me to the hospital now, please?’

  The young Gardai said compassionately, ‘Sure. And if you want you can have a police escort home afterwards. Just in case.’

  In case he‘s waiting there for me! thought Kate in sudden panic. But the fear dissipated almost immediately, being replaced by a great weariness. And a determination to stay with Morrison until...until he was better. Until he was better. Until he was BETTER.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sean Morrison did not die that night, as Kate had feared, nor the following morning. She stayed in the hospital throughout those dark, endless hours; hoping and praying and worrying. And battling a great tidal wave of guilt. He had been injured because of her; if he died it would be her fault. It was as simple as that. Someone else had stabbed him, yes, but he would not even have been in the building but for her. Neither, for that matter, would his attacker. And no amount of sophistry about his job and his duty could alter those facts, or assuage her guilt. Guilt not just because he had been injured saving her, but because she was glad he had rescued her; even at the cost of his present suffering she was grateful that he had come along. But at no greater cost; not at the cost of his own life. Kate was no hero but she would have preferred to die herself rather than have another die in her stead.

  As she was not a family member they would not even give her reports on Morrison’s progress, so she restlessly paced the waiting-room with a white face and staring eyes while the emergency team operated on him, dependent for updates on the Ban Gardai who had appeared from nowhere to sit with her. And she waited in dread, hardly able to breathe and wholly unable to think, every fibre of her being focused on the Intensive Care Unit where the staff battled for his life.

  At about 2 a.m. Morrison’s wife, Noleen, arrived at the hospital from their home in Blanchardstown, accompanied by Garda Moore, the young patrolman who had brought Kate to the hospital earlier. He had volunteered to be part of the Trauma team who broke the news to Mrs. Morrison, and had subsequently offered her a lift to the hospital in spite of the fact that his shift had ended two hours earlier; as he had told Kate, the Garda look after their own. He entered the waiting-room with the pale and red-eyed but unweeping woman on his arm and, after seeing her to a chair in the company of a female officer, made a beeline for Kate. ‘Miss Bennett, are you sure you should still be here?’ he asked with apparently genuine concern, ‘Wouldn’t it be better for you to go home and get some rest?’

  Why is it, wondered Kate, that policemen always called you Miss? Never Ms.? Women’s Lib seemed to have bypassed the police forces of almost every country, one of the last great bastions of male chauvinism and almost total male dominance. She sighed and closed her eyes briefly, wondering if she were losing her mind. Mind you, even such drivel was preferable to thinking about the man who might well have exchanged his life for hers. And infinitely preferable to thinking about his clearly suffering wife. Thank God she hadn’t brought any children with her.

  She nodded tiredly towards her h
ollow-eyed fellow vigilant, who was now being comforted by the Ban Gardai, ‘That’s Sean’s wife, yes?’

  Moore gave her an uncomfortable glance, ‘Er, yes.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Noleen.’

  ‘Have they any children?’

  ‘Really, it would be best if you went home and got some sleep,’ he said kindly, ‘You’re not doing anyone any good sitting here, least of all yourself.’

  ‘Have they any children?’ repeated Kate, her face and voice set and expressionless.

  ‘Two,’ said Moore reluctantly, ‘Two boys, aged five and three.’

  ‘What are their names?’

  Moore sighed in resignation, ‘Tom and Vincent.’

  Kate nodded and silently walked over to where Noleen was sitting in company with a Ban Gardai. She was a tall woman, with coarse black hair and a plain, reddish face. And very bright –if right now fixed and staring- blue eyes whose gaze Kate found it hard to meet. Kate stood in front of her and said painfully, ‘Mrs. Morrison? My name is Kate Bennett.’ Kate’s voice wobbled slightly and tears started rolling down her cheeks, ‘I... Your...your husband saved my life tonight. He was stabbed trying to save me. And I wanted to tell you that I am so, so sorry...’

  Kate never got to finish the sentence. In front of her Noleen Morrison’s face crumpled as she subsided into helpless tears. Kate broke down too, and dropped into the chair beside her, and the two women instinctively put their arms around each other and clung to one another for support, each taking comfort from the other’s presence, and even from the other’s fear and suffering. And all the while Kate kept sobbing brokenly, over and over, ‘I’m so, so sorry.’