by Rees, Kevin
‘Fuck it!’ Eddie swore, as he remembered tipping out the rucksack on the bed after coming home from his shift and sending the lighter scuttling under his wardrobe.
‘Hey boss, you late as well?’ Andy Crane said, grinning down at Eddie. ‘At least you can’t bollock me.’
Eddie got up. He hadn’t seen the man approach and quickly zipped up his rucksack. ‘I was looking for my keys,’ he said, immediately realising how pathetic that sounded.
‘They’re clipped to your jeans, mate.’
‘Fucking good start to the shift isn’t it!’ Eddie feigned a yawn, hoping Andy wasn’t looking for any telltale signs of something else.
‘Once more into the breech then, boss.’ Andy marched ahead.
The doors swished as they walked in. Andy missed the violent shudder crossing Eddie’s shoulders as if someone hadn’t just walked on his grave, but was stomping all over it.
Twenty minutes later Eddie had his façade fixed firmly in place and got his team together in his office. ‘Okay, boys and girls, let’s start by wishing Andy a happy birthday, but no singing please as I’ve heard your less-than-harmonious tones, especially Kathy who claims her voice has been trained, and I’m sure we all agree it has certainly been trained to kill.’
His remark drew a middle-finger salute from staff nurse Kathy Houghton and a mouthed ‘Fuck you’.
Eddie grinned and carried on. ‘The day shift tell me the cubicles are clean and operational so lets hope we don’t need to call all of them into service tonight. It’s Wednesday, and Chelsea are playing away. Duties. Kat, you do the obs with Andy, and the rest of you do nursey things. Also be aware Dr Jones has a new female trainee who is supposed to be observing tonight, so don’t expect a quick response time from him if she’s like the last one. Okay, that’s it. Get out and heal the sick and needy.’
Eddie managed a whole sock in between two major incidents before a call came through from the police to say two of their officers were en-route with a John Doe picked up near the river. Nothing unusual in an old man found wandering, he thought, even in the snows of November with just pyjamas on. Eddie nicknamed him Fred. It was his habit to name the lost ones.
Fifteen minutes passed before Eddie was aware of anything altering the natural chaos of the waiting area. He was taking a complaint from a drunk, shaven-headed yob with a gash over his eye, who was telling him how he personally paid his wages and wanted to be seen before anyone else. Eddie was finding his self-control was getting as thin as cigarette paper, and he was battling a desire to escort the boy into the toilet and beat the crap out of him. Instead he waved a hand, calling over his porter who stood behind the youth. Eddie held up four fingers. The porter smiled, rubbing his hands together. Irish John had played second row for his National B team. He stood six-foot-five and was built like the proverbial shithouse door. One of the reasons Eddie chose him to be the departments dedicated porter for his persuasive nature in dealing with shitbags like this. The kid turned and looked up at Irish John and was about to say something insanely cocky before realising his whole body was off the floor and being carried into a cubicle as easily as someone carrying a shopping bag. The slap of his body hitting the examination bed, followed by a childish whimper, drew many approving smiles from the rest of the punters in the waiting area.
Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, everything changed.
Eddie was about to make another visit to the toilet when a side door burst open, banging into an elderly man asleep in a wheelchair. He ran towards the door, thinking he was going to find the boys mates kicking in the glass. Instead he found a female police officer desperately holding onto the metal frame. Eddie instinctively reached out and caught her arm before she buckled. Maybe it was her instinct or training but she wrenched her arm away and glared at him.
‘Get off me... stand back!’ She screamed.
Eddie saw her hand move to the black handle of a baton sheathed on her belt. ‘I was trying to help you,’ he insisted.
‘I don’t require your assistance. Will you please step back.’
Again the fingers tightening over the handle of the baton convinced Eddie something was very wrong. He drew in a breath. It was taking all his effort for the words to come out evenly. ‘Now listen to me, officer. My name is Eddie Keagan and I am the senior nurse in this department. I will not step back, and I will not have this posturing in front of these people —’ He raised a finger as she began to speak. ‘— And you do not enter this hospital like you’re some kind of Wild West show. Are we clear?’ He followed the last word with a steely gaze that instantly leveraged control away from her.
The young officer glanced around the waiting area and seemed unaware of where she was. Her eyes fell back on to the man in front of her. Steady, not willing to give an inch and very determined. Up until this moment her uniform had given her a means to control people. She expected the public to react immediately to the authority she had with her anti-stab vest emblazoned with Police, and the ridiculously wide belt carrying a baton and CS spray. This man was not intimidated, or even interested in her self-perceived power. But there was something about his demeanour, something she’d seen in colleagues who’d served in the military. He was also — she observed — incredibly good-looking.
‘I’m sorry, it’s just...’
‘Debbie, you need to give me a hand, I can’t get him out by myself.’
Eddie immediately recognised the other officer as Derek Stone. The man had served the community for as long as Eddie had been at the hospital. A steady and reliable police officer who regularly called in for coffee during his shift.
Eddie watched the police officer weave unsteadily back to the car. ‘Need a hand, Derek?’ he shouted, seeing Stone’s pallid face even in the orange glow of the overhead light. Puzzled, Eddie stepped out of the doors. The woman waved frantically for him to go back. Something insidious entered his mouth and stuck to the back of his throat. The scene instantly changed from a cold London night to vivid images of death committed in the most horrendous ways humans could conceive. Overlaying the images was a cancerous smell mixed with the odour of rotted flesh, whose foulness saturated everything it came into contact with. Eddie reached out blindly for support. The bombed streets of Iraq had replaced the police car. Shattered lives matched only in their hopelessness by their shattered buildings reduced to rubble by the liberators marching through their devastated streets. The scene shifted to the searing heat of a desert where he was trying desperately to fit broken people back together whose arms and legs had been blown off by IED’s. Eddie shut his eyes tightly and tensed every muscle until his body was rigid. Immediately, he could feel the air around him shift, and the police car came back into sharp focus.
Slowly, Eddie took faltering steps to the car, ignoring the young police officer as she began to retch. Derek had provided Fred with nothing more than a forensic suit and plastic slippers to cover his feet. His wet pyjamas had already soaked through the flimsy material, making it transparent and useless as a means of warmth. Unusually, Eddie noted in his cursory examination, Fred didn’t seem to be shivering, or showing any signs of hypothermia, even though he had to be cold. He reached out to touch his neck, but found his hand stop in mid-air. Eddie drew his lips into a tight line and reached out again, touching the old man’s skin with the back of his hand. He nearly jerked it back. What he touched felt old and clammy, like the skin on a corpse. He also realised something else. As soon as Derek had got him out of the police car the smell had stopped, disappearing without any wind to draw it away. There was a slight residual odour left on Fred’s clothing, but nothing as intense as a few moments ago.
Reluctantly, Eddie leaned closer. ‘Hello sir. Can you understand me? My name is Eddie and this is St Margaret’s Hospital. These kind police officers have brought you here after finding you out for a walk in the snow.’ Eddie wasn’t sure if anything he was saying was getting through, given the man had all the appearance of being catatonic.
De
rek Stone was clearly shaken and desperate to hurry the process along. Eddie took one of the wheelchairs from the main entrance and gently sat Fred down. He decided to take him straight into a cubicle. The female officer seemed to have recovered enough to run ahead and hold the door open. She gave Eddie a small apologetic smile, which he reciprocated, noting under all her bluster she was really quite cute. He pushed the wheelchair up to the side door and had to stop momentarily as she backed into a waste bin. The policewoman up-righted it and they moved quickly through the waiting area watched by the curious, who wondered (with grudging sympathy) how much of a delay it would cause them. Fred sat unmoving in the chair, seemingly oblivious of the people sitting in ordered rows. The hold-up in the doorway had allowed a diluted remnant of the stench to creep towards the old man in the wheelchair. He had fallen asleep, but was now jerking and twitching as its odorous fingers reached him. He let out a strangled gasp before catapulting himself out of the chair. Those closest to him screamed and moved away frantically, afraid he would fit or do something equally gross. Staff rushed through the onlookers and pushed him gently back into the chair. Eddie heard him shouting, but his words were incoherent and seemed interlaced with another language. But there was one word he repeated clearly — Bialowieza. Eddie didn’t understand what it meant, but its significance was undeniable when he pushed the chair into cubicle three and saw a look of horror on Kat’s face as she stood staring down the corridor.
Andy was already waiting, anticipating his help would be needed. Together, they transferred Fred from the wheelchair onto the examination bed. Eddie waited for some reaction from Andy, but the nurse remained unmoved by his proximity to the old man. Eddie turned his head and sniffed the air, finding no overpowering odour other than damp clothing and a little stale urine. Behind him, Derek Stone was backing out of the cubicle. His eyes fixed on the old man who stared blankly back at him.
‘Derek? Derek, mate, what’s the score with this fellow?’ Eddie had to quickly grab Stone’s arm to stop him falling over a chair.
‘He’s really strange, Eddie. You need to watch him,’ Derek Stone’s voice quivered. ‘That horrible smell... it just seemed to pump out of him. There was nothing until he was in my car. I know because I stuck the suit on him. I was that close and I swear to you there was no smell.’
‘Impacted colon, maybe.’ Eddie tried to smile, offering what little reassurance he could to the affected policeman.
‘Don’t joke,’ Stone said, looking pointedly at the nurse. ‘Trust me, there’s something not right with him. You looked as if you got a snoutful.’ Stone searched Eddie’s face for confirmation. ‘I don’t need to be a bloody nurse to recognise that wasn’t the smell of shit.’
‘Come on, Derek, for Christ’s sake; listen to yourself!’ Eddie said. ‘Where did you find him? He could be a tramp? He may have worms, that’s all.’
‘Look, Eddie, I’ve got him here now he’s your responsibility. I’ve got a car to sort out and a WPC on her first night shift with me who can’t stop throwing up.’ Derek Stone backed out into the corridor and practically ran out of the department. The receptionist tried to get some details about the patient, but the policeman pushed past her without a word. Eddie stared after him, watching as the man pulled frantically on the side door, trying to get out as fast as he could. The young officer apologised and stumbled after her colleague, holding onto her stomach tightly as she walked out of the hospital.
‘Nurse Keagan, I need to see you in eight.’
‘On my way, Doctor,’ Eddie replied. ‘You okay with him, Andy?’
Andy nodded, ‘I’m going to get him some blankets from stores. I won’t be long.’ He slipped the cot sides into place and left Fred sleeping.
Eddie passed Kat Merunkova, who was entering cubicle four. They exchanged small smiles. He could tell she was still anxious since the old guy in the wheelchair shouted out a name he now couldn’t recall.
Eddie pulled back the curtain of cubicle eight and was confronted with Dr Phil Jones and Jason Ridley, the department’s boy administrator, who were both sat on opposite ends of the bed.
‘What’s the deal with the man brought in by the fuzz?’ Phil demanded.
Eddie could see he was trying not to blemish the ultra cool exterior he had cultivated so perfectly. Jason however was cupping his hand to his mouth. He had obviously caught some of the stench that must have wafted into his office. ‘Brought in after being picked up wandering around by the river. But there’s something really weird about this bloke,’ Eddie said. ‘It’s late November with sleet and snow falling. So if an old guy is found wandering around in his pyjamas and is soaked through, he should be hypothermic. I touched his skin, and Andy did his temp. He was cold, but not as cold as I expected — or cold enough to set off alarm bells. Strange though, the two officers who brought him in seemed to be in a state of pan—’
A scream, closely followed by the unmistakable sound of a medical trolley being overturned sent them running down the corridor. Eddie got to the cubicle first and saw Kat’s ink-black hair poking out like starfish arms from beneath the curtain. Pumping through it was a steady stream of blood. Head injury — she must have collapsed and hit her head, Eddie assessed as he tore open the curtains.
Phil shouldered everyone aside and began shouting out orders. ‘I need a crash trolley. Kath get a line into her. Eddie!’
Eddie was trying to work out why he needed a crash trolley for a cut on the head. Looking down, he realised it was more serious as her blood began to flow quietly around his shoes. On the bed, the yob resembled something out of a horror film. He was sat up staring wildly, and covered in what seemed like most of Kat’s blood. He held a small penknife out in front of him, its blade now dull and coated. Andy approached him with his hand extended to take the knife. The boy slashed out at him. Eddie pulled the shocked nurse back and grabbed the boys arm. He twisted the wrist and felt the satisfying snap of tendons as soon as he applied pressure. The knife fell out of his grip and onto the bed. Andy dived forward and grabbed the blade. Eddie kept applying pressure. Strange thing was, the kid should have been squealing in agony, but he just stared at the curtain, whimpering like a child.
‘Okay, you can release him, Eddie, or you’ll break his arm,’ Phil shouted. Realising the nurse wasn’t hearing him, he placed a hand gently on Eddie’s shoulder and whispered in his ear, ‘Eddie, we need to save Kat. Let him go and help me.’
Eddie pushed the boy back on to the bed. ‘Phone the police and get security here. Andy, watch this little shit until someone comes to take over.’
Eddie knelt down and helped Phil, as he worked quickly but methodically to stabilise Kat. He saw for the first time the gash running from knee to crotch on the inside of her left thigh. The muscle tone was gone, leaving her skin to flop apart. Eddie had a stupid image of her lips being transplanted onto the leg and enlarged so they were plump and open.
‘Eddie, you’re going to have to tourniquet off the femoral artery, there’s no other way or we’ll lose her.’
Phil began shouting out routine orders Eddie had reacted to hundreds of times, but he couldn’t move. It was his Kat, and she was dying in front of him. Then he felt a hand crawl across his shoe and up to his ankle. With whatever life was left inside her, Kat pressed her fingers into the bone to let him know she was still around. It was enough to bring Eddie back into the fight to save her. ‘Has anyone got cannulas into her yet? Let’s get fluids now! Check her BP. Come on, people! Kathy, warn surgical we have one of ours coming down pronto.’
The curtain to the other cubicle was torn neatly down the middle. Eddie guessed the kid’s knife must have slashed through the material and then sliced into Kat. Through the gash he could see Fred looking down at the drama. He wore a strange expression on his face as if he were enjoying the fight to save the girl. Eddie tried a weak smile, hoping to reassure the old man. In the briefest of moments Eddie saw something that unnerved him flicker across Fred’s eyes. Something that made him stop
and realise what Derek Stone had seen. The faintest look of evil satisfaction was present on the old man’s face. Eddie shut his eyes. When he opened them, Fred had turned away and appeared to be asleep.
Kat’s willpower and strength had been enough to stabilise her before she was taken to surgery. Eddie had seen too many wounds like hers in Iraq when he was attached to Special Forces as one of their elite front-line medics. He knew there was a good chance Kat would lose her leg. A high amputation, he judged, unless the surgeon was very skilled. Eddie didn’t know how to feel about that right now. He was still haunted by the look in Fred’s eyes.
‘S’cuse me, boss. What are we going to do with the guy in three? Only none of the medical wards say they have space,’ Andy said, interrupting Eddie’s thoughts.
‘Christ! I don’t know, Andy. Have Social Services been informed we have a John Doe?’ Eddie immediately regretted his tone. ‘Sorry mate, I didn’t mean to go off on you like that.’
‘It’s okay. I know you and Kat have a thing, and Jesus it must have been terrible for you to have to go through that... but we have a casualty department to run and I am out of my depth,’ Andy paused, seeing Eddie beginning to stare blankly over his shoulder. ‘It’s that bloke, isn’t it?’ Not waiting for his reply, he ushered Eddie over to a quiet corner. Andy looked around as if he was worried someone might overhear what he was about to say. ‘Me and Kathy went in to check on him, and he’s sleeping like a baby, right. With all the noise going on how could he sleep through that?’ Andy dropped his voice to a whisper.
‘He didn’t,’ Eddie whispered back. ‘I caught him looking at us when we were working on Kat. I tell you, Andy, there’s something not quite right about him. And you didn’t get the smell that came off him in the police car. I tell you it was off the scale. It was like a rotting corpse covered in diarrhoea then left out in the sun.’
