I was walking home from the Tender Trap.  I’d had hopes that Benny would take me home but she had other plans.  I had no idea what those plans were but it clearly wasn’t a quiet night in.  She’d arrived at the pub in knife-creased, airforce blue trousers with a white pilot-style shirt (long sleeves, patch pockets and epaulettes) with a black leather waistcoat over.  I had a couple of drinks with her and a couple of other girls.  She didn’t tell me what she had planned that night and I definitely wasn’t going to ask, so I eventually left feeling a bit deflated even though I was aware there was no suggestion of a commitment between us.

I liked her very much.  She was funny, quick-witted and sensitive.  We’d fucked a few times, always at her place.  The sex was great.  She was always in charge and if that was her thing I could go along with it.   Her body was hard, and she knew how to make a woman build up to an orgasm and how to make a lover get her to hers.

‘Act like a grown-up, Wanda,’ I told myself as I pulled on my camel coat and picked up the satchel I always carried and left. She stood up and kissed me goodbye.  Bitch.

The plan was simple, its execution less so.  In journalism, especially the investigative kind, it often pays to poke the bear.

My email to Guy Foster had read:  ‘I’ve learned that a surgeon in your department has received threatening letters, including extremely violent and unpleasant threats.  Since you are the head of the Orthopaedic Department I wondered if you could give me an interview.  The questions I wish to ask centre on your own awareness of any bullying, discriminatory or harassing behaviour among your colleagues, as well as any complaints of such behaviour that may have been brought to your attention or, indeed, levelled against you.

‘I know this is currently a sensitive matter for the Trust.  I’m sure though, that you’d agree that the sort of behaviour I have described is unacceptable and that you’d be prepared to help me uncover the truth of these matters.’

I’d sent the email from work earlier that day.  As I walked through the ill-lit streets of the Georgian City I was considering what my next moves might be.

My phone rang.  I stopped walking to answer it.  A very distorted, probably disguised voice said, “I could almost touch you, bitch.”  I said, with no originality at all, who is this? but the voice continued.  “I can smell you.  You really shouldn’t walk alone at night.  Especially when you’re stirring up trouble.”

I then heard the voice say, “What the fuck are you doing here?” followed by a voice I could barely hear and definitely not interpret the words, then, “Mind your own fucking business.”

It was at that point that I heard a small scream and, searching through the gloom, I saw a figure, the hint of the light of a mobile phone in one hand and another figure stumbling.  The first figure seemed to kick the second and another, louder scream followed.  I ran, my satchel flapping on my hip, my phone still in my hand and, as I approached, I saw it was Benny on the ground and a tall, slim man aiming kicks at her body that had assumed a foetal position.  I ran, oblivious to everything else, no cogent thoughts in my mind, and shoulder-charged the man in the middle of his back.  It felt like hitting a wall but I succeeded in knocking him over, even if I fell over his body and almost somersaulted past him.  I couldn’t find my phone and I scrabbled around, increasingly aware of a pain of great intensity in my shoulder until, almost gratefully, I passed out.

When I came too, Benny was cradling my head.  “What happened?”

“He happened.”  She pointed to the man I’d knocked over.  “I was following you, hoped to surprise you but then I saw him stalking you.  It’s Foster, the bastard.  I’ve called the police.  I think you’ve done some damage to your shoulder but there’s an ambulance on the way.  I’m sorry I played games with you.”

I tried to move but the pain was agonising and I yelped and threw up.

Police and paramedics arrived.  The paras immobilised my arm and gave me some gas.  Benny was being examined too.  Foster was shouting something about a crazy woman assaulting him.  It was all too much.

Hours, uncomfortable hours later I was on a bed in the Emergency Department when, to my surprise, Amrita arrived.  “You’ve managed to pick a day when I’m on duty,” she smiled.  ‘You’ve cracked your collar bone and dislocated your shoulder so we’ll be getting you down to theatre pretty soon.”

“How’s Benny?”

“She took a bit of a kicking but you saved her getting worse.  Foster’s fine and has been arrested.  I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything.  I thought he was going to kill Benny.”

“We’ll talk when you’re fixed.  Lie back now and relax, it won't be long.”

The police took a statement from me when, finally, I was capable of making one.  Benny had come to see me a few times and said she’d told them that she’d been following me from the Tender Trap as a surprise.  She’d come across Foster lurking and heard him say something about not walking alone at night and then he’d seen her and went crazy.  He punched her and, when she’d fallen to the ground, started kicking her which was when I arrived like a missile.

“You should play rugby.  I was very impressed.”

‘I don’t think so.”  I looked at her.  “Why were you playing games?”

She kissed me.  “I just thought it would be fun.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”  I was shouting.  “It almost got us both killed.  What’s the fucking matter with you?”

A nurse looked in and said, “Come on, Benny, you should go.  This is supposed to be a hospital.”

Benny stood up,  looked at me sadly, and walked out, without another word.  Bollocks.

The police, mainly my mate DCI Christina Wellow, sorted the whole mess.  They found the call to my mobile on Foster’s phone, which was not his main one but a burner.  Despite all his denials, in his home, they found cut up magazines and newspapers that he hadn’t bothered to destroy, the tosser.  They interviewed dozens of surgical, nursing and auxiliary staff at the hospital and a whole host of accusations rained down upon him.

It was weeks later that I gave evidence at his trial.  By this time, my shoulder was almost functioning but I still needed physio.  I stood in the witness box in the imposing courtroom and told the story, exactly as it happened.  I couldn’t report on the case because it would have been a conflict but I read everything that was written and often straightened out my own colleague, Dennis Stuckey, who was covering it for the paper.  He was good but sometimes a little direct knowledge helps.

I also read his notes on Benny’s evidence.  His shorthand was excellent and readable, unlike my own.

‘I’d met Wanda sometime ago and that evening I was with her in the Tender Trap, a pub near the hospital.  She left and I decided to follow her, catch up with her and see if she fancied coffee at my flat.  I saw Guy Foster half-hidden behind a hedge and heard him say something about not walking alone at night when you’re stirring up trouble.  I could see Wanda some way off and she was holding her phone.  I said something like, ‘what are you doing?’ and he became abusive, first telling me to fuck off, then attacking me.  I fell to the ground and he kicked me repeatedly until Wanda tackled him and he fell to the ground.  I called the police and an ambulance.’

There was more but that was the gist.  Cross-examined, she was consistent and convincing.

‘I think Wanda saved my life.  It was partly my fault she was walking alone.  I ought to have asked her for coffee while we were in the pub but I was just messing about, hoping to surprise her.  My misjudgement allowed all this to happen.  I feel guilty about that, very guilty.”

My physiotherapist was brilliant.  She had me work like hell to recover the muscle that had atrophied while I was immobilised.  Name of Philippa, she was Australian and obviously an athlete herself.  I accused her of being a sadist and she smiled.  “No pain, no gain. No fun either.  Why do you think a girl does this job?”  As she said that, she twisted my shoulder and elicited a groan.  “Lovely.  If I’d done that a week ago, you’d have screamed.”  Cow.

Amrita signed me off a little while later.  She even kissed me as I left, chastely on my cheek.  It was about seven when I left the hospital and, on a whim,I decided to drop into the Tender Trap for a beer.

Jack, the gay, former boxer, was tending the back bar as usual.  “Hey, Wanda.  Been hearing good things about you.  You nailed that bastard Foster.”

“Have you seen Benny?”

“She’s been in a few times.  You never know with that lot, they work shit hours so they aren’t predictable.  What are you drinking?”

I took my large brandy to a corner table, took my notebook out of my satchel and started writing my next story.  I felt a tap on my good shoulder.  Looking up, it was Benny.

I said, “Hi, look, I…” but she put her fingertip to my lips and sat down, facing me, looking at me.  She’d brought a beer for herself and another large brandy for me.  She didn’t speak for what seemed an age.

I spoke again.  “I’ve read what you said in court, about feeling guilty.”

She nodded.  “I do and you were quite right to get angry with me.”

I shook my head and said calmly, not letting her stop me,  “Actually, you’re wrong.  At any other time, I’d have got home, and a few moments later I’d have opened my door to you and all the disappointment I had been feeling would evaporate and we’d have had a great night.  Everything that went wrong,  everything, was down to Foster.  I was angry because I was afraid, because I hurt, because, well, because.”

‘So, am I forgiven?”

“There’s nothing to forgive except not calling me.”

She smiled.  “I didn’t think you’d answer.  And, you didn’t call me.”

“I felt a tit.”

“Are we good?”

“We’re good.”

“How’s the shoulder?”

“Do you know Philippa, the physio?”  She did.  “She’s a fucking sadist.”

“They all are, or, if they’re not, they’re no good.  I bet it hurt though?”

I agreed that it had but that it was much, much better.  We talked a bit about the Foster story.  He’d been fired of course, and apparently, HR was investigating more.  Another consultant had been suspended and victims were streaming out of the woodwork.

Benny looked at her watch.  “Fancy a curry?  I haven’t eaten since five this morning and I could eat a meal for six.”

We walked to the restaurant close to my flat.  As we passed my building, I said, “That’s where I live.”

“Nice.  You can show me after we’ve eaten.”

We got to my flat at about ten.  One result of my injury was that I got tired too easily.  I told Benny and she said, “I’m not surprised.  Look, can I stay the night?  Just be with you, nothing else.”   She wasn’t, she told me, working the next day, Saturday.  “Do you want to come and watch me play rugby?”

I fell asleep in my bed, her arms around me.  She’d examined my shoulder, pronounced it good, and kissed it.  Amrita was a genius, she said.  I was a heroine, apparently.

I woke up because there was a woman between my thighs, her mouth on me, her tongue doing beautiful things to me.  It was like having a sexy dream that doesn’t stop when you wake up.  I felt like it was imagined until the realisation came and then I became a participant, no longer passive.   I stroked her hair encouragingly and lifted my knees.  She licked my arse, probing gently and I made it clear that I liked it.  Her eyes lifted to me, smiling and a finger slipped inside my cunt, curling, stroking, exploring, while her tongue worked on my clit, flicking, and stroking by turns.  She sucked my lips, pulling them and then, oh then a finger pushed it’s way into my arse and the two intrusive fingers worked together, rhythmically and firmly. It was like a three-pronged attack, my arse, my cunt and my clit.  The inevitable result wasn’t long in coming.  I felt my back arch, my body tighten and my orgasm, wet and noisy, happened.  It was drawn out, almost painful but beautiful and, when it passed, I felt a sort of warmth envelope me.  Her fingers stayed inside me, still but a presence, filling me, holding me and her mouth continued to make love to me but slowly, tenderly.

“I took it easy because your shoulder’s not ready for Benny’s full treatment.  Soon, but not yet.”  Her chin was resting on my mound, nestled in my untidy pubic hair.  Her fingers left me and one traced my pubes.  “I’m going to tame these.  You’re beautiful, but you’d be even moreso if your lips were more visible.”

“Is that so?”

She looked up at me.  “What Benny says, goes.  And you’re going to learn to ask.”

“Ask what?”

“Ask for permission.”

“I’m not that kind of woman.”

“You are for me.”  She disentangled herself.  “How’s the shoulder?”

“It’s doing well, thanks.”

“Good.  Now, I”m going to go home and get my kit together and you can come and watch me, be dazzled by my athleticism, my skill.  Then, we can go back to my place and you can give me a massage and ease my by-then aching muscles.”

“I’ve never massaged anyone.”

“Never too late to learn.  Oh and wear something that won't mind getting a bit muddy, especially shoes.”

“Right, boss.”

“You’re learning.”

She told me where to be and when, then showered and left.  I lay in bed and wondered what I was getting into.

At the appointed hour, well, five minutes or so late, in fact, I was at the rugby ground.  The game was underway and a fellow spectator told me that the match was between Benny’s hospital ladies and a team from Taunton.

“It’s a bit of a needle match.”

“Appropriate for a hospital team.”

“What, oh, yes I see.”

“Who are you supporting?”

“The hospital, I work there too.  I’m Jane.”

“Wanda.  I came because Benny asked me.  Do you know her?”

“Everyone knows Benny.  That’s her, wearing the number 8 shirt.”

She was bent at the back of the scrum, her lovely arse high, her foot deftly controlling the ball until another player took the ball and looped around the side of the scrum and Benny broke away to follow her.  I walked up the side of the pitch trying to keep pace as she and the other girl danced their way through the opposition.  I knew enough about the game (thanks Dad) to know she was good.  I thought she was going to score but a huge woman from the opposition caught her, threw her to the ground and wrestled the ball from her.  I was impressed by the sheer physicality of it; crunching tackles, relentless pace and the speed with which most of the players recovered from those huge impacts and kept going.

Half-time came and Benny walked over to join me.  She had a blue gum shield which matched her eyes.  “Hey, you came.”  Her smile was reward enough.  “Enjoying?”

“It’s a bloody war.  How come you aren’t damaged?”

“Hard work and hard muscles.”  She took the shield out of her mouth and kissed me.  “You look good.  Love the coat.”

I’d worn an aged trench coat over dark brown cords and walking boots; practical if not sexy.  “You look filthy.”  She did too.  Her white strip was streaked with green grass stains and brown mud.  Her cheek had a small cut and i ran my thumb over it.  “You look filthy.”

She smiled.  “When I’ve cleaned up we can get filthy together.  Now, fuck off and get a beer and I’ll go and give the girls a half-time pep talk.”

I got a hot tea in fact.  If I’d had beer then, I”d have needed the toilet in about ten minutes!

The second half started and I watched with Jane.  The hospital’s team stole the ball from the other side and it was passed out until it reached the hands of the number 13 player.  Jane shouted, “Go, Maisey.”  She looked at me, a little embarrassed. “She’s a mate.”  Right, I thought.  Maisey was, like most of the players, tall, and athletic.  Unlike most of them, she’d left her long, blonde hair untied to flow behind her as she ran.  When she turned I realised she was extremely good-looking.  She scored and there was a lot of hugging and high-fiving.  Jane had a look of pride that confirmed my suspicions that she was more than a mate.

Taunton won.  It was close though and there seemed to be no ill-will as the two sides shook hands after.  I waited with Jane in the bar.  After a while, Maisey emerged from the changing room looking fit, fresh and feminine in good trousers and a sweater. She bent down to kiss Jane who pointed to a glass of wine on our table.  “That’s for you.  You were brilliant.”

“Thanks.  Who is this?”

“This is Wanda.”  We shook hands.  “She’s a friend of Benny’s”

“Benny just gave us all a bollocking.  Apparently, we are lazy, disorganised and incompetent.”  I protested.  I’d thought they were fabulous.  “Don’t worry, it’s Benny’s standard post-match bollocking, even if we win.  Then she tells us we’re all fantastic and that a few tweaks in training and all will be well.”

Benny arrived, cleaner and tidier in jeans and a heavy cotton shirt.  “I turn my back on you and you’ve pulled the best-looking player in the team!”  She turned to Maisey, “You’ve met Wanda?”  Maisey nodded.  “Reporter on the Clarion.” That warning again - keep your secrets.  We sat and had a couple of drinks with Jane and Maisey, said our goodbyes and walked to Benny’s flat.  As we left, I bumped into a woman in a dark blue overcoat and a matching woolly hat but with a bright yellow pompom.  We exchanged apologies.

In a few minutes we were in the bedroom, a huge towel already deployed across the bed.

“Have you got any oil?”

“Nope.”

“Good job I brought some then.”

“I thought you’d said you’d never given a massage.”

“I haven’t.  I bought this on the way over.”  I retrieved the small bottle from my satchel.  Benny took it, opened it and sniffed it, pronounced it excellent and stripped off.

When she was face down on the towel, I ran my hands, dry, over her body.  There were livid bruises on her thighs, her flanks.  I dreaded what I’d see when she turned over.  “Is it always like this?”

“Mostly, yes.  You pack it in when you stop healing quickly.”

“Great idea.”  I opened the bottle and poured some oil into my hands and, standing at her head, leant over her and began to massage her back and shoulders.

“You’re overdressed.”

“Shhh.  We’re doing this my way.”

‘Hmm.”

I worked her muscles.  I worked all the way down to her buttocks, her face now and then in contact with the flies of my cords. I moved to her feet and worked her calves, tight, hard muscles rolling under my hands.

Standing by her side, I worked her thighs and buttocks and allowed my fingers to delve down between her thighs, oiling her arse without making any attempt to push inside her there, or between her labia.  Her legs opened a little and I whispered, ‘Wait.”

I ask her to roll over onto her back.  As she moved, I slipped off my cords and the white, cotton shirt I’d worn along with my underwear and stood, naked, until she was ready.  I worked from her side, massaging her arms, her breasts, then, moving slightly, her thighs and calves.  I took my time, enjoying her growing frustration and need.  Her nipples were hard, her legs apart and her labia had swollen and opened.  I kissed her mouth and, as I worked my hands down between her thighs again, so her hand slithered, oily, up my thigh.

It was no longer a remedial massage, but had become sex, mutual stimulation, slow, intimate and, so far, gentle.  As my finger entered her cunt, so her thumb entered me.  I worked her, fingering her with one hand while the other massaged her belly, its thumb toying with her clit.  Her thumb probed deeper and a finger touched, then pressed against my arse.  Two can play that game.  I gently, slowly pushed a finger into her bum but she stopped me.

“You have to ask.”

“You didn’t.”

She looked at me, her eyebrows raised and so, playing her game, I relented.  “May I?”

“Of course.”  Big smile.  Bitch.

It all got a bit torrid then.  I straddled her face, my knees by her ears and she pulled me down, her hands on my buttocks and I felt her tongue open me, I used my tongue to work her, the oil tasting of lemon and rosemary as I licked her.  My finger entered her bum and she moaned into my cunt.  Then, we were face to face, me prone, she, slippery, over me, our cunts pressing together, our mouths hungry for each other.  She climaxed first.  I felt her, wet, on my cunt as she let go, arching, groaning and spasming.  A few seconds later it was my turn and I writhed and yelled into her mouth as it flowed through me.

We lay, side by side on that towel.  She held my hand.  I kissed her ear.  Then I turned onto my side and threw my arm and leg across her, cupping her breast and nuzzling into her short hair.

“Was that us getting filthy?”

“Oh no, not at all.  That was us getting happy.  Filthy comes later.”  Oh, good.

It wasn’t until I was outside, waiting for an Uber (walking at night wasn’t so attractive post-Foster), much later, that I found it.  A small piece of paper in the pocket of my aged trench coat.  It had, written in blue ink, a mobile number and the following words:  ‘There’s far worse at the hospital than bullying.  Call me.’

Where had that come from and what did it mean?  ‘Far worse?’  Then I remembered the woman in the woolly hat and the way she’d looked when we bumped into each other.  I tried to remember her face but all I could bring to mind was a look of fear, which, at the time, I’d taken for an apology.

It was too late to call.  I’d left Benny after a shower because she had to work on Sunday, the following day and she needed sleep.  It was almost midnight when I got home so I waited until the following morning to call the number from the office, as I prepared for the Monday edition.  I was finishing off a story about homeless figures in the city; a shaming tale that vilified the city council’s abject failure to help and named a couple of particularly inept councillors allegedly charged with solving the problem.

I called the number.  It was picked up and I said, “Hi, this is Wanda Daniels from the Clarion.”

Silence.  Then, “Wait, I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”

It was more like twenty minutes when my mobile vibrated on my desk.  “Hello.”

“Hi, can I trust you?”  I didn’t answer.  What was the point?  I’d have said yes whether she could or not.  “Can I?”  There was fear in the voice.  Okay then.  “Yes, yes of course you can.  Who are you?”

“I work at the General.”  That was the city’s second-largest hospital.  “There’s something very wrong.”

“What is it?”

“Old people, dying.”

“Old people die.”

“But these are being killed.  I have to go.  I’ll call you.”

“Wait, what’s your name?”

“Not yet.”  The phone went dead.  Fuck!

Not enough to start asking questions.  Where do I start?  I decided all I could do was wait.  But then I thought, waiting could be fatal for someone, maybe I need help.

Margaret Connell, the editor, was a dragon with a warm heart.  I went into her office without knocking and sat in the chair in front of her desk  I offered her a cigarette.  I smoke about three a year but I knew she was desperate and, with few people around, a ciggy would calm her.  “What?”

So, I told her.  She listened, although it didn’t take long.  She sat back in her chair, taking a contented drag on her fag and looked at me.  “So, it’s nothing, just a voice?”

“I know.  But it’s weird, no?  I wondered if you thought there was anything, anything at all I could do.”

“How did she sound?”

“Scared.”

“Look, you got your name in lights over the Foster thing.  It could just be the crazies coming out to play.  It happens.”

“I know.  But why the note, the brush pass, the phone call?  Do you have anyone in the hospital?”

“You’re political, not crime or investigative.”

“But you know I can investigate.”

She mulled, taking small drags.  “Get me a coffee.  Black.  Get one for yourself too.”

When I returned with the cups, she had a bottle of Scotch on her desk.  Without asking, she poured shots into both our cups.  “You haven’t seen this, okay?”  I nodded.  “Give me another cigarette.”  I did and, unusually, took one myself.

“I fucking hate things like this.”  She didn’t look as though she hated it.  “You never know.  Revenge, madness, paranoia; what drives them?  And anonymity is infuriating.  But, as you said, doing nothing sort of makes us complicit if there is any truth to it.  Have you spoken to Virginia?”

Virginia Laing was our health editor.  Why hadn’t I thought of her?  After the Foster story, she’d been a bit miffed that I’d written it and not shared it with her.  It had been a mistake, I realised.  This could be an olive branch.

“I will.”

“Do.  I will too.  She’ll get over it, you know.”

It was the Monday by the time I found Virginia in her office.  “Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

I proffered a bag of doughnuts.  “Guilty conscience with sugar and jam in them.”  She smiled and took one.  “First, I”m sorry.  I should have told you about the Foster story.”

“Yes, you should.  What’s second?”

So, I told her about the brush pass, the piece of paper, and the scared voice.

“Fuck,” she said.  Virginia was older, maybe forty-five.  She had grey hair that was long and wild.  She was shapely, in a curvy, almost blousy way but very, very clever.  “I’ve heard nothing.  Want to work together?”

“I thought I should give it to you.”

“Like hell.  Your informant probably won't speak to anyone else so you’re stuck with her.  Not that she’s given you much.  But that’s where you have to be imaginative.  She said she’d call you?”  I nodded.  “Well, give her a couple of days then try again.  I’ll do some quiet digging in the meantime.”

“Has Margaret spoken to you?”

“Yes, she has.  Thanks for the doughnut.”

“Have another.”  I left the remaining doughnut in the greasy paper bag on her desk.

It was two days before I heard from woolly hat again.  I was at home, having just eaten my supper and considering an early night with my vibrator.  Thoughts of my afternoon and evening with Benny had got me a bit steamed up.

“Is that Wanda Daniels?”

“Yes.”

“I want to help you but I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“Look, you are obviously worried about something at the hospital and scared too.  Why don’t we meet and talk?”

“I don’t know.”

“Somewhere where you feel safe, somewhere where nobody knows you.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You obviously want to tell me or tell someone.  If you won’t talk to me, what about the police?”

“No, no definitely not the police.”  The fear level in her voice rose.  There was a pause and I was determined not to be the one to break it.  “The cafe opposite the station.  Come alone, twenty minutes.”  The call ended.  I could make that in five minutes so I called Virginia.

“Will you come and watch?  If she’s a crazy I don’t want to be alone.”

“Sure.  Go alone.  I’ll go into the cafe by myself before you get there and read a book.  Don’t try to get close to me, just sit and be natural.  You’ll be okay.”

I got to the cafe a few minutes early, ordered a coffee and found a table.  Virginia was, as she’d promised, already there and reading a book.  I stripped off my coat, sat and waited, checking my phone constantly.  It was the woolly hat that I saw first, its pompom wiggling as she made her way from the station across the road.

When she sat down, I said hi and asked if she’d like a coffee.  She would, so I went to the counter, trying to be as calm and normal as possible.  I took it back to the table and sat, facing her.  “There you go.  How are you?”

She looked around, furtively.  About thirty, I guessed, she had nice eyes, green.  She was wearing the same coat but, now it was open, I could see she was slim and small.  Wisps of blonde hair escaped from under the hat.  “You’re alone?”

I didn’t answer, just held my hands open as if to say, well, what does it look like?

She nodded as if she’d reached a decision.  “I’m a nurse.  At the General.”  Every sentence was as if she had to drag it out of herself.  “Geriatrics.  I think someone is killing patients.”  Okay, I thought, either crazy or delusional or, horribly, right.  I kept silent.  I had no idea how to handle this.  “Nobody seems to care.  A lady died last night and the sister on duty just said, ‘there goes another of Dr Morten’s.  Like it was expected.  Dr Morten’s lovely.  She cares so, so much.”

“Why do you think it’s suspicious?”

That seemed to be a bit like a slap to her face.  “Because,” she hissed, “they shouldn’t be dying.  They aren’t terminal.”

“They?”

“The patients,”  she said, almost rolling her eyes at my stupid question.

“I meant how many.”

“Too many.  It’s just not right.”

“Who’ve you spoken to?”

“Colleagues.”

“What do they say.”

“Keep your head down.  It’s the consultants’ job to raise concerns, not yours.  But the consultants aren’t saying anything either.”

“So, what do you think is happening?  Is it incompetence, or murder?”

She looked at me, her eyes wide.  “I don’t know but….”

“But?”

“I think someone may be killing them.”

“How can you help me to find out what’s happening?”

“I could give you names, dates.  I could copy some notes.”

“Don’t copy anything for now.  Keep yourself safe.  Have you considered leaving?”

“Hundreds of times.  But if I do nobody else will care.”  Then, in a rush.  “You got that bastard Foster and all he did was a bit of bullying.  This is something else.”

“Yes, yes, I know.  What can I call you?”  I held my breath.

“My name is Maggie.”

Progress.  “Okay, Maggie.  Look, we can meet here as often as you like.  Get me some names and dates but don’t put yourself at risk.  Oh, and don’t wear the hat again.”

“Why not?”

“You’re too recognisable.  Wear a hood or a scarf.  Think about yourself, stay alert and tell me all you can, when you can.  Let’s have a fixed date for coffee, like, say, every Wednesday.”

“My shifts vary.”

“Then call me once a week.  Any time. I’ll meet you any time you want.  We’ll do this together, okay?”

Smiling weakly, she said, yes.

“Why were you at the rugby club?”

“My boyfriend plays there.  I saw you, recognised you.  It was an impulse.”

“Well, let’s make that impulse into something.  The club might be a good place to meet.”

She left abruptly.  No goodbye, no ‘I’ll call you.’  She just left.

Virginia and I walked back to the office together.  She’d been busy since we’d first spoken about it.

“I had one of my girls do some open-source digging.  What she has found is quite odd.  Deaths at the General aren’t much different from other, similar hospitals, except..”  She left it hanging.

“Except?”

“In geriatrics.  The numbers alone don’t mean much but it may make her story more convincing.”

“Have you heard of Dr Morten?”

“No, why?”

“Apparently one of her Sisters said of one patient, ‘there goes another of Dr Morten’s.’  Morten is a woman.  Maybe she’s helping the patients to shuffle off. Another Shipman?”

“Or maybe someone’s got a grudge against Morten.  Who knows?”

TO BE CONTINUED