From somewhere in the gloom came a rustling noise. Liz gave a little shriek, and jumped.
‘Is there anybody there?’
Her words bounced back off the walls. The narrow beam of her torch didn’t illuminate much either. The rustling noise continued, transformed now into a kind of scuffling sound. A rat, of course. What else? Liz shuddered, remembering how they had appeared from everywhere in Clydebank after the Blitz, flushed from their tunnels and nests by the bombs and the noise.
She quickened her step. The sooner she found Adam, the better. It felt so lonely out here.
There must be lots of people mere feet away from her, but they were inside the buildings which rose around her like the walls of some giant cavern. Those walls were thick, built to last. There were wards above her head but their windows would be tightly shut against the night and the fog, the blackout blinds securely in place. Liz knew they were there, but the patients and staff inside would have no idea that she was out here.
Unbidden, she heard a voice in her head. It was one of the student nurses, a girl from the Outer Isles. When Liz had once confessed that walking past the mortuary gave her the creeps, the girl had chided her gently, her accent as soft and lilting as Sister MacLean’s.
‘Och, no, Liz, you shouldna worry about that. Dead people will never hurt you.’
She’d meant to be comforting. The memory of her words was having entirely the opposite effect.
Liz shivered again, quickened her step, and walked into something solid and warm. Not something. Someone. Could it be Adam, come looking for her? Instinctively, she reached out for him - and felt herself roughly grabbed and spun round, her torch pulled from her grasp and flung to the ground. Its narrow beam was extinguished immediately. A male arm clamped itself hard across her throat and shoulders, hurting her. Not Adam, then.
Thirty-eight
‘Want to hear a joke?’
It was four years since she’d heard that voice, but she’d have recognized it anywhere. Horrible, unwanted memories swamped her, rendering her incapable of speech, struggle or resistance.
‘I spotted you coming down the stairs at Partick,’ said Eric Mitchell. ‘You didn’t notice me on the tram, did you now? Or following you up through here?’ His voice sank to a hiss. ‘And little Lizzie always thought she was so clever.’
The words dripped malevolence.
His hand was on her neck, his fingers caressing her flesh. She tried not to shrink from his touch. If she kept calm, maybe he would too. Not do what she feared was on his mind. Panic threatened to overwhelm her.
Then a picture of Hope popped into her head. Somehow the thought of her little niece gave her strength.
‘Sure. I’d like to hear a joke,’ she said. Her voice sounded perfectly level. That was funny. Funny peculiar, that was, not funny ha-ha.
‘Sensible girl,’ he said. His voice was a growl of soft menace. ‘Heard the one about the new utility knickers?’
‘No,’ she whispered, ‘I haven’t.’
His lips were touching her ear. ‘One Yank and they’re off,’ he murmured. ‘Only in your case it would be an Eyetie, wouldn’t it?’
She had heard the joke. She’d thought it mildly funny at the time. It didn’t seem at all amusing now.
‘Wouldn’t it?’ Eric Mitchell asked in a louder voice, his hand tightening painfully on the bones in Liz’s neck. ‘What’s wrong with a good Scotsman, eh?’
Anger boiled up in Liz. Four years she’d put up with him. And for at least two of those years she’d had to be constantly on her guard. Two years of being nervous and jumpy every minute of the day. She’d had enough of being Eric Mitchell’s victim.
‘Nothing,’ she snapped. ‘Only I can’t seem to see one right now.’ She knew where one was, though. Probably only a few hundred yards away. Would he have started to worry about her yet? Come looking for her?
‘You can’t see anything,’ said Eric Mitchell silkily, ‘and neither can anyone else. No one’s going to hear you if you scream either. Not on a night like this, with all the windows closed.’
Liz squeezed her eyes tight shut in the blackness. St Jude, can you get me out of this one?
His hand was moving. He pulled her scarf out of the way, began unfastening the top buttons of her coat. His fingers, cold and rough, were in the V-neck of her blouse...
A tiny torch beam played over Liz’s face.
‘You know, I really don’t think the young lady wants you to do that.’
Buckling at the knees with sheer relief, she felt Eric Mitchell’s hold on her slacken as he turned round to face Adam, but if he had recognized the voice as belonging to his boss’s nephew there were no signs of it.
‘Fuck off, pal. Mind your own business.’
‘Afraid I can’t do that,
pal,
’ said Adam. ‘You see Miss MacMillan is a friend and colleague of mine and I really think you should take your filthy hands off her. Right now. And you’re on hospital property too - without, so far as I can see, any valid reason to be here.’
He sounded his usual languid self. Perhaps that was why Mitchell was caught so much by surprise when Adam lunged forward and grabbed Liz by the arm. He swung her round behind him with such force that she crashed into the wall, banging her elbow painfully against the stonework.
It made her head swim for a moment, and in the confusion which followed she was aware of two punches being thrown, then the sound of running footsteps. She could hear heavy, laboured breathing. It was her. Beside her, someone else’s breath was also coming too fast.
‘Adam?’ she said into the fog. ‘Please tell me it’s you who’s still here.’
‘It’s me,’ he said grimly. ‘I don’t know where my bloody torch is though.’
Liz reached for him, patting the darkness with her hands and finding his face.
‘You’re bleeding!’ she gasped.
‘Ten out of ten for diagnosis. Come on, let’s get inside and shed some light on the subject.’
‘He could have had a knife,’ Liz said sternly ten minutes later.
‘Well, he didn’t,’ replied Adam, looking remarkably cheerful for a man who’d just taken a punch. ‘Ouch!’
‘Keep still, then. How can I clean you up if you won’t stay still?’
‘Och, you’re so sympathetic, Nurse,’ he grumbled. ‘No wonder Sister MacLean used to make you clean floors and lavatories all the time and never let you near the patients.’
‘My turn,’ he said with some satisfaction when she’d finished with him. ‘Where’s the damage?’
‘Only my elbow, I think.’ Liz rolled up her sleeve and let him have a look at it. ‘You did that’ she said lightly, ‘but I’m rather glad that you did.’
‘Mmm.’ He cleaned it and applied some ointment then put his hands on her shoulders and peered anxiously down into her face. ‘Are you really all right, Liz?’
‘Yes, of course I am,’ she said brightly. In fact she felt full of beans. She’d been miserable a couple of hours ago; now she felt absolutely great. Strange. A surge of adrenaline because she’d narrowly escaped a fate worse than death?
‘You look very thoughtful,’ said Adam.
‘Mmm. I expect I do.’ She smiled up at him.
‘Right,’ he said briskly. ‘Do you want to go to the police station now or tomorrow morning?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Liz, you’ve got to report it!’
She’d given him the whole story whilst she’d attended to his injuries. He had listened without comment, but she’d seen the tightening around his mouth, known without him having to spell it out that he was outraged by what she’d had to put up with while she was working at Murray’s.
She bit her lip. ‘
Do
I have to report it? Don’t you remember that woman we had in A and E who’d been raped and beaten up by her boyfriend? I worked with Eric Mitchell for four years. I didn’t make a single complaint about his behaviour. Not an official one, at any rate. Can you imagine what they would make of that?’
They’d both been appalled by the way the police had treated the girl, as though she were the guilty party rather than the victim. And it had occurred to Liz that she might find herself reporting the assault to the sergeant who’d arrested Mario... the one who thought she was a loose woman.
‘Please, Adam,’ she pleaded. ‘I’d rather do nothing about it.’
He spluttered. ‘Liz, he can’t be allowed to get away with it! Let me at least go and see my Uncle Alasdair. Does Mitchell still work at Murray’s?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. ‘I’m not in touch with anybody there.’
‘I’ll find out tomorrow,’ he said determinedly. ‘In the meantime, d’you still fancy that drink and a spot of supper?’
He reported back to her the next afternoon. Eric Mitchell had left Murray’s exactly one week before, having joined up. According to Lucy Gilchrist, he’d shown his mettle by signing up voluntarily. Alasdair Murray had a different interpretation of events.
Mitchell had been trying unsuccessfully to get his job as a shipping clerk categorized as a reserved occupation. He’d been in dispute with the authorities for some time over it. His time had run out a couple of weeks before.
Lucy Gilchrist knew he’d been due to leave Glasgow on the overnight train to London the day before. His contretemps with Liz and Adam had taken place in the early evening. He’d probably caught that train.
‘We could try to find out from his wife where he is,’ said Adam, frowning at Liz. ‘Otherwise, it’s a case of tracing him through the Army, and that could take time. And if you’re reluctant to press charges...’
‘I’m a lot happier knowing he’s away from Glasgow,’ said Liz, thinking about it. ‘Let it go. For the duration, at least. Maybe we can do something about it after that.’
Adam gave her a look. ‘Why do I get the feeling that you’re trying to pacify me, MacMillan?’
Reaction set in the next day. The catalyst was tripping over the threshold of one of the ward kitchens and dropping a tray full of dirty cups and saucers. Cordelia, standing at the draining board drying dishes which another student nurse was washing, turned with a smile.
‘Would you like a hammer, Liz?’ She crouched down to assess the damage, plucking the cups and saucers which had survived out of the mess of broken crockery.
‘Hey,’ she said, glancing up and seeing Liz’s stricken face. ‘Come on, now. It was an accident. Even the old battleaxe will understand that.’
‘To whom might you be referring, Maclntyre?’
Cordelia glanced up guiltily as Sister MacLean swept into the kitchen. Then her expression changed. ‘I don’t think MacMillan’s very well, Sister.’
Sister MacLean took one look, pulled Liz over to a chair and fired out an instruction to the anxiously hovering probationer.
‘Is Dr Buchanan in the hospital?’
‘I think so, Sister.’
‘Well, go and fetch him. Now!’
He came striding into the room, the pupil nurse having to run to keep up with him.
‘Liz?’ he asked gently, crouching down in front of her. ‘Liz, sweetie, what’s the matter?’
His voice penetrated her distress. She lifted her head, clutching the sleeves of his white coat. ‘Oh, Adam! It’s all just hit me.’
‘What’s just hit her?’ demanded Sister MacLean. Cordelia explained.
‘Delayed shock then,’ said Sister briskly. ‘Some form of sedation, Doctor?’
‘No,’ said Adam decisively. ‘She needs her bed.’