Plucking a roll of micropore from my pocket, I removed the plastic needle and applied a makeshift plaster for his bloodless skin with a ball of cotton wool. If deaths were unexpected or unexplained, an autopsy would be performed and that meant leaving any cannulas, catheters, or tubes where they were in case they’d contributed to the cause of death. Poor old Mr Parslow had simply died because his body had worn out with age.
‘How old was he?’ I asked.
Annie gently wiped his thin face. Not that it was dirty, but out of respect, to ensure he went to Rose Cottage clean and tidy. ‘Ninety-three, not a bad innings.’
‘I wouldn’t complain.’ Where she’d washed I dried with a blue-and-white striped towel. ‘How come Javier was on geriatrics?’ Dr Javier Garelli was a six-foot-two hunk of Italian muscle, his skin shone like bronze and he had cheekbones most supermodels would hurl themselves off the catwalk for. He worked in general surgery and as a senior house officer was Carl’s immediate superior.
‘Hartley’s surgical team were covering. Not that the day staff had a problem with Javier being around, they said his aftershave lingered for well over an hour after he’d headed to Eyre Ward.’
‘I’m sure.’ His aftershave was divine, kind of sugary but masculine too, fresh air but with suggestion of a long, sultry night. It was like the rest of him, sexy as hell. What I wouldn’t do to have my wicked way with him on a gurney one night.
‘He’s bonking Iceberg you know.’
My heart stuttered at this new bit of gossip and a rise of bile burned my chest. ‘No way.’
‘Yes way. Apparently they were caught in out-patients at two in the morning by a porter searching for a drip-stand.’ Her gaze caught mine and her eyes flashed. She had the look of a kid at Christmas who’d pop if they didn’t open their presents – now. ‘Yeah, he had her bent over a table, her awful crinoline trousers around her ankles and was going for it, big time …’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘up her bum.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah, seriously.’
She tugged Mr Parslow’s vest off his left arm and I did the same with the right, then we slipped it carefully over his head. As his bony skull settled back on the pillow I tried to close his eyes with my palm, but they slid back to half mast, unseeing and milky-glazed.
‘Roll to me?’ I asked.
Annie was already wringing out the flannel ready to wash his back. ‘Yep.’
I tugged the frail body by shoulder and hip, exposing angled scapulae and prominent vertebrae. A huff of air, like a strangled groan, rattled up from his chest and scratched through his throat. I glanced downwards. His jaw had slackened a little further at the movement. ‘Do you think the porter could be making it up? You know what they’re like.’
‘I don’t know, it’s a rumour, and rumours are like wildfire once they get started around here.’ She washed his back quickly then dried with a flourish. ‘But there’s no smoke without fire and stranger things have happened than the hospital’s number one stud getting up-hill action with the senior nurse.’
‘I suppose.’ I wondered what Javier could possibly see in Iceberg. She was a cold-hearted cow – everyone thought so. Last week she’d snapped at me for sitting down on the job when I’d gone off duty twenty minutes previously and was waiting for the rain to ease before heading home on my bicycle. Not bothering to listen to my explanation, she threatened to have my pay docked and inform Personnel of my inherent slackness.
I rested Mr Parslow onto his back again and rummaged in the bedside locker for clean pyjamas. Found some; navy and crisply new, with a Marks and Spencer price tag still in place. I wondered if whoever bought these had any idea they’d be the last clothes he’d ever wear. If so, it was nice that they were M&S, you could rely on the quality.
Annie had whipped off the existing pyjama bottoms and was washing his withered, lifeless penis with well-practised efficiency. ‘Apparently he’s off in March, got a registrar post at St George’s.’
‘In London?’ I took up the task of drying where her flannel had been.
‘Yeah, will serve Iceberg right if she falls for him then he goes and leaves her.’
I muttered an agreement and we dressed our silent patient in his smart, new pyjamas. Despite the quiet, reverent task I couldn’t help the wave of panic in my guts. Javier had been working in my hospital for nearly two years and I hadn’t once played hide-the-sausage with him. I always presumed there’d be plenty of time for that conquest. Part of me enjoyed the slow burn, the flirty smiles and suggestive banter we indulged in whenever our paths crossed in the dead of night. Another part of me now worried that I’d been wasting time when I could have been getting down and dirty, sweaty and naked, with my very own Italian stallion.
There was only one thing for it. I would have to up my game, become the hunter rather than the hunted.
Javier had no idea what was about to hit him, literally.
Mr Parslow was now fresh and dressed. Annie and I quickly tidied the room, did an inventory of his meagre belongings – splayed toothbrush, red comb strung with silver hairs, a half packet of toffees and several items of nightwear in various states of cleanliness – then we wrapped him in a paper-thin shroud and covered him with a clean sheet.
Annie left and I dropped the last of the damp towels into a linen skip.
A sudden bang on the window caught my attention. I turned and stared into the bleak darkness. The blind hadn’t been drawn over the slightly open pane and a feathery flash of silver-white knocked up against the glass. Once, twice, three times.
Curious, I stepped closer, trying to discern what was buffeting the rain-splattered window with firm insistence.
A gasp of surprise caught in my throat. It was a dove, out at night, in a gale.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ I bent and peered closer.
A black, beady eye’s attention settled on mine for the briefest of moments, then the dove took off, into the night, its wings ethereal and ghost-like, flapping against the wind.
I glanced at the mound on the bed and fought a prickle of unease tickling the back of my neck. Odd things happened in a hospital, but a dove, at night; that had been a first.
Quickly I shut the window. Mr Parslow’s soul had had ample time to depart. All that remained was his shell, so there was no need to have an escape route for his spirit to start its journey to Heaven; and I was pretty certain it would be Heaven, what with having a white dove coming to collect him on a storm-wild night.
I didn’t mention the dove to Annie or Tinkard. I just called for a porter to help me transfer to Rose Cottage and tugged on my coat. I checked my iPhone again. Another message from Tom.
You coming?
I typed back quickly.
Yes, so will you soon!
The porter appeared. He was new, a young guy, wide and stocky with hair so short you could see his scalp through it. He had the word love tattooed over the knuckles on his right hand.
‘You got one for Rose Cottage,’ he grunted, tugging the closed, coffin-style trolley along behind him.
‘Yes, sideward six.’
Luckily Mr Parslow’s skinny body was light, and within a few minutes we were heading out of the ward with him safely ensconced in the metal trolley.
‘Hey, Sharon,’ Tinkard called. ‘You may as well go for your break after you’ve done that, it’s just gone midnight.’
‘Right you are.’
The ward door shut with a heavy click and I put some muscle into pushing the trolley along the deserted corridor. As the pace picked up I stared at the lumpy back