Ah! There we go – I dial the hospital reception’s number from memory.
‘St Mary’s Hospital, how can I help?’ a chirpy voice says.
‘Ah yes, ’ello,’ I say, adopting a French accent and lowering my voice an octave, ‘I am telephoning you to enquire about – ’ow you say? – my aunt. I sink she was taken to your ‘ospital earlier today.’
‘Name?’
‘My name? It iz …’
‘No, not your name – hers.’
‘Ah, mais oui! Dorothée D’Oliveira.’
‘Hang on a second.’
I listen to her typing on a keyboard, while I worry that my handful of change will run out.
‘Hello? Yes, she’s staying the night for observation, but visiting hours are over – you’ll have to come tomorrow.’
The phone starts to beep – I’m about to be cut off.
‘Ah, but of course! Could I have ze details of ze ward?’
She tells me the wing and ward in which the professor is staying, and the hours I can visit her the next day.
‘Ah, sank you, merci!’
The phone goes dead, and my change clunks into the belly of the machine.
‘Good work, Agatha,’ I say to myself. ‘Now you just need to break into a hospital without getting arrested.’
St Mary’s is as busy as ever – ambulances coming and going, people smoking and talking outside the main gates. I notice a number of tankers, parked in a line down Praed Street, in front of the main building. I guess they’re delivering fresh water – nowhere in the city will be worse affected by the crisis than hospitals.
I know if I go in through the main entrance I’ll be spotted. I walk to the end of the street and turn down South Wharf Road – the back of the hospital buildings. Keeping my head down, I walk until halfway down the road I come to an open bay door, next to which is parked one of the huge trucks. A thick plastic pipe runs from the tanker into the dimly lit bay. There is a whooshing, gurgling noise as the water is drained.
I stop and pretend to search for a phone in my pocket. Carrying a mobile gives you an excuse to stop dead in the street and look gormless. The only person I can see who’s watching over things is the lorry driver, leaning against the wall by the bay, smoking a cigarette. He isn’t watching the lorry, but something inside the bay – a pressure gauge, perhaps. He isn’t wearing his security pass, which is resting on a piece of machinery next to him.
I stand for a second, weighing up my options. I look at the lorry and at the street. Then, before I draw attention to myself by standing there too long, I cross the road and walk until the lorry is between me and the driver. Stepping up on the metal plate, I reach for the handle, hoping he has left his door locked. He has – the handle doesn’t give. I yank it a couple more times, but nothing happens. Exasperated, I draw my foot back and give the truck a hard kick.
‘Ow ow ow!’ I mutter under my breath, toes smarting.
Nothing happens for a second.
The truck’s alarm goes off, scaring me half to death. Quickly, I jump down from the plate and walk round to the other side of the lorry where the driver is still smoking his cigarette. He’s frowning, looking at his truck with its alarm blaring and lights flashing, when I go up to him.
‘‘Scuse me, mister, some kid’s trying to break into your truck!’ I say.
‘What …’ he begins, then swears loudly and runs round the side. Quickly, I duck inside the bay, past an array of pipes and gauges to a door at the back. I grab his security pass as I go and press it to the door release. It beeps once and the door opens. I breathe a sigh of relief and step through.
I inspect my outfit – immaculate – before hurrying down the corridor, away from the angry shouts of the truck driver, who must have returned to his station to find the pass missing. I take off my coat and stash it in an alcove. I fix my blonde wig back with a scrunchie and a couple of hair slides.
Showtime.
I spend the next quarter of an hour navigating my way through the service corridors of the hospital, many of them quiet and unlit, listening for sounds of activity. The hallways go from bare brick with pipes and cables to old, chipped plaster, full of cleaning supplies and mop buckets. Finally, fresh-painted walls – corridors through which doctors, nurses and porters can move quickly around the hospital.
After a close call with a woman collecting laundry, and another with a porter wheeling a patient on a trolley, I make my way to the professor’s ward. Several people see me, but none of them close up. From a distance, I can pass for one of the nursing staff. Entering through the caretaker’s door, I avoid going past the ward reception. At the other end of the ward I can see a nurse sitting at her station, reading. Everything else is dark – closed doors on either side. Some have dim lights behind their misted glass – reading lamps or televisions. I wonder if patients are staying up to watch the news of London’s crisis.
Starting to move down the ward, I peer in the half light at each door, on which is a whiteboard giving the names of the patients. The rooms have up to four people in them, but when I find the professor’s room, halfway down the ward, her name is alone on the board. Through the misted glass, I can see that the lights are off. I’d hoped she’d be awake to see me, but I haven’t come this far to give up.
I try the handle. It’s locked, but I know that hospital doors never have proper locks – they can always be opened easily from the outside, in case there’s a medical emergency. Examining the handle, I see a turning piece with a groove down the centre. I used all my spare change back at the telephone box, but I take one of the clips from my hair, fit it into the groove, and turn the mechanism. The door clicks.
Not wanting to alert the night nurse to my presence, I step inside the room before saying anything, and close the door behind me.
‘Hello—’ is all I manage, before something hard whistles through the darkness and cracks on the back of my head.
I tumble forward on to the floor, clutching my head.
Suddenly the lights are on.
‘Who the hell are you?’ A voice speaks above me. Not a male voice, nor a young one – it is an older woman’s voice, with a hint of the Caribbean – Jamaica, at a guess, or possibly Trinidad. Slowly, half blinded by the light, I open my eyes and look up. Standing above me, with one arm in a sling and the other holding a metal crutch over her head, is Professor D’Oliveira. She looks more formidable than when she was unconscious.
‘My name is Agatha.’ I wince, keeping my arms over my head until she lowers the crutch.
‘Who sent you?’ Her gaze is piercing and I have trouble meeting it.
I push myself up to sitting, rubbing my head. The blow has left my blonde wig askew, and I remove it.
‘Nobody sent me. I’m the one who found you in the park this morning.’ I get to my feet with as much dignity as I can muster. My head is beginning to throb – she has quite a whack for an elderly woman.