‘Not really, he wasn’t the talking type. He spent most of his time staring at his phone and taking selfies.’
‘What of? Him in here?’
‘Mostly, a few times I caught him crouched next to Bronte’s bed. I don’t want to sound mean, though, and I know that’s what all kids do now. They live their lives on their phones and forever take pictures, but it made me a bit uncomfortable of the ones he took with Bronte. I mean, the girl is in a bad way and there he is spending twenty minutes making sure his hair looked right before taking photos of them both. Another thing as well, he never looked sad on them; he always had this big grin with his white teeth showing.’
‘That’s odd, I’d feel uncomfortable too. Did you ever ask him why he was taking them?’
‘I did, once, he said they were so Bronte could see how poorly she was and how he’d always been there for her when she did wake up. He started crying and I felt mean, so I left him to it. I hope to God he wasn’t putting them on Snapchat or Instagram.’
Morgan was starting to get a really bad feeling about Harrison Wright. What if Ben was right and he was loving all the attention and drama? Maybe he wasn’t so innocent in all of this.
‘My sergeant wanted me to ask if Bronte had full blood work done when she was admitted.’
The nurse nodded. ‘All patients in a serious condition do.’
‘Would they have run toxicology tests?’
‘Given the circumstances I would have assumed so, let me check her notes.’
They walked into the room. It was much quieter in here without the ventilator. Morgan reached out, gently taking hold of the girl’s hand.
‘Hi, Bronte, it’s me, Morgan, from the police. Glad to see you’re fighting. Keep going, we’re all rooting for you.’ Tears welled in her eyes and she lifted her sleeve to brush them away. This was so hard; that poor girl didn’t deserve any of this.
The nurse smiled at her. ‘You’re pretty nice for a copper. I take it you haven’t been one very long.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, just a guess. You’ll get used to it eventually, although not always. I’ve been working in here for nine years and most days I can go home and try to switch off, you have to, or it would send you insane. But occasionally someone will end up in here and they’re far too young and didn’t deserve it. Those days it can be difficult to leave it all behind. Yes, here we go. There were no traces of anything unusual.’
‘Oh, right. Thank you, I just need to check in with my boss.’
She left and went in search of the canteen. She needed something to eat and coffee. Ben didn’t answer so she left him a voicemail. Taking her latte and slice of Victoria sponge, she went and sat at the table she’d shared with Harrison. Pulling a notepad out of her bag, she began to scribble notes inside of everything she’d been told since she got here. It occurred to her she could go and speak to the pathologist while she was here. He may be able to help. As she left the dining room, she stopped a porter.
‘Please can you tell me how to get to the mortuary?’
He pointed to the far end of the corridor. ‘Down there, turn right, straight on then first left.’
‘Thank you.’
She headed in that direction and hoped that Declan would speak to her. She didn’t want to go back to Ben without anything of value.
Turning into the corridor that led to the mortuary, she noticed the dark green paint on the walls was peeling and chipped. It badly needed painting to brighten it up; a few more lights wouldn’t go amiss either. Compared to the rest of the hospital it was as if they didn’t pay the electric bill down here. Morgan wished she had her jacket and hadn’t left it in the car. She shivered in the cool breeze flowing along the corridor. She felt as if she was going downhill into a gloomy, damp tunnel rather than walking along a hospital corridor. She supposed it made sense for it to run down; easier to push the trolleys that carried the dead.
She stopped in her tracks, a feeling of unease spreading over her. Footsteps not too far behind made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. A