quash her panic in case she conveyed her feelings to Abbie. She tried to sing again, but her voice was shaking too much.
Abbie continued to toss her head from side to side, but not quite so frantically. It was as if she wanted to tell them something. She was moaning, but they couldn’t make out what she was trying to say. She sounded in such pain, but they didn’t know where it was coming from. Finally, the sedative started to do its work, but just before she surrendered to the drugs, she said one word.
And this time, Ellie heard it clearly.
* * *
There was a sense of urgency and suppressed tension in the ward, and away from the patients the squawking of police radios was a constant backdrop that added to the general unease.
Ellie, Sam, Brenda and the agency nurse had all been interviewed, but there was nothing decisive; nothing that told them who the hell had been on the ward, or whether they had actually tried to kill Abbie. CCTV was being checked, but the footage from the camera by the door was inconclusive, so they were trying to backtrack and trace the intruder’s route through the hospital.
As far as they could tell, Abbie had come to no harm - particularly if suffocation had been the intention. They had taken all precautions, though, and changed the contents of everything on and around Abbie’s bed - from the water jug to the drip.
Ellie knew that the other staff members would each be feeling as culpable as she did, but then they didn’t have the extra burden of guilt that she was carrying.
When Kath Campbell finally made it back to the ward, Ellie could see that she had been shopping. She came in looking much more cheerful, and proceeded to fish some pretty new pyjamas for Abbie out of one of her bags, obviously pleased to see that her daughter was sleeping quietly.
Ellie looked towards the nurses’ station, and saw Sam beckoning her.
‘Kath, Doctor Bradshaw would like a word, if that’s okay.’
Kath looked startled and about to start quizzing Ellie, but Ellie gently took her arm and guided her away from the bed and towards the office.
Kath’s face drained of all colour as Sam explained to her what had happened, and why the place appeared to be crawling with police.
‘I noticed them at the door when I was waiting to be buzzed in,’ she said. ‘I thought there must have been a smash on the motorway, or something, and they were waiting to interview somebody. I never thought it would be my Abbie. Why, though? Why?’
There was no sensible answer that either Ellie or Sam could provide. That was a question for the police, although it was fairly clear to Ellie that it either had something to do with Abbie’s abduction or her accident.
‘How did they get in? We have to be buzzed in, and the staff have security passes,’ Kath said, not unreasonably.
‘I’ve heard back from security,’ Sam said. ‘Everybody that came in swiped a card, or was buzzed in and has since been verified. No cards have been reported missing, so we’re going through the CCTV to see if we can spot them, and find out whose card it was.’
Ellie felt sick. Her vision became distorted as if she were looking through shattered glass, with all the parts fragmenting. Sam’s face was splintered into a thousand pieces, and his voice seemed to be coming from a long way off.
Now was not the time to admit that this was her fault. That could only add to Kath’s distress - but she had to get out of there and talk to security.
Thankfully after a few moments her vision cleared, and the feeling of dizziness started to pass. Nobody had noticed. Sam was focusing entirely on Kath’s horrified face as he outlined what they knew.
‘All we have at the moment is the evidence from the nurse who was keeping an eye on Abbie. A doctor walked towards Abbie’s bed and pulled the curtains round. He or she was wearing a surgical hat, and scrubs, which can be bulked up to make somebody look a different shape. Their height has been assessed as around five eight, five nine, and it looked like a masculine walk, but that means nothing.’
Kath was struggling to take all of this in, on top of the horrors of the last few days.
‘The important thing is,’ Sam was saying, ‘she’s fine.’