Bay of the Dead - By Mark Morris Page 0,17

the hospital's main entrance, when the call had come in from Trystan Thomas. Now she might as well turn round and go straight back upstairs again – though she decided to get herself a bar of fruit and nut from the vending machine first. She deserved a treat.

Turning, she caught the eye of a girl slumped in one of the uncomfortable, metal-framed seats in Reception. The girl looked like a student – early twenties, pretty face, long dark hair. The girl smiled vaguely at her and nodded at the phone, which Rianne still held in her hand.

'Everything OK?' she asked.

'What? Oh, yes,' Rianne said. 'I'm just waiting for one of my ladies. She's gone into labour. I thought I might fuel up on chocolate before she arrived.'

'You a midwife, then?'

'I am, yes.' Rianne nodded down at the girl's leg. 'You look as though you've been in the wars.'

The girl was wearing jeans, one leg of which had been rolled up, and a bloodstained bandage wound inexpertly around her calf.

'I was a bit drunk. Put my foot through a plate-glass door. My mates reckoned I might need a few stitches.'

'I see. And where are your mates now?'

The girl gave a wry smile. 'Out clubbing, most probably.' Abruptly she thrust out a hand. 'I'm Nina Rogers.'

'Rianne Kilkenny,' Rianne said, taking the hand and shaking it. 'Well, good luck with the stitches. I'd better. . .' She gestured vaguely towards the vending machine.

'Yeah, you get on,' Nina said. 'Hope all the babies you deliver are healthy ones.'

Rianne smiled and was about to move away when she became aware of some sort of commotion by the main doors. She looked round, and was surprised to see a disparate group of people – some in dressing gowns and slippers over regulation hospital nightwear – hurrying in from outside. These were the smokers, a constant but ever-changing group of patients and visitors, who were forever to be found flocking around the main entrance like carrion crows. Now, however, they were heading back into the hospital en masse, apparently so eager to re-enter the warmth that they were almost tumbling over one another in their haste.

Rianne's first thought was that they must have been caught in a downpour, but when she glanced up at the sky through the glass doors she saw nothing but the same fine drizzle that had prevailed all evening. Then she noticed that many of the patients sitting on the rows of chairs closest to the entrance were slowly rising to their feet and turning their heads to look outside.

'What's going on?' Nina Rogers asked.

Rianne strained to see beyond the increasing number of people who were now bunched around the entrance doors, but their bobbing heads were obstructing her view.

'I've no idea,' she said.

Nina pushed herself awkwardly to her feet. 'Well, let's go and have a look, shall we?'

Rianne hesitated for just a second, then nodded and accompanied a hobbling Nina towards the main entrance. When they reached the crowd clustered around the doors, Nina tapped on the shoulder of a grey-haired woman with a long, heavily lined face. 'Excuse me, do you know what's happening?'

The woman turned. 'It's people,' she replied. 'They're coming from all over, surrounding the building. They reckon it's gangs.'

'Who do?' asked Rianne.

A thickset, bullet-headed man turned to address them. 'They'll be after the drugs,' he said.

'Has someone called the police?' another woman asked, anxiety straining her voice.

'Where's hospital security, that's what I'd like to know,' said a weaselly man with thinning hair and a brown cardigan.

There were further murmurs from the front of the crowd, a ripple of disquiet, like an electrical pulse.

'What's going on now?' Nina wanted to know, trying without success to peer over the heads of the knot of people in front of her.

An old lady with a powder puff of white hair and too much blusher, who was standing in front of the bullet-headed man, said over her shoulder, 'There's something wrong with them. They're not moving right.'

'Not moving right? Whatever do you mean?' Rianne asked. But the woman had turned away again now, and was absorbed in whatever was happening outside.

Rianne touched Nina's arm. 'I'm going upstairs,' she said. 'The windows at the top of the maternity ward overlook the car park. I'll have a better view from there.'

She expected Nina to nod and say goodbye, but instead the girl said firmly, 'I'll come with you.'

'Oh,' said Rianne, so taken aback by Nina's bluntness that instead of discouraging her, she found herself nodding.