a promise to Helen.’
Millie squinted at him in confusion. ‘What has your sister got to do with this?’
‘She asked me to stay away from you.’ William glanced down at the cobbles. ‘I – I had a bit of an entanglement with a girl she used to share a room with, and poor Helen caught the flak. I don’t think she wants to go through that again.’
‘This is nothing to do with Helen!’
‘You don’t know what it was like for her. You mustn’t blame her . . .’
He reached for Millie, but she pulled away, stiff with indignation. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘Your sister might not like it.’
She turned and tottered off up the street. William caught up with her and tried to put his arm around her to steady her again, but she shrugged him off. They crept in through the hospital gates. Millie slipped past the porters’ lodge and headed purposefully around the side of the nurses’ block.
‘How are you going to get in?’ William whispered in the darkness.
‘How do you think?’
She tried the drainpipe, but William stopped her. ‘You can’t climb up there!’ he said, appalled.
‘Why not? I’ve done it before lots of times.’ She was already taking off her shoes.
‘Not after half a dozen port and lemons, you haven’t. You’ll break your neck . . .’
Regardless, she put her hands around the drainpipe and tried to wedge her foot into a piece of loose brickwork. It slipped, sending a brick rolling noisily across the path. They both tensed, waiting for a light to go on. It didn’t.
He put his hand on her arm. ‘Come on, we’ll find another way in.’
They headed around the back of the block, trying windows. ‘Everything’s locked up,’ Millie said mournfully. She gazed at the windows on the first floor. ‘I wonder if I should throw a stone up and try to wake someone?’
‘You might not get the right window.’
‘Then it’ll have to be the drainpipe.’
‘I’m not letting you break your neck.’
‘I didn’t think you cared,’ Millie said huffily.
‘Of course I care.’ Their eyes met in the darkness, and once again William felt the powerful jolt of desire.
This time it was too strong to fight. As he lowered his face to kiss her, Millie suddenly said, ‘I have an idea. Come on.’
She led the way to the other side of the block. ‘There’s a corridor that joins the nurses’ block to the rest of the hospital,’ she explained. ‘We’re not allowed to use it, it’s only for sisters. But if I could somehow get into one of the wards on the ground floor, I might be able to sneak in that way.’
William laughed. ‘Break into a ward? That’s even riskier than climbing up a drainpipe!’ But Millie was already heading towards the courtyard, inching her way around in the shadows. He followed her.
‘Millie, this is ridiculous . . .’
‘Shhh!’ she hissed at him. ‘Do you want me to get caught?’
She edged round a corner and stopped beside a window. ‘This will do,’ she said.
‘Which ward is it?’
‘I can’t tell.’ Millie craned over and tried to peer through the window.
William counted the windows. ‘I think it might be Hyde.’ He judged it with narrowed eyes. ‘Yes, definitely Hyde.’
Millie tested the window. ‘It’s unlocked. I can climb in and sneak through.’
‘What if you’re caught?’
‘Honestly, William, where’s your sense of adventure?’ She smiled at him, a smile that melted his heart and made his head spin.
‘This is where we say goodbye,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He didn’t want to. His legs wouldn’t move.
‘Thank you for a very enjoyable evening.’
Before he had a chance to reply, Millie bobbed up and in one swift movement threw open the window and slithered through. It wasn’t until she had disappeared that he realised he was still holding her shoes in his hand.
Millie landed with a soft thud in the narrow space between two beds. She crouched for a moment in the darkness, waiting for her eyes to get used to the gloom. All around her, bedsprings creaked and the air was filled with the sound of low moans and sobbing. They sounded like souls in purgatory. Millie shuddered. What an awful place to have to be.
She finally got her bearings and started to inch forward on her hands and knees to peer around the end of the bed. The doors seemed to be a hundred miles away, at the far end of the ward. She was still working out how she could crawl down the length of it when she heard