CHAPTER 18
The evening light clings low and ghost-like to the darkening sky above the hospital. I’m on the other side of the road that runs along the back, standing in the dense shade of the separate derelict block that has been out of action for years. I’m taking such a chance coming here. If someone sees me that’s my job down the drain. Everything I’ve done to move out of the shadows of Little Eva’s first life will be lost. But I have no choice, and anyway, Janice will have left to go home hours ago.
Head down, I scurry through the semi-silent night, the lights of the hospital beckoning brighter the closer I get. There! I’ve made it to the iron steps of the fire escape that lead up to the back section of the respiratory ward. It’s taken me a while to figure out how to get to Patrick Walsh. The doors are supposed to be locked, but I know they’re usually not. Peering through the half glass of the fire doors I make a snap assessment of the scene inside. The patients are winding down for the day, some already snuggling down to sleep, others coughing and wheezing. Yearning aches inside me, reminding me how much I miss my work, helping patients learn how to breathe again. I’ll be back soon; I know I will.
Choosing my moment, I carefully ease back one of the doors and . . . madly scramble away again when I see Janice striding on to the ward. My chest rising and falling like crazy, I fix my back against the wall. What is my manager doing here? That was a close call. Too close. I give it another five minutes before peeping in again. Janice is gone. Wasting no time, I head over to the patient wearing earphones and reading a book in bed. I touch his shoulder.
A surprised jerk spasms through his body. Looking up sharply, he yanks out his earphones. Patrick Walsh’s legendary superior sneer already disfigures his face. ‘Doctor Death. Drive here in your hearse, did you? I suppose you’ve come here, at this unearthly hour, to persuade me to drop my complaint. Think you can browbeat me? Well, you’re out of luck.’
I grit my teeth, ignoring his insults. Besides, I don’t have time for verbal jousting with this man.
I pass over my copy of his Walsh Briefing. ‘I want to talk to you about this.’
Those oversized ears of his go pink in astonishment. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘There’s a story in there I need help with.’
Patrick’s not listening. He’s thumbing through the copy of his newsletter like an old man looking at pictures of his long-ago wedding.
‘Please, Mr Walsh.’ I take the newsletter and show him the pictures of the lost black women. ‘I need help finding them.’
His bottom lip flips and flaps like the tail of a fish. ‘I’m not helping you with nothing. You’re on the other side. Part of the “institution”。’
I know how to get him to help me, how to lure him. I’ll use a bunch of C words. ‘I think there’s been a cover-up.’ I lean closer, and whisper, ‘A conspiracy.’
I pull a packet from my pocket and wave the other C word in his face: cigarettes.
Side by side, we sit on the fire escape. The moon is out. I’m trying not to cough and splutter at the smoke he blows into the air. Patrick Walsh wears a huge, satisfied expression, enjoying his nicotine hit.
Eventually he glances over at me. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything. I want to know everything you know.’
Patrick studies the photos of Hope, Amina, Veronica and Sheryl. His memory is surprisingly clear. ‘I think it was Sheryl’s mother who got in touch with me first. Her daughter vanishes so her son informs the cops, and nothing comes of it. Her family even put posters up in the street. Back then that type of printing didn’t come cheap, and Sheryl’s family were not rich. Ordinary working folk. Finally, Sheryl’s mother got in touch with me through my PO box and asked me to look into it because no one else would.’
‘Why did they contact you and not the police?’
He spits, ‘They did, like I said. In the end they came to me because I had a reputation for digging and digging until I found the truth. I’m like a hound. Everyone knew who Patrick Walsh was.’
‘What did you find out?’
Patrick tilts his head, part of his face catching the glare of the wall light, turning his skin a shocking white. ‘I had my suspicions of course . . .’ His mouth stubbornly closes. But that’s not all I notice. His hand, the one that holds his cigarette, is shaking. That’s strange; I wouldn’t have figured Patrick Walsh for the nervous type, this is a man who believes and stands by his convictions, as I’ve found to my cost. He looks spooked.