Boney ignored him. “Kitty, these are madmen, not criminal geniuses. A patient who stole my keys would get into the linens and the store closets. Then what would he do?”
Not Boney, then. “What about the narcotics? Or the west wing?”
“Yes, I suppose he could get into the narcotics, though I don’t see how they would help him escape. As for the west wing, I suppose he’d have to get hold of an orderly’s keys.” She frowned at Roger. “No one wants to get into the mouse droppings and dust sheets, as far as I’m aware. If he’s terribly determined, he’s welcome to try.”
“Nothing there,” Roger agreed. He picked idly at his fingernails. “Can’t say I’ve ever used my key, or wanted to.”
Boney pressed her lips together, as she always did when about to recite a rule. “We’re not to go there at all. The air is bad from disuse, I hear, and there are structural problems with the roof and the walls. It’s a hazard.”
They moved off. I bit my lip, calculating how to get the orderlies’ keys. Because Jack had been right, of course: I planned to go into the west wing, and I planned to do it tonight.
I was alone in the corridor, and I wished I wasn’t. I didn’t want to be there, staring at the water stains in the ceiling or the cracks in the tiles. Time ticked by. The day was stifling, but it seemed dank and somehow cold in there. My stockings itched, and a bead of cold sweat ran down my back.
“Nurse?”
I jumped. When I turned, my eyes must have been wild, for Creeton’s father looked taken aback. He was standing in the doorway of the small parlor, already halfway out the door.
“We wish to leave now,” he said.
It wasn’t time; the families were given an hour with the men, and barely half that had passed. No one had given me instructions on what to do. “I see,” I said evasively, buying time. I approached the doorway and looked into the room.
Creeton sat on the parlor chair, his eyes downcast. I had never liked him, but something about the way he sat there, the look on his face, set off alarms deep in my spine. “Are you certain?” I asked the parents. “Visiting hour is not yet over. Perhaps you would prefer—”
“We would like to leave,” Creeton’s father said again. “Please show us out.”
Creeton had flushed dark red. The tension in the room was horrible, unbearable. There had been some kind of ugly scene. I wished I hadn’t witnessed any of it, hadn’t seen his embarrassment. He would not look at me. His hands rested on his thighs. I remembered those hands on me, grabbing me.
There was no orderly anywhere, so I would have to leave Creeton alone while I escorted his parents to the door. I leaned a little closer to my patient. “Will you be all right?” I asked him.
He turned a look on me that burned with such utter hatred that I took a step back. Then he looked away.
There was nothing for it. I led Creeton’s parents from the room and down the corridor. Not even Creeton’s mother looked at him as she left.
“Do you have children, Nurse?” Creeton’s father asked me as we walked.
“No, sir,” I replied.
“Children can be a great joy,” he lectured me, choosing this moment to be talkative. “We had a daughter first. She’s married now. The day my son was born was different, though. I believed I’d have a legacy.”
“Yes, sir.” We’d reached the front hall and I hurried my steps.
“My son,” Creeton’s father said from behind me, “has been a disappointment. He’s never had any strength, any nerve to him. I tried to instill it, but some children can’t be taught. And now this.” We’d come to the front doors, and he looked around the hall in utter distaste. “He went to war to serve his King and country, and he came back not even half a man. No man at all. I’ll never have my legacy now.” He put his hand on the door latch, preparing to leave, and suddenly I knew what words he would speak next. I opened my mouth to stop them, not wanting to hear it, not about Creeton or anyone, not from a father. “It would have been better if he’d died,” he said to me, and turned away.
The words seemed to echo off the walls. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I watched Creeton’s parents leave and walk out into the hot sunshine as cold air crept down the back of my neck, chilled the back of my dress. “Dead is never better,” I said to their backs. “Never. The war taught us that.” But they didn’t hear and they kept walking.
Creeton’s face, the hate in his eyes.
I turned and took myself back up the corridor to the front parlor. I heard nothing as I went, saw no one. There was only silence that sucked all the air into it and left a stale deadness behind, and suddenly I started to worry. How long had I left Creeton alone? He was upset, but this was Creeton. Surely he wouldn’t—
The parlor where I’d left him was empty.
I stared for a wild moment, and then I shouted, “Paulus!”
He met me in the corridor. “Creeton,” I said. “I had to escort his parents out, and he’s vanished.”
“Bloody hell,” Paulus said. “Was he upset?”
“Yes—I think so, yes.”
“I’ll get Roger,” he said. “Go to—”
We were interrupted by a shout and the sound of splintering glass.
“Bloody hell,” Paulus said again, and we both ran.
The shouts came from the common room. A pane in one of the French doors was broken, glass littering the terrace. The patients were excited. “He came right through here!” someone shouted. “Broke the glass, opened the door, and went out!”
It was the broken glass that drew my eye. The French doors were unlocked at this time of day; Creeton had not needed to break the window. That meant he had wanted to. Perhaps he’d had a fit of rage. Or perhaps—
I thought of Creeton’s parents walking away toward their motorcar. One action that spilled over into another and another, like water running down a slope, inevitable.
“Paulus.” This was Jack Yates. One look at his face and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. “You need to get the visitors out of sight of Creeton. They need to get into the house.”
It took Paulus a longer moment, but then he went pale. “Bloody hell—not again,” he said, careful to keep his voice too low for the rest of the patients to hear. “Roger!”
“I can help,” Jack said.
Paulus aimed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare. I’ve got enough going on.” Roger appeared at his shoulder, and the two orderlies quickly conferred.
Matron came in the room, drawn by the commotion. “Nurse Weekes, what is going on here?”
“There’s no time,” I said to her.
“Go,” said Jack, almost in a whisper, and in a second I was through the French doors, aiming for the garden gate.
“Kitty!” Nina grabbed my arm. She was on the terrace with Mr. West, whose parents were staring at us, their eyes wide. “Creeton came through here,” Nina said.
“I know,” I replied.
“He broke the glass and took a piece of it.”
My stomach lurched. “Get them out of here,” I said. Then I ran into the garden and gave Martha, who was shepherding Mr. Derby, his fiancée, and his mother, the same order. Martha heard the urgency in my voice and jumped to it, asking no questions.