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CHAPTER ONE
GREG SHAW OPENED the door of the doctors’ common room, not bothering to switch on the light, and slung himself into a chair. All he wanted was sleep. He could have done with A few days off in between returning from America and resuming his job, but what you wanted wasn’t always what you got. A day to get over the jet lag, unpack and restock the larder hadn’t been enough and he’d had to satisfy himself with doing none of those things with any degree of completeness.
He should go home. Catch some sleep before he was due back on shift again tomorrow. He tried to work up enough enthusiasm to propel himself into action by promising himself a hot shower and a cooked meal, but the relief of sitting here alone outweighed all of that at the moment. In the darkness, he was hardly aware of the fact that his eyes were closing.
‘Is it always so hot in here?’ Jessie Saunders picked her way down the steep concrete steps, which seemed to lead directly into a sauna.
‘No idea. Apparently the quickest way through is via the boiler room.’ Reena was having to shout now, to make herself heard over the din. ‘Watch out for that handrail, it wobbles terribly.’
‘So it’s fair to assume that Health and Safety haven’t been down here recently.’
‘Probably not.’ Reena shot her a grin and led the way through to the far door, which gave way to a cooler, quieter corridor. ‘The hospital records should be through there.’
The records room, as the notice on the door grandly announced, turned out to be a long, low-ceilinged vault, filled with row upon row of shelves. Reena felt in the pocket of her coat and consulted a piece of paper. ‘Right, so the early stuff’s over there in the far corner.’ She pulled a large, old-fashioned key from her pocket and indicated a heavy metal door.
‘What’s that? I didn’t know we had dungeons in the basement.’
‘It’s an old walk-in safe. It’s cool and dry so they keep the earlier documents in there. I had to promise Administration that we’d wedge the door open and keep the key with us at all times.’
‘And they know we’re down here this late?’ There was no reason for the basement to feel any darker or spookier now than it would have done at lunchtime. Somehow it did.
‘I said we were going to have a look after work. They might have thought that was five-thirty.’ Reena unlocked the door, pulling it back with an effort and wedging it firmly.
Jess shrugged, pulling a couple of pairs of surgical gloves from her pocket. ‘Gloves?’
‘Definitely.’
The boxes of papers stacked inside might be caked with dust, but they were stored in some sort of order. The year 1813 was located and the boxes pulled out into the cramped space outside the door.
‘Oh, you’ll never guess who I saw coming out of the canteen today.’ Reena was carefully sifting through the contents of the oldest storage box, trying not to disturb too much dust.
‘No, I don’t think I will.’
‘Give it a go, at least. Great smile.’
‘The tooth fairy?’
‘Ha-ha. Think taller. Darker and not wearing a tutu.’ Reena rolled her eyes when Jess gave her a blank look. ‘Your ex-boss.’
‘You mean… ’ It would be disingenuous to pretend that she didn’t know who Reena meant. ‘Greg? He’s back?’
Breathing would be good right now, but Jess’s lungs seemed to have temporarily forgotten how. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the large ledger in front of her so they couldn’t betray her shock.
‘Yeah. Wherever he’s been for the last eight months, he’s been getting some sun. He’s looking good.’
Greg always looked good. Jess wondered whether Reena had any more substantive information and how she was going to ask for it without sounding too interested. ‘So how is he?’
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sp; ‘I didn’t see him to speak to, he was moving too fast for that.’ Reena tossed her head and laughed. ‘You know Greg. He’s a busy kind of guy.’ She turned her attention back to the half empty storage box.
He was back. He’d probably had two or three girlfriends since Jess had seen him last and had almost certainly forgotten all about That Kiss. Just the way she should have done.
‘This looks promising… Jess?’
‘Uh?’
‘I think this is exactly what we’re looking for.’
‘Yeah?’ Jess straightened, shrugging off the brief scrap of memory, which seemed to have lodged itself right in the centre of her consciousness. ‘Let’s have a look.’
Greg drifted into what passed for wakefulness in time to hear the clock in the small courtyard outside the common-room window chiming out midnight. Silence fell, and he sat up straight, easing his shoulders to iron out a few of the kinks. There was a scraping outside in the corridor, a dull thud and… If he didn’t know better he would have said that the clatter was the sound of chains.
Leave it out. After eight months, spent jetting around America and Australia, with some of the sunnier parts of Europe thrown in, London in early November seemed claustrophobic, full of shadows. But it was home. He’d longed to be back home, and now here he was. Feeling just as empty and unsure as he had for the last ten months.
Another clatter. If it wasn’t a chain, it was something that sounded pretty much identical. Greg was suddenly awake, his eyes straining in the darkness, and then clamped shut as white light hit his retinas, burning the outline of a shadowy figure into his mind’s eye.
‘Greg!’
‘What… ? Jess?’ He blinked against the light streaming in through the open door and slowly began to make her out. She had on the same red coat that she’d been wearing when he’d seen her last. His mouth went dry. When he’d seen her last…
When he’d seen her last he’d been kissing her. The length of chain, slung over her shoulder and trailing behind her on the floor, was new, and she hadn’t been quite so grimy then either. The temptation to reach out and touch her, pretend she had a smudge on her cheek so that he could wipe it away, was almost irresistible.
She was staring at him as if she’d just seen a ghost. She swallowed hard and seemed to come to her senses. ‘I heard you were back.’
‘Yeah. Only just. I landed yesterday morning, and got a call at lunchtime, saying that they were short-staffed in A and E and could I start work today.’ Guilt trickled down his spine. He probably should have called her. He’d thought about it often enough.
She nodded. No hint in her steady gaze that their kiss figured anywhere in her attitude towards him. ‘Well, it’s nice to see you back. Have you got… things… settled?’
‘Not quite.’ It was never going to be completely settled. ‘For the time being.’ The urge to explain himself was prickling at the back of Greg’s neck, but he had no idea where to start. ‘Jess… ’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s with the chains?’
She flushed prettily. Dragged the knitted beret off her head, leaving her honey-coloured hair impossibly rumpled. A little longer than it had been last Christmas, and the style suited her.
‘Ah.’ She started to unwind the length of chain from her neck. ‘It’s for the dressing up. For Christmas.’ She indicated a stack of plastic crates in the corner.
