Free A Lovely Way to Burn by Louise Welsh Page A

like a politician trying to buy time before answering a tricky question. He let go of Ahumibe’s shoulder and took Stevie’s hand in his. ‘I’m Alexander Buchanan, the chemist in the team. Please accept my condolences. In our profession you have to press on, regardless of personal feelings, but please believe me, everyone is devastated by Simon’s death.’ The chemist’s hands were warm and dry and there was genuine regret in his expression. ‘I’m happy to take responsibility for whatever it was Simon wanted to pass on to Mr Reah.’
    Stevie looked at the doors lining the ward. Behind each one were beds bearing small, sick bodies. She returned her gaze to the doctors. Their white coats were clean, but they spoke to her of blood and infection.
    ‘I’ll pass the package to Simon’s cousin. She’s his executor and a doctor, so she’ll know what to do with it.’
    ‘Whatever you think best.’ Buchanan took a notebook and a ballpoint pen from the pocket of his white coat and handed them to her. ‘Do you mind leaving me a note of where we can contact you?’ His smile was apologetic. ‘As Simon’s friends and colleagues, we’re keen to pin down the exact cause of his death. At present it all seems a bit vague. I assume you’d like to be alerted to whatever we come up with.’
    ‘Of course.’
    Stevie scribbled down Shop TV ’s address and her mobile number, and handed it back to Buchanan.
    Nurse Webb said, ‘Follow me,’ and walked towards the exit. Stevie trailed her through the double doors and out into the corridor. The nurse went on, but Stevie paused and looked through the glass doors, back into the ward.
    Ahumibe and Buchanan were still standing there, deep in conversation. Beyond them stood the closed doors of the sick children’s rooms. She wondered why the doctors didn’t go to them.
    ‘It’s this way.’
    Nurse Webb’s voice echoed, tired and impatient, along the hallway. Stevie turned and hurried after her.

Twelve
    Nurse Webb resembled a small gymnast in her white scrubs and plimsolls, lithe and strong, able to pull more than her own weight. Stevie matched her pace, keeping an arm’s length between them. A glow of resentment surrounded the other woman, like a radiation field it would be unwise to enter.
    Two stretcher-laden trolleys, each with a porter at their head, exited a lift at the end of the corridor and trundled towards them. Nurse Webb hurried on, neatly negotiating the procession, but Stevie felt the same panic that sometimes overtook her at the sound of a siren when she was driving through crowded traffic. She stepped to one side, flattening herself against the wall, and let them pass.
    A woman of about her age lay motionless beneath a white sheet on the first trolley. The woman’s blonde hair was cut in a neat asymmetrical bob. Her lips were cracked and pale, her eyelids tinged with blue. The woman’s eyebrows were dark. Stevie caught herself noting the detail and thinking that the contrast in colours was too much. She censored the thought almost as it occurred, but she saw a blur of lipstick smeared on the woman’s mouth, mascara crusting her eyelashes, and realised that, earlier that morning, the woman had been well enough to examine her own features in the mirror and apply her make-up. Stevie’s eyes met the porter’s and he looked away.
    The second trolley was ferrying a young girl. A sequined clasp pinned her long black hair on the top of the girl’s head; her skin was sallow and sheened with sweat. Her mother and father followed behind, the mother’s pink shalwar kamiz looking festive and out of place in a hospital corridor, her father’s beard and military bearing lending him the air of a Russian tsar. Stevie saw the husband take his wife by the hand, and dropped her gaze, wondering if it was anxiety that had drained the couple’s faces, or if they were wilting beneath the same sickness that had felled their daughter.
    She caught up with Nurse Webb at the lift.