understand. What happened? And how did you know it was the chocolate that was the cause?’
‘That was sheer luck,’ Sister Chaplin said and then, as Sheila stirred and opened her eyes a little more, leaned over the bed and touched the hand on the counterpane. Sheila subsided and went back to sleep. ‘She’s pretty knocked out,’ Sister said. ‘She had intravenous diazepam to deal with the convulsions she started to have and she won’t wake for a while. Stay with her, nurse, and if you’re at all worried, usethe alarm.’ She peered at the monitor that was bleeping softly beside the bed. ‘Her pulse rate has settled well, and her BP’s about right.’
‘Shouldn’t she be in Intensive Care?’ George asked and Sister Chaplin lifted her brows.
‘No beds available. And she’s fine here with us. I can handle a monitor or two, you know. Don’t you think so?’
‘I’m sorry,’ George said quickly. ‘Of course. It was just that I’m so shocked and so worried about her —’
‘It’s understandable.’ Sister led the way to the door. ‘Come to the office and we’ll talk there.’
So now she sat at Sister’s desk, looking down at the box of chocolates, feeling cold with terror. Jerry had managed to tell her, as she ran — and now she did begin to recall the headlong dash that had brought her here to the ward — that Sheila had been poisoned with what they thought was nicotine and that she had taken it in a chocolate liqueur. And here they were on the desk. She put out one finger to touch the box, but stopped before she reached it and pulled her hand back.
‘It was these chocolates, Sister?’
‘Yes.’ Sister Chaplin looked at them soberly. ‘I brought them in here at once. I — um —’ She lifted her head and looked at George very directly. ‘I was wearing a pair of rubber gloves when I picked them up.’
‘Rubber gloves?’ George said a little dully and felt colder still.
‘I assumed they were evidence,’ Sister said evenly. ‘I imagine you’d know more about that than I would.’
There was a silence and then Jerry spoke. George jumped. She’d forgotten he was there.
‘The card’s on the outside, Dr B.,’ he said. ‘Stuck on with Sellotape.’
She turned her head and stared at him. ‘What card?’
‘You’d better look.’ He was very serious now and she frowned, feeling remote from what was going on. What was happening here? She knew in an intellectual way it was somethingof great importance to her personally and yet she was detached and cool as though none of it really mattered.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen. With the tip of it she flipped over the lid of the box to see the outside. There, as Jerry had said, was a card stuck on by one corner with a piece of Sellotape. She twisted her head to read it.
To help you feel better as soon as possible
, it said in neatly typed letters.
From Dr B. and all in the lab.
And there was an inky squiggle that made George’s eyebrows contract. It looked very like her own initials that she sometimes put at the end of office memos.
‘Who sent this?’ she asked, looking at Jerry.
‘Well, we assumed you did,’ he said after a moment.
There was another silence. George sat and stared at the box, her mind quite blank.
‘It was as well it worked out as it did.’ Sister Chaplin began to speak easily, as relaxed as though they were having a perfectly normal conversation about the weather or something equally innocuous. ‘I had gone into her little side room, after she’d had her lunch, and was chatting to her. She was getting on very well — her throat was still a bit sore from the smoke she’d inhaled in the fire, but her respirations were clearing nicely. Mr Selby had said she could go home tomorrow. The box arrived — it was wrapped in coloured paper. I have it here.’ She looked to the table on the far side of the office and indeed there was a sheet of torn bright red and blue wrapping paper. ‘I brought