An anonymous email was sent toHR, to Don Russell, the head of the hospital, and to Nancy Macpherson, my boss, which claimed that I had sexually abused an eleven-year-old boy on a shift the week before. I didn’t see the email but I was told later that the details were graphic.
I feel
I didn’t finish the entry. I couldn’t. Even now my chest feels like it’s being pulled apart just thinking of that day and the ones that followed. I tried to explain to Nancy about the emails I’d been receiving and your harassment, wishing then that I’d gone to them earlier instead of keeping it all to myself.
It took forty-eight hours to check the patient files, interview staff and discover the claim was bogus. Forty-eight hours of the bottom falling out of myworld. It hit me in waves of humiliation and horror, tears and anger. Still, I couldn’t blame the hospital. They were just following protocol.
Stuart got excited about the emails, his well of optimism overflowing more than usual. ‘Emails are better than fingerprints,’ he said. ‘Fingerprints have to be matched with ones already on their database, but with emails there will be an IP address that will lead the police straight to his front door.’ It didn’t. You’re too smart for that. You used a VPN – a virtual private network – and disposable email addresses. It’s frighteningly easy to do. I looked it up in the middle of the night once and even had a go at sending an email to myself from a disposable account.
The escalation is scribbled across the pages and it makes my pulse race, my head spin, just thinking about it. What’s next? Another visit to our garden in the dead of night? Archie came into our bedroom to shake us awake at four a.m. ‘Mummy, Daddy, why is there someone in our garden?’ His voice was excited at first but he cried when he saw the horror on our faces and realized it was you. You were gone by the time Stuart called the police and went out there, but you’d left your mark – a scorched patch of lawn in the shape of a J where you’d poured weedkiller on to the grass.
It’s been almost a year since it all began. It feels like a lifetime. I find today’s date and log the sighting, fighting against the ever-growing feeling of pointlessness.
The door to the toilets creaks open and I close my diary and draw in a deep breath, another waft of bleach and lavender, before blowing it out with a puff, like I blew out the forty-one candles on my birthday cake last month.
‘Jenna?’ I recognize Diya’s voice and unlock thedoor to find my friend waiting for me with two Costa coffee cups in her hands. Diya is petite, reaching only to my shoulder. Her hair is jet black and lies in a long plait down her back. She is beautiful, inside and out, and also has a wicked sense of humour and a dirty laugh, neither of which are apparent right now.
‘Hey. Please tell me one of those is for me?’ I smile and nod at the cups.
‘Who else?’ she replies, holding one out for me.
‘Thank you. You’re a lifesaver,’ I say, taking the cup and spotting the back of her hand, which is dotted with intricately painted Mehndi artwork.
Diya and I met in A&E on my first day at Westbury and bonded over how similar our career paths had been. We’d both done our five-year medical degrees at London universities, followed by our years in the foundation programme as junior doctors, working excruciatingly long hours and bouncing between different hospitals every few months.
By the time we’d landed at Westbury for our specialist training in emergency medicine, we felt like two female doctors in a male-dominated world, and enjoyed rising up the ranks side by side. But while I took maternity leave for Beth and then Archie, Diya kept working, moving from registrar to consultant ahead of me. The funny thing is, she is as jealous of me and my family as I am of her and her role here.
Our friendship is another thing you’ve damaged. No more lunches together at the weekend, no drinks in our favourite bar in town while we put the world to rights. Diya understands, but still I know we’re not as close as we once were. I don’t have the space in my head to be the friend she deserves.
‘It’s only coffee,’ she laughs.
‘There’s noonlyabout it. I didn’t sleep much last night.’ My eyes flit to the mirror above the sinks. I look as terrible as I feel. My skin is pale, almost grey. My dark-auburn hair is scraped back into a severe ponytail that sits at the nape of my neck. My eyes are watery green and bloodshot, surrounded by dark circles that match the navy of my blouse. I look unrecognizable from the woman I was a year ago.
Diya steps behind me and catches my eye in the mirror. Her face is etched with concern. ‘What happened?’ she asks.
‘Oh, the usual decapitated doll’s head on the doorstep and then watching me when I’m taking the kids to school.’ I try to laugh, but no sound leaves my throat. I feel the familiar urge to cry and clench my jaw tight until it passes. I will save my tears for tonight.
‘I’m so sorry this is happening to you. Did you take the doll to the police station?’
I nod. ‘I don’t know why I bother though. He always wears gloves and they never find anything on it. It’s starting to feel like a waste of my time and theirs.’ I take a sip of coffee, the hot liquid burning the tip of my tongue.
‘Should you be here? Maybe you should go home.’
‘No. I need to work,’ I reply, my voice stronger than I feel.
Diya nods, understanding better than most. ‘Game face on then, is it?’
‘Absolutely.’
There’s not a single thing I understand about this or you. I don’t know why you’ve chosen me. But right now, I have patients who need me, and however scared I am of you and what is to come, however much you’ve taken from me, I won’t let you take my passion forwhat I do. This place, this warren of corridors and wards, patients, visitors, doctors and nurses, it’s my haven.
So I follow Diya out of the toilets and squash thoughts of you, of my family, of everything, deep down and focus on the only thing that matters – doing my job, treating patients, saving lives.
Chapter 6
Jenna
It’s nearly ten by the time I leave the hospital. The sun has dipped below the horizon leaving only a faint smudge of orange and purple, like a melted rainbow in the distance. The rest of the sky is inky blue.
