His jaw tightened, eyes anywhere but focussing on me. Panic.
“Alright,” I said after a breath. “We’ll take you for imaging shortly.”
The men nodded. Polite. Silent. Doing nothing that should make me feel threatened. Just presence. But as I walked away, the hairs along the back of my neck prickled.
‘If someone doesn’t want you to look too closely, there’s usually a reason.’That’s what my dad would say. Always suspicious. Always watching.
At the nurses’ station, I hesitated with my hand hovering over the keyboard. There were protocols. Safeguarding. Police notifications. Processes to follow when something didn’t feel right. But when I looked back down the corridor, the curtain was still drawn, the men still there. And nothing, not one thing, crossed the line enough to justify it. I lowered my hand.
When I glanced up again, they were talking. One still leaning against the column, waiting outside the cubicle like a bodyguard. The other had turned slightly, his back to me, broad and unmoving. And stitched across that back was a patch. A clenched fist. Blood dripping from the knuckles. My stomach tightened.
We didn’t see many patched bikers in here. The other man earlier had been the first since I’d moved back to the North East. Two in one shift was unusual. Two with different colours? My dad would’ve called that a warning.
‘Patterns matter,’he used to say. ‘One is chance. Two is coincidence. Three is intent.’
I shook my head, told myself it was nothing and went back to work. But the feeling stayed, low and persistent, like I’d just walked past something I should’ve stopped and didn’t know why. And in the back of my mind, a memory. I’d seen patches long ago.
*****
A&E had calmed down the moment the junior doctors had stopped striking. It was as if the universe knew and had already picked a side. But I was grateful for a reprieve, even if the beginning of April had brought with it a wave of last-minute winter flu.
Every day blurred into the same pattern. Respiratory distress. Elderly patients wheezing through thin, scarred lungs. Children barking coughs into hollow chests. Strong, fit adults, suddenly panicked by how hard breathing had become. The corridors lined with trolleys again, blankets pulled up under chins, oxygen hissing softly like the department itself was breathing for them.
The waiting room sounded like a chest infection. Wet coughs, sniffing, the rattle of phlegm that never quite shifted. I would hear that noise for days. Again and again, even when this wave of infection was over and every little cough would spark my anxiety.
By mid-afternoon, I was already behind, the waiting times in the department slogging along like a child dragging their feet. That was when he came in. Mid-twenties. Thin. Too restless for someone claiming to be in pain. He smelled faintly of sweat and something chemical underneath it. Not booze this time. His leg bounced constantly as he sat on the edge of the trolley, eyes flicking around the cubicle like he was taking stock rather than waiting to be seen.
“How can I help you?” I asked, pulling his notes onto the clipboard.
“Me back,” he said quickly. “Propa bad. Been like it for days.”
I nodded, non-committal. “An injury?”
He shrugged. “Just came on.”
His gaze drifted to the drug trolley parked by the curtain. Then to my lanyard. My hands. The computer screen behind me.
“You the one who prescribes, yeah?” he asked, too casually.
“I’m the doctor looking after you,” I said. Neutral. Flat. Not looking up from the notes I was making on the clipboard.
He smiled then, an array of yellowed and rotting teeth on show. “Good, cos last time they only gave is paracetamol. Didn’t touch it.”
“And when was that?”
He cocked his head, a flicker of anger hinting a quick temper.
“When was the last time you hurt your back? Is this happening often? It might suggest there’s something else happening here,” I deflected, reading the warning sign, the stiffening of his body.
“Can’t remember a week or two. Comes and goes.”
I examined him anyway, getting him to move and stretch. Listening to the little groans and whimpers he added for authenticity but were just half a second too late. His range of motion was better than he let on. His tenderness shifted when I pressed. No red flags and no neurological signs.
“So… what you reckon?” he said, leaning forward as I stepped back, eyes still tracking the room. “You can sort me something propa for this pain?”
I met his gaze. “We’ll manage your pain safely,” I said, not missing the slight scrunch of something around his eyes, even though his smile of rotten teeth didn’t fade. I wrote a prescription for naproxen.
*****
