The Jack Hansard Series: Season Two

Episode 7.2

A rattling trolley interrupted us and Mavis entered the room. Ang hastily threw her sunglasses back on.

'Hello again, you two. Cup of tea, love?'

'No, thank you,' I said.

'No trouble, no trouble. I'll just give Cora her pills and be on my way.' She consulted her clipboard and popped two tablets from their packaging. I turned away while she administered them. I knew Cora would hate the indignity of it.

My eyes wandered over the contents of the trolley, tried and failed to decipher the tangle of handwritten notes on the clipboard.

'All done, love. I'll get out of your hair.'

I opened the door for her and went alert. Alarm bells clanged in my head to the rhythm of the footsteps pounding down the corridor towards us, followed by desperate shouts and radio chatter.

I stepped back and threw out an arm to stop Mavis. A blur ran past the open door, a brief impression of an older woman in silk pyjamas and only one slipper, who was suddenly intercepted by a porter. The other staff caught up, red-faced and sweating. Clearly, she'd given them quite the run-around.

They tried to shush and calm her and radio for more hands and for someone to bring sedation. All the while she screamed.

'I won't take them! I won't take them! They're made of people! They're made of people!'

'What's happenin',' Ang whispered.

Mavis gave her a fawning look and patted her shoulder. 'Nothing to worry about, lovie. Sometimes people just get a little bit confused, and we have to help them back to bed, that's all.'

'She don't sound confused.'

'Don't make me!' the woman was shouting. 'It's not right! They'll make me hurt you! Do you understand? They'll make me hurt you!'

'Julie here is a little worried about her pills,' Mavis said in a sing-song voice. She ushered Ang further away from the door.

'What's wrong with the pills?' I murmured.

'Nothing, love. She just has problems. You know how it is here.' She gave a wobbly laugh. 'Poor thing thinks her meds will turn her into a werewolf. Can you imagine?'

The voices outside grew a little more frantic, now punctuated by obscenities and the sound of ripping fabric. And soon enough, screams.

I slammed the door shut.

'Hey Ang,' I said shakily, 'I don't suppose you have any silver on you, do you?'

'No gwas. But our life depends on it, I expect.'

'Probably.'

Mavis was staring at the door in horror. I steered her to the bed where her mental functions could shut down without fear of collapse.

A quick scan of the room confirmed the obvious – no one's going to display anything of real value in a residential care home, and it's not like Cora owned very much to begin with. There was one thing I could hopefully count on, though.

'Hope you don't mind,' I said to Cora as I pulled open her bedside drawers. The nurses knew I left her 'gifts' and they generally humoured me by leaving them wherever they were. The bunting around her window was a series of omamori charms I'd purchased, to dissuade unfriendly things from trying to enter.

And in her drawer, assuming no one had half-inched it . . . yes! I held up the necklace and the pendant caught the light as it spun. A simple pentacle, for protection, but crucially made of silver.