44

The place felt more like an airport than a hospital, all glass and open spaces. Even a sculpture of a snake clinging to a pillar outside the entrance, for Christ’s sake. The Traveller moved among the halt and the lame, avoiding their glances. Women in dressing gowns wandered aimlessly, coffee in hand, some clutching cigarette packets and lighters. Doctors who looked like children walked in pairs and threes.

No matter how clean it was, no matter how new, the smell of sickness still underlay everything. The Traveller hated hospitals almost as much as he hated the medical profession. Hospitals were churches of the dead and dying, and doctors were the thieves who robbed the corpses, even those corpses that still breathed.

One of the thieves approached.

‘Are you looking for A&E?’ she asked, a bright young girl with a white overcoat and pens in her pocket.

‘No,’ the Traveller said, turning a circle as he scanned the reception area.

‘Oh.’ She stepped away. ‘Sorry. It’s just your eye looks—’

‘My eye’s fine. Where do you keep the stroke victims?’

‘Depends,’ she said. ‘When was the patient admitted?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘I mean, they could be in ICU, or in Admissions, or on a ward, or—’

‘I’ll find him myself,’ the Traveller said.

As he walked away, he heard, ‘Well, fuck you, then.’

He turned back to the girl, but she was already striding away, her head down, her arms churning.

‘Cunt,’ he said to her back.