“Take it easy,” Bland said, his eyes still on the girl. “You let her out, you silly old mare.”
“Get your patient away or I’ll report you,” the nurse said furiously.
“And you would, too,” Bland returned, sneering.
He grabbed hold of my arm.
“Come on, baby, the fun’s over. You can’t say this ain’t the place to live in. The best of attention and the Follies Bergčre thrown in for free. What more do you want?”
He hustled me into a bathroom opposite the one the girl had escaped from as the nurse went down the corridor. The girl saw her coming, turned to face her; her screams went through my head and set my nerves jangling. I was glad when the bathroom door closed on the sound, shutting it out.
Bland was excited. His hard little eyes gleamed, and he kept running his tongue along his lips.
“Some bim!” he said, half to himself. “I wouldn’t have missed that for a week’s pay. Here you, get your things off and get into the bath. My luck having to sit around and look at you when that dish out there’s on show.”
“Stop acting like a kid,” I said, stripping off the dressing-gown and pyjamas. “Who is she, anyway?”
“The bim? No one you’d know. She used to be a nurse here; went suddenly crackers when her boy walked out on her. That’s the story, anyway. She was here before I came. Why she should go nuts because she lost her boy, beats me. I would have given her a twirl any time she wanted one.”