“That’s a pity,” she said. “I was hoping for a miracle.”

“Yes. I think maybe we all were.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t more on the ball when you came to see me. I’d not long had my diagnosis and I’m afraid I was distracted by my own woes.”

“That’s quite understandable. I suppose you know why I’m here.”

“I can guess.” Alice winced as a sudden pain gripped her.

“Are you well enough to talk?” Jean said, her shame at hounding a dying woman just trumped by dread that the answer might be no and that she would be sent on her way with nothing.

“I’m as well as I ever will be.”

There was still the same sharp intelligence in her gaze as she turned it on Jean.

“I wanted to ask you about Victor.”

“How did you find out?” Alice’s voice was a whisper.

“I noticed these references to V in your diary, but none of the patients or nurses had names beginning with V and it set me wondering.”

“I don’t remember writing about Vicky in my diary,” said Alice, shaking her head. “I thought it was only hospital matters.”

“There were no mentions of him during the period while Gretchen was a patient,” said Jean. “Which is why I didn’t come across them at first. Then, when I saw Kitty quite recently, she said while she was at St. Cecilia’s an angel had visited her one night. Obviously, that made me very suspicious.” She realized that she, too, was whispering.

“I didn’t know that. She never said.”

“She’d been encouraged in her belief by one of the nuns, but I don’t think she mentioned it to anyone else at the time. And then this morning Susan Trevor told me you had a nephew called Victor and something she said about his long hair made me think of Kitty’s angel.”

Alice closed her eyes and a tear trembled at the outer edges of the seams.

“He was my sister’s boy. She was a wild one—always in trouble. She wouldn’t tell us who the father was—if she knew. But she wouldn’t give the baby up; she didn’t care what people thought. And the funny thing is, motherhood seemed to be the making of her.

“And then she got peritonitis and died when he was four, and we brought him up ourselves—my mother and I. He was such a beautiful boy—I’ve got a picture of him in my purse—everybody loved him. But when he reached puberty he began to change—just like my sister. He became quite withdrawn and started to hear voices.”

At the mention of voices, Jean grew very still, the air trapped in her chest.

“He had these terrible rages. It was the voices tormenting him. We couldn’t keep him at school; they wouldn’t have him. So we looked after him at home. The doctor gave him some pills to keep him calm, but they made him blow up like a balloon.”

Jean let out a long breath.