Jodie felt a tightness in her chest. If the Nursing and Midwifery Council was involved, this was serious indeed. ‘Can you tell me what the error was?’ The day had been manic, had she done something wrong?

‘Bessie found medication on the bedside locker in room six.’

Room six. Daisy Courtland’s room. Jodie frowned. That couldn’t be right. ‘Daisy isn’t on any regular medication.’

‘Exactly!’ There was a note of triumph in the manager’s voice as if Jodie had admitted her fault.

Jodie’s head was spinning. ‘I don’t understand…’

‘I’ll be in contact with you over the next couple of days to arrange a date for the preliminary investigation.’ Katy hung up without another word.

Shock kept Jodie immobile, the handset clasped in her hand, a rigid expression of fear and self-doubt on her face. Had she left someone else’s medication in room six accidentally? The bedridden Daisy didn’t take any medication, unusual in a woman of ninety-three. But when Jodie was doing her medication round, she always called in to say hello. Had she put a medicine pot down on her locker by mistake? She shut her eyes in horror. If she had, it meant that another resident hadn’t received their medication.

For the next couple of hours, she went over and over as much as she could remember of the day. It had been crazy. Medication rounds were supposed to be protected, staff weren’t supposed to call her for assistance, residents weren’t supposed to ask for help and their families weren’t supposed to want to talk to her. But all of those things happened. And on a day they were short-staffed, they’d happened even more. But she was an experienced nurse, she could cope. And she didn’t make mistakes. Did she?

Did she?

Maybe if she knew what medication had been left, she might be able to figure out whose it was, and how she could have made such a ghastly error. Because it had to have been her. She was the only person who gave out medication. It had to have been her… the thought was devastating. She loved being a nurse, she didn’t want it to end like this.

The phone was still in her hand. She could ring and ask Bessie what medication she’d found. But Jodie knew she wouldn’t. Bessie hadn’t shown much solidarity by ringing Katy rather than her.

It was after midnight before Jodie went to bed, and nearly three before she fell into a restless sleep where tablets of various shapes and sizes grew wide gaping mouths that screamed abuse at her for what she’d done.