He slipped his glasses back on to identify the approaching figure. ‘Doctor?’ A woman’s voice rang out through the gloom. The corridor ahead of him was dark, the lights dimmed apart from the emergency exit signs that glared green above the doors at either end. He stepped inside, noting as he lurched upwards that the bronzed mirrors made him look healthier than he felt.Ī few moments later, he walked out on to the ward, the wet soles of his shoes faintly marking the scarlet lino. Eventually, there was a muffled sound of machinery as it slowed and the door opened. He took them off and wiped them clean on his shirt, the moisture streaking across the lens.Ī red LED display glowed into life overhead as the lift made its way down to him, the declining numbers scrolling rhythmically across the panel. He stepped out of the cold into the warm blast of the heaters positioned in the entrance vestibule, the sudden change in temperature making his glasses fog.

As if to emphasise the hour, Big Ben, its face suspended in the air like a small moon on the other side of the river, chose that moment to chime, each heavy, deadened strike shaking Bennett a little further awake.

To Dr John Bennett, however, shouldering the icy rain as he walked briskly over to the main hospital building from the ugly hulk of the accommodation block, the prospect of a few extra quid was small compensation for being paged at three a.m. Death could be good business for a doctor who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. Every cremation or burial release form requires a doctor’s signature, and every signature earns its donor a small fee. Excerpt from The Black Sun Prologue Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, London 27th December – 2.59 a.m.

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