Bay of the Dead by Mark Morris

downpour, but when she glanced up at the sky through the glass doors she saw nothing but the same fine drizzle that had prevailed all evening. Then she noticed that many of the patients sitting on the rows of chairs closest to the entrance were slowly rising to their feet and turning their heads to look outside.
'What's going on?' Nina Rogers asked.
Rianne strained to see beyond the increasing number of people who were now bunched around the entrance doors, but their bobbing heads were obstructing her view.
'I've no idea,' she said.
Nina pushed herself awkwardly to her feet. 'Well, let's go and have a look, shall we?'
Rianne hesitated for just a second, then nodded and accompanied a hobbling Nina towards the main entrance. When they reached the crowd clustered around the doors, Nina tapped on the shoulder of a grey-haired woman with a long, heavily lined face. 'Excuse me, do you know what's happening?'
The woman turned. 'It's people,' she replied. 'They're coming from all over, surrounding the building. They reckon it's gangs.'
'Who do?' asked Rianne.
A thickset, bullet-headed man turned to address them. 'They'll be after the drugs,' he said.
'Has someone called the police?' another woman asked, anxiety straining her voice.
'Where's hospital security, that's what I'd like to know,' said a weaselly man with thinning hair and a brown cardigan.
There were further murmurs from the front of the crowd, a ripple of disquiet, like an electrical pulse.
'What's going on now?' Nina wanted to know, trying without success to peer over the heads of the knot of people in front of her.
An old lady with a powder puff of white hair and too much blusher, who was standing in front of the bullet-headed man, said over her shoulder, 'There's something wrong with them. They're not moving right.'
'Not moving right? Whatever do you mean?' Rianne asked. But the woman had turned away again now, and was absorbed in whatever was happening outside.
Rianne touched Nina's arm. 'I'm going upstairs,' she said. 'The windows at the top of the maternity ward overlook the car park. I'll have a better view from there.'
She expected Nina to nod and say goodbye, but instead the girl said firmly, 'I'll come with you.'
'Oh,' said Rianne, so taken aback by Nina's bluntness that instead of discouraging her, she found herself nodding. 'All right then. Come on.'
The two women crossed the foyer to the lifts. The maternity unit was on the fifth floor. They ascended silently and crossed to a set of double doors. As Rianne entered and held the doors open for the limping Nina, Sister Felicity Andrews poked her head out of the nurses' station, a chocolate chunk cookie in her hand.
'Hello, Rianne,' she said pleasantly. 'Forgotten something?'
'Another of my ladies has gone into labour,' Rianne explained briskly. 'She's on her way in.' Before Sister Andrews could comment she added, 'Have you seen what's going on outside?'
'Outside? No, I. . .' Sister Andrews seemed to notice Nina for the first time. 'Who's this?'
Nina stepped forward, hand outstretched. 'Nina Rogers. It's OK, I'm just visiting.'
'Visiting? Well, it's not really—'
'Don't worry, Felicity, she's with me,' Rianne said.
Sister Andrews eyed Nina's bandaged leg doubtfully. 'Well, if you say so. . .'
The maternity unit more closely resembled a hotel suite than a medical facility. It comprised a wide central corridor with birthing rooms on one side and a series of ten-bed wards on the other. It had been designed with comfort and reassurance in mind, the walls and floors painted in soothing colours.
'Ward five is our intensive care unit,' Rianne explained, hurrying towards it. 'It's empty at the moment.'
They entered the room, which was lit by low-level lighting. There were only four beds in here, each enclosed within its own self-contained cubicle. On the wall opposite the door was a row of four waist-high windows. Rianne rushed across to them, her hands slapping the sill as she leaned forward to look outside, Nina