Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Hartford
I’d gotten to know the labyrinth of corridors at the hospital now.
I knew which lifts were the quickest and which stairwells were the easiest to navigate.
I shoved my scrubs into the laundry skip and pulled on my backpack, ready to take all the shortcuts to the exit and begin the journey back to Borehamwood.
If I walked quickly, I’d catch the next overground to West Hampstead and be home and pajamaed in forty-five minutes.
“Hartford,” Gerry called from behind me.
My heart corkscrewed into my knees as I turned. I liked Gerry, and normally I wouldn’t mind him catching me on my way out, but tonight I just wanted to go home and miss Joshua. I was getting really good at it.
“Have you seen this?” He waved what looked like a stack of newspapers, then beckoned me into his storage-cupboard-slash-office.
On his desk lay the Times, the British Medical Journal, and the Health Service Journal. The BBC website was open on the news page, and the words Merdon and Calmation instantly grabbed my attention.
“What happened?”
“I have no idea but it’s great news. I think.”
I stepped closer, dropped my backpack, and looked more closely. “It’s like . . . some kind of campaign against Calmation.”
“That’s exactly what it is.”
“This is all paid advertising.” I flicked through the various publications.
“Mostly,” Gerry said. “And then the HSJ have done an article picking up on the campaign. You should read it.”
He handed me the journal. I took a seat and read the headline. Luca Brands launches campaign against Merdon’s ADHD drug.
“Joshua did this?” I asked.
“I thought you put him up to it? He doesn’t seem to be doing it on behalf of a client. He’s quoted as saying that his firm will be taking on campaigns for good causes and charities from time to time going forward. You didn’t know anything about it?”
I shook my head as my heart inched higher in my chest. Why hadn’t he said anything? I guess because he hadn’t done it for me. He’d done it because he’d decided on his own it was the right thing to do.
I knew he would.
“He’s a good man. I could tell the moment I met him,” Gerry said.
Joshua had charmed Gerry’s pants off that evening at his house. But what he was saying was true. Joshua was a good man. He always had been.