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‘I’m a psychiatr
ist,’ replied the stranger coolly, ‘so I know what I’m talking about.’  She grimaced and jerked her head in Trinity’s direction, ‘Though I didn’t get my degree
here. 
UCD.  But I’m a psychiatrist nevertheless, and a good one.  And I treated Grainne Riordan before you.’

‘Ah!’ uttered Kate, beginning to see the lig
ht, ‘You’re Sarah McGrath!  I thought you emigrated to America?’

The stranger let out a sneering
laugh, twisting her attractive features into an ugly expression, ‘Trevor told you that, did he?  It’s a lie.  And exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.  I didn’t leave of my own volition; that bastard Jordan told me to resign or he’d sack me.  Would you like to know why?’

‘Look,’ said Kate uncomfortably,
trying to edge past her, ‘I don’t know what all this is about and I don’t
want
to know.  Trevor is an old friend of mine, and I’m not going to stand here listening to anyone slagging him off when he’s not here to defend himself.’

‘Rea
lly?’ replied McGrath, massively unimpressed, ‘Well, perhaps you should take another, closer look at your old
friend’s
treatment of Grainne.  Ask yourself why someone you hold in such high regard has been so ineffectual in
her
case.  Could it be because he wants to keep her in his precious clinic at all costs?  Because he’s so obsessed with her that he can’t bear the thought of losing her?  That he can’t bear the thought of her becoming well again and leaving his little world, his control?  Take another look at your
old friend,
Ms Bennett.  A long, hard look.’

And with that she was gone, stalking off with a stiff, outraged walk.  Kate stared after her in amazement; what the hell was
that all about?  Was there any truth in the things she had said?  The vague, nameless doubts Kate had harboured about Trevor the night she had seen him outside her apartment returned, and she walked on into the courtyard with her head bowed and her brow furrowed in confusion.

On the street outside someone else had a copy of the
News
in their hand as they stood gazing at Trinity’s dirty grey facade.  Someone watching to see which staircase Kate entered, and staring at her photo in the paper as if to memorise her face.

    After her night class that evening Kate made her way back up to her office and unlocked the heavy outer door.  Sally had of course locked it on her way home, though this was more to deter roaming students than from any fear of thieves; in the majority of the faculty offices there was little worth stealing, and security was far from intense.  She made her way into her inner office and then stopped, a smile spreading across her face; there was a thermos flask sitting in the middle of her desk.  Undoubtedly it contained her personal petrol -strong, sweet coffee- and equally undoubtedly it had been left there by Sally.  Kate sat down and poured herself a cup, wishing, and not for the first time, that Sally worked for her rather than the university; if so she would gladly give her a hefty raise.  It was little touches like this which made all the difference between a good secretary and a
great
secretary who was more than halfway to becoming a friend.

She began putting away her lec
ture notes, smiling again as she thought back on her class that evening and wishing that her full-time students interested her as much as the part-time variety did.  The night-class students were generally a lot older, of course, so they had a far better insight into life and into people, but this was not the main reason Kate preferred them.  It was their interest in the course and in the people they were studying that made her respond to them; they genuinely seemed to care about the subject, whereas most of her day-time students were simply training for a career.

Kate shoved her paperwork aside and sighed; maybe she was just growing old.  Wasn’t a dislike for the young one of th
e signs of aging?  Though she didn’t actually dislike most of her students; she was just irritated by them.  Perhaps because she had never been as arrogant and carefree and self-centred as the majority of them appeared to be.  At least she had never
felt
that way; perhaps she too had given that outward impression when she was young.  She looked at her watch and frowned; it was after ten-thirty.  Morrison was late, which surprised her; he had struck her as the punctual type.  It also annoyed her; she was tired after her long day and wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl into bed.

She poured herself another coffee
to keep her eyes open and finished preparing the edited copy of Grainne’s file for Morrison, hoping that she was doing the right thing.  Doctor-patient relationship or not, she could only pray that she wasn’t removing anything that might have given the policeman the key to the mystery.  But if so there wasn’t much she could do about it; although not a medical doctor she was bound by rules almost as strict as those governing members of the medical profession.  Or the police force, for that matter.  Every profession has its own morality, its own code of ethics.  Thinking this made her think of Sarah McGrath and what she had said about Trevor; could it possibly be true?  She didn’t want to believe it, and after all he had made no bones about his
lapse from professionalism as far as Grainne was concerned, when there had been no need for him to mention it at all.  All he had needed to do was keep his mouth shut and she would never have known that his interest in Grainne was anything other than professional.  And he hadn’t actually
done
anything, to be fair.  After all, no one can help how they feel.

When s
he had finished she placed the amended copy into a separate folder for Morrison and looked at her watch again; almost eleven!  This was getting ridiculous; was she meant to sit there all night waiting for him?  She was ready to leave when she heard the door of the outer office opening and someone coming in;
at
last
!  Unless it were the cleaners, of course.  But before she could call out the door to her inner office swung open, revealing a tall figure framed in the doorway.  A tall figure clad head to toe in black, with his face obscured by a black balaclava.

Kate’s stomach dropped into her boots and her mouth went dry, her heart
suddenly pounding.  A glint of steel caught her eye and she realised, to her growing horror, that the man held a long naked blade in his right hand.  Kate rose to her feet without conscious volition, as if raised by invisible wires, her body still crouched forward over the desk.  She stared at the dark figure in hot, scarlet terror, praying that he would not hurt her, that this was somehow a mistake, that he was not there for
her
.  Her legs were trembling with the adrenaline pumping through them and her brain was screaming at her to
run
,
to
run
,
to
run
… Yet she could not.  They stared at each other in a frozen tableau, neither seeming capable of speech or movement.  Kate’s face was gaunt with fear in the yellow light from her desk-lamp, her eyes immense pools of horror.  The intruder was just a dark silhouette, still and unemotional and infinitely menacing.

Long-buried fear rose within her and for one weak, humiliating moment Kate thought wearily,
Kill me then.  Go ahead.  Just please don’t hurt me.  Not again.  I couldn’t take it a second time.
  Then she swallowed her fear with a convulsive effort and looked around for a weapon to defend herself, finally snatching up her heavy lamp from her desk and holding it aloft in spite of the tears coursing down her face.

Even then the black figure did not move, seeming frozen himself, and at that point
Kate saw another shadow, this one sliding across the floor as Sean Morrison entered the outer office behind the stranger.  Sean’s eyes drank in the scene before him and he reacted instantly, moving swiftly forward to tackle the intruder.  But the dark figure was quicker yet, spinning on his heel and lunging forward with the knife in one swift, fluid motion.  The long knife slid into Morrison’s belly with frightening ease, instantly disappearing as far as the suddenly red hilt.  The policeman stopped as if he had run into a wall, all colour and emotion draining from his face.  He doubled over in slow motion, his hands slowly reaching up to the red rose suddenly blooming in the middle of his white shirt.  His assailant withdrew the knife and let his arm fall to his side.  Then he turned back to Kate.  The sight of the blood freed her from her paralysis and she threw back her head and uttered the loudest and most piercing scream she had ever emitted in her life.  The intruder froze again, seeming suddenly uncertain, but a shout and a clatter on the stairs at the end of the corridor galvanised him into life again.  He slipped across the outer office in a flash and vanished through the open door before sprinting down to the second flight of stairs at the other end of the corridor.

Kate stopped screaming and shut her eyes for one second of blessed, shameful relief;
I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive!
  Then her better self reasserted itself and her eyes snapped open again;
Sean!

Morrison
had slumped to the floor, his eyes staring and his ghastly pale face in stark contrast to the crimson pool forming beneath him.  Kate grabbed the entire contents of the tissue box on her desk and ran around to fling herself on her knees beside him.

‘Move yo
ur hands!’ she said in a low, urgent voice, ‘Sean, let go of the wound!  I need to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding!’

Morrison made no reply
but his death-grip on his belly loosened and she pressed the wadded mass of tissue against the bloody hole in his shirt, knowing that whether or not it hurt him she had to stop the flow of blood.

Footsteps pattered into the room and a voice shouted ‘Jaysus fuckin’ Christ!  What’s goin’ on?’

It was the night porter and Kate turned to him and screamed, ‘Call an ambulance!  Tell them we have a man stabbed in the abdomen just below the sternum!  Move it!  And then call the police, tell them the attacker was dressed all in black and just ran out into the Quad.  Tell them he has a knife, that he already stabbed a Gardai!  Call Security too but tell them not to tackle him, he’s armed!  But call the ambulance first!’

The porter stood staring
down at them in frozen horror for a second and Kate screamed, ‘Fucking move it or he’ll die! 
Move
,
move
,
move
!’

The porter snapped out of his trance and stepped forward to pick up Sally’s phone and Kate turned back to the policeman, ‘Can you hear me, Sean?  Don’t try to answer but help is on the way, okay?
  Just hang on,
help is on the way!’

He had slid down
onto his back, supine on the polished wooden floor, and now she cradled his head into her lap with her left arm while pressing down onto the wound with her right hand, pushing down as hard as she could even after first her hand and then her whole arm went numb.  Pressing down frantically even after her whole arm filled with pain like liquid fire.  Pain that was nothing compared to his but which somehow consoled her all the same, made her feel she was sharing at least part of his burden.  Wishing she could do more, Kate started to cry softly, her tears pattering down onto Morrison’s upturned face. 
Don’t die, don’t die.  Not for me, not in my place.  But thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

It seemed an age before the police arrived, and a
lifetime
before the ambulance got there and the paramedics took over her station, but Morrison clung to life.  Only too glad to be relieved by professionals who had at least a chance of saving him, Kate pushed herself backwards away from him with her blood-stained hands, sliding across the floor on her backside until she hit the opposite wall.  Unheeding of the blood on her hand she wrapped her arms around her cold body and held herself tightly, rocking back and forth as she watched with frightened eyes as the paramedics tended to the fallen detective.  Their movements were swift and deft and sure, and immeasurably comforting as they expertly staunched the blood and began hooking him up to a portable drip.

Kate’s lips moved but no sound emerged as she silently prayed,
Please God, don’t let him die!  I’ll do anything you want, just don’t you dare let him die!  Don’t you fucking
DARE!

After an
apparently endless period of time one of the uniformed Gardai, who were suddenly filling her little office, put a blanket around her shoulders and pushed a steaming mug into her hands.  Coffee, she noted dully.  The coffee Sally had made her, to be precise, kept hot inside her trusty thermos.  Kate fought a hysterical giggle as she thought;
But what will Sally say about the state of the office?  All that blood, for example.  Though cleaning it up really isn’t one of her duties, now is it?  I shouldn’t wonder if she never makes me coffee again.  Shouldn’t wonder at all.  Shouldn’t...

One of the policemen gently helped her to her feet and guide
d her to a chair, though she had been quite happy on the floor, and somehow afraid to move, as if
she
were the one who should not be moved rather than Sean.  In a low but to her astonishingly calm voice she said, ‘Why are they taking so long about getting him to the hospital?’