The Silent Ones Read Online Free PDF Page B

waist, with no pockets. He was handed a pair of disgusting white plastic shoes like surgeons wore.
    He lined up with a small group of fellow cleaners and Kamal came out of his office to talk to them. ‘We’ve got a new recruit today, so I’ll tell you all the rules again. In the unlikely event that you meet a patient, don’t touch them. Don’t accept anything they give you. They have been told not to hand things over, so if they try, don’t think they’re being friendly – they’re not. You’re not to eat anything you find in the facility. Anything. Don’t chew gum. Wear your protective gloves at all times. All mobile phones must be put in the lockers. They are not to be carried at any time. Anyone found with a mobile phone will be dismissed and prosecuted. Take your watch off. It makes the time go quicker.
    ‘What goes in on the trolleys comes back out that door on the trolleys.’ He pointed to the door down the corridor. ‘No cleaning agents, mops, wipes, scourers, are to be left anywhere in the facility.’
    Kamal paused. ‘Let’s talk about the cells. Don’t touch or turn the mattress. All sorts of nasties have been found in there – syringes, razor blades, used Tampax. They have a plastic cover, but things get in.’ He let the sentence hang, probing a molar with a finger. ‘They remove the bedding themselves, so don’t be persuaded by them to touch it. Remember, they know all these rules, so don’t let them play you. You don’t want to be the individual who ends up on the news because of a simple thing you forgot. Now go and get changed. You’ve got a minute and a half.’
    They filed into the changing room and Darren put his stuff in one of the lockers. Three other men were changing in the room as well and they looked at him with tired eyes and total disinterest. They all filed out and Kamal led them down a long corridor to a door, which he unlocked with a large bunch of keys clipped to his waist. Darren looked up at the security camera pointing down at an angle from the ceiling.
    The group turned right down another corridor with windows on to the car park and walked past a locked door and a set of stairs. Kamal opened a service cupboard and turned on the light. Metal buckets on wheels and mops were lined up neatly against the wall. A non-brand bottle of cleaner containing a yellow liquid the colour of urine hung off the side of each bucket. ‘You change the water in the bathrooms, old water must be disposed of in the toilets, not in the sinks. We clear? They say there are seventeen miles of corridor in this place,’ Kamal said. ‘And every bit of it needs to be cleaned.
    ‘Now, Darek, you take Newman ward, Yassir, you’re on Forsyth ward and the dayroom. Darren, you can do Porter, a nice easy way to get acquainted.’
    Kamal walked away and the four men waited by the locked door. There was a loud buzzing noise and the door slid open automatically. They passed through and the door clanged shut behind them.
    They were in a different world. The corridor seemed to have had the air sucked out of it and there was nothing but a smell of cleaning fluid and plastic. A big man in a dark uniform walked towards them, a large bunch of keys jangling at his waist. ‘Good day, gentlemen. Let’s rock and roll.’
    Darren looked back at the locked door, panic beginning to conquer him. There was no going back now, he was in here for eight hours – a whole day for them to find out who he really was.
    They shuffled along with their buckets, pulling them with their mops or pushing with their feet. As they passed through the next security door a middle-aged woman with dark hair and her own clothes was writing notes behind a desk. Her name badge hung low over her breasts, knocking loudly against the counter. Helen McCabe. She didn’t look up, barely registering the cleaning team at all.
    At the next security door the team split up. ‘Where do I go?’ Darren asked the man called Yassir.
    ‘Follow me,’ he