Decided to put this in extended, as I can see the next two chapters in my head.

The key was a little disappointing, as keys to life go. I would have thought that it would be huge and rusty, with ornate curlicues. Or made of gold, encrusted with rare gems. This key was small and made of a mundane silvery alloy. It was thin, the barrel semicircular, the handle of it plain, with no hint of a manufacturer. Just a tiny number inscribed on it. It probably had a special name in the business. A locksmith would have called it a three millimetre Johnson one-eighty, or something. I just thought of it as that sort of key that fits a small semicircular lock, like you sometimes see in a security door.

I put it down on the bedside table, and opened the book. Some of the puzzles had been completed, with partial answers, random letters and doodles in the margins. I wasn’t a crossword sort of person, really. I didn’t see the point of spending hours trying to work out the clues. And cryptic clues had me utterly lost. A colleague at work had once tried to explain it all to me, but to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered.

There was nothing inside the front cover to suggest the owner’s details. The ex-owner. The curtains were still closed, but there was no mistaking those wide-open, dead eyes I had seen when he lay on the floor.

It was time, I decided, for a little exercise. Never mind what the doctor said, I needed the loo, and I was damned if I was going to suffer the indignities of a bed bottle. Besides, the nurses had their hands full.

I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. My ribs were still sore, and complained at the exertion, despite the painkillers. I sat there for a moment, gathering my resources. While I steeled myself I tidied the bedside table. I’m sorry, but I’m a neat person. I put the key in my wallet, tucked behind my shirt in the top compartment. The book I left on top. What the hell, I might give it a try when I came back. What else was there for me to do?

The bed was the normal high hospital type. I slid off, taking all my weight on the left foot, holding onto the bedside locker for balance. Gingerly I tried the right foot. It hurt, but not nearly as bad as I thought it might. I tried a few steps, using the bed as a support. Easy. I hobbled out into the main body of the ward, which formed a sort of wide corridor joining the ward sections together. The loo was helpfully signposted. While I was at it I would have a wash too.

Afterwards, feeling much more human, I hobbled back to the bed. He was gone, the bed stripped. His name was still on the wipe-clean board by the bed, though. Mr Julian Carpenter. RIP, I added, in my head. I wondered what he had been like. There had certainly been an air of command about him, ex-army officer, I guessed. I could see him as being strict with his kids. If he had any. If he had been married, even. Who knew?

"Mr Thompson! What are you doing out of bed?"

I turned. One of the ward nurses, a no-nonsense woman in her forties, was standing behind me, hands on ample hips.

"I needed the loo."

"You’re meant to be resting that foot. Do you want to be able to go home tomorrow?"

"If the alternative is to be able to see more of you, I’d stay here for ever."

The tired, somewhat irritated expression seemed to say, ‘a hundred men better than you have tried to soft soap me, and they all failed.’ "Well, since you’re up, you can sit in the armchair by the bed. You don’t want to laze around in bed all day. But keep your weight off of that foot. I’ve better things to do than chase around after you all day."

Chastened, I limped to the chair, grabbed the book and sat down. It had been worth it, though. I felt much better, hospital soap not withstanding. I flicked through the pages, looking for a blank page. But then I quickly saw the flaw in my plan. No pen. Oh well.

A priest walked into the section. Or possibly a vicar. A rector, even. Maybe a parson. I idly pondered the differences. Was there a snobbery involved in the cut-throat scramble for promotion in the ecclesiastic career hierarchy? He walked up to the empty bed vacated by the late Mr Carpenter (Queens Hussars, retired). He looked non-plussed.

"Do you know where they have taken Mr Carpenter?" he asked me.

Shit! He hadn’t been told. How do you tell someone that someone else was dead? What if he wasn’t just the hospital chaplain, but knew him?

"Did you know him?" I asked. I had hoped to be subtle, but then immediately realised the question gave the game away.

"He’s dead?" He looked shocked. Surely not. The man had been ancient. Even if he weren’t in hospital you wouldn’t start a game of Monopoly with him in the expectation of finishing. Surely his death couldn’t have come as a surprise.

"I think so", I replied. I wasn’t a doctor. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he had been rushed off to intensive care. How did I know? "Perhaps you had better ask the nurse?"

He nodded, looking down in thought. "Yes… yes, I will. Thank you." And he wandered off.

Oops. I wondered what to do now. Damn, but this was going to be a boring day. Everyone else in the section was either asleep or with visitors. Nurse or no nurse, I was going to have to get up and walk soon, if only to prove to myself I wasn’t dead and this was my own private hell.

The priest re-appeared. He had a worried, nervous air about him. I didn’t think it was to do with Mr Carpenter’s demise. I suspected that he was always like that. His body seemed to stutter. None of his movements were smooth or fluid. I could see him at the WI fete. "Your sponge has sunk in the middle? Oh dear! What can we do?"

He stepped up to me and offered his hand. I shook it. It was surprisingly firm. Not a vicar’s handshake at all. Maybe they took lessons in handshaking now. Or possibly it was just practice. How many hands did a vicar get to shake in one day? Dozens, probably.

"Hello", he said, flashing a nervous smile. "I’m Tom."

"Peter". I replied.

He pointed to my bed. "May I?"

What else was I going to say? It wasn’t as though I had a busy and hectic schedule at that moment.

"Sure, but I’ll warn you now. I’m not a believer."

He sat on the bed, hands clasped in his lap, and beatified me with another instant smile. "Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m not out to convert you, or ask you for money for the church roof. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment about Mr Carpenter. He was one of my parishioners. Hmm?"

"Yeah, fine, but I’ve only been in here a few hours, and I was sleeping for a fair few of them."

He nodded in sympathy. "Hmm, hmm. But you were with him when he passed away?"

I could see a protracted conversation with him would be irritating in the extreme. His nervous humming was already getting on my nerves.

"Not exactly. He had just turned to his bed when he collapsed. It was pretty quick. I don’t think he suffered." I had a surreal moment. Wasn’t this the sort of thing a vicar was meant to say?

"Did he say anything before he passed away? Hmm?"

"He just asked my name, and gave me this book." I lifted the book, still in my hand from my penless dip into the arcane world of cryptology. "I’m not sure he was really quite all there. I thought he was giving me a bible. He knew he was dying though. Hope I can be brave in the face of that knowledge. Though I’d rather not know at all, if you know what I mean."

"Hmm. Yes. Death can be a trying time for the best of us." But he wasn’t really listening. His eyes were fixed on the book. His response sounded straight out of the ‘Things to Say to the Bereaved’. ‘Platitudes for Dummies’. "Are you into crosswords? I must say they are a passion of mine. The Times crossword, especially. May I?" He reached his hand out.

I gave him the book. He opened it, flicking through the pages, checking inside the flyleaves.

"I say, there are quite a few here that haven’t been completed. That should keep you busy." He put the book down on the bed. "And what are you in here for? My word, you do seem to have been in the wars."

"I had a spill on my motorbike, but nothing too serious. I’m getting out tomorrow. I’m just here for observation."

"Well, thank you so much for your help… erm… Peter. It was a comfort to hear that he didn’t suffer. Such a shame he had to die alone. He had no relatives. I tried to be here for him at the end, but I’m sure you were a comfort to him." Another instant smile and he stood up, turned and walked stiffly, awkwardly out of the ward.

What an odd fellow. He seemed to be a caricature of an English vicar. Why did God employ them like that? Why didn’t normal people become vicars? Well, that sort of answers itself, I thought. I reached out to tidy the book away. It was gone.

I looked the length of the bed. The floor. No book. Had I just been robbed by a man of the cloth? I chuckled. A kleptomaniac cleric. I shook my head. It takes all sorts, I thought.

A couple of hours later, and I was reading a paper begged from a fellow patient. In one of those odd twists, it was the Times. Should I write to the editor? ‘Dear Sirs, whilst incapacitated in hospital I was robbed of the Times Crossword Book by a priest. I appreciate that your crosswords are sought after, but what is this world coming to, when an invalid is not safe from gangs of marauding vicars? We never had this when we had conscription.’

I was bored. So bored. I was reading every article in a desperate attempt to kill time till lights out. Even the boring articles.

I became aware of someone standing over me. I lowered the paper, abandoning an article on how some Managing Director had turned an obscure company around. There in front of me was a man of maybe thirty. He was wearing an expensive black Crombie coat over a dark suit. It looked out of place with the man’s cropped hair and thickset build. He looked like a bouncer. A bouncer with taste and money, but still a bouncer.

"Hello", I said, in the absence of anything else to say.

He nodded, solemn, suspicious. "You spoke to Julian Carpenter?"

"Yes. Why?" There was something I didn’t like about this man. He was intimidating, and would have been even if I weren’t sitting down in hospital pyjamas. Intimidating in a physical way.

"I’m his son. Did he say anything to you? Give you anything?"

His son. Yeah, right. If he conceived you when he was seventy, maybe. I definitely didn’t like this menacing stranger. I wanted to get rid of him, as soon as possible.

"Only a crossword book, but I think his vicar took it."

An expression of surprise crossed his face, chased by an angry glower. "Slim, nervous-looking. In his forties?"

"Yes."

He glared at me for a moment, fists bunched. Well, if I was going to be beaten up, being in a hospital ward was the best place to be.

Then he abruptly turned on his heel and stormed out of the ward.

I stared after him. Well, that was different. A theological thief and a dressed-up delinquent. Both desperate to complete crosswords. I wondered what their meeting would be like. Unless the priest had a very good arrangement with the Lord, I was pretty sure what the outcome would be.

I shook my head and reached for the borrowed newspaper.