Gately's hospital visitors (p. 817)
Later somebody who was either Joelle van D. or a St. E’s nurse in a U.H.I.D. veil was running a cold washcloth over his face. His face was so big it took some time to cover it all. It seemed too tender a touch on the cloth for a nurse, but then Gately heard the clink of I.V. bottles being changed or R.N.ishly messed with somewhere overhead behind him.
Context
Gately shot and mute in St. Elizabeth's Trauma Wing: the veil does exactly what U.H.I.D. designed it to do — identity withheld even from the man being tended — so Gately is left reading tenderness of touch against I.V.-clink for a clue, and the sentence itself can't resolve whether this is Joelle or a nurse who happens to be a member.