White Lilies

by R. C. Bridgestock

  ‘I took their phone after I’d stabbed them, and stabbed them, and stabbed them,’ Wainstall said. His arm rose and fell as though he was carrying out the act. ‘Dead, they can have flowers, lots of flowers,’ he said.

  ‘What’s your favourite flower?’

  ‘White lilies,’ he said, almost singing the words.

  ‘Why white lilies?’

  ‘Because you give people them when they die, my mother told me,’ he said matter of factly. ‘Death. That’s what they mean, so that’s what I do.’ Wainstall started laughing. His laugh became frenzied and Dylan decided that he would have to end the interview. Wainstall was taken back to his cell.

  ‘Mrs Best, Mr Hirst,’ Dylan spoke across the table inside the interview room. ‘Do you really think that your client is fit to interview?’

  ‘According to the medical practitioner he is,’ said Yvonne Best. ‘Don’t be fooled by his actions, Mr Dylan,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘I’ve known this man a long time and, believe me, he is good at playing the dunce when he wants to. I’m satisfied he’s fit to interview.’

  Avril walked back to the gate and took the bolt off. The gate opened easily and she pushed it open wide enough to pass through. This side of the house was free from the sun and the flagged area was dark and cooler. She stopped at the end of the path and listened. As she entered the back garden she walked into a different world and the warm sunlight gave her a renewed confidence. The back door was open and she could hear the washing machine spinning merrily away. Breakfast hadn’t been cleared away, she noticed, and a tea towel was lying on the floor by the door into the hallway.

  ‘Jen?’ she called. The dog yelped. ‘Jen?’ she called again as she went into the hallway. The noise from the dog was coming from upstairs. With trepidation she walked to the foot of the stairs. At the top she saw the dog standing, yelping. His tailed wagged furiously but he didn’t attempt to come down.

  ‘Jen,’ she called once more. She stopped to listen. Should she go? She tiptoed up one step, then two. Max hopped from foot to foot but still he made no attempt to come towards her. Then she saw it. Jen’s blonde hair was draped across the floor of the landing and flowed over the top step. Avril rushed up the stairs. Jen moaned and tried to move.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Avril said, her hand flying to her mouth.

  Trembling from head to foot, she reached out to Jen’s pale face. She was warm.

  ‘My waters,’ Jen said in a laboured voice, without opening her eyes. Avril was already dialling for an ambulance.

  The monitor showed that the baby was fine but Jen wasn’t having strong contractions. ‘I suppose a water birth is out of the question now?’ Jen said to Avril who was smiling down at her. She’d never seen Avril so at ease before as she held her hand. She was pretty when she smiled.

  ‘I think because of the risk of infection that is most definitely not on the cards now,’ the doctor said kindly. ‘We’ll start you off with a hormone pessary to soften the cervix but you can only have one because your waters have broken – as you will probably have guessed.’

  ‘Am I in labour?’ Jen asked.

  ‘Yes, dear, you won’t be going home now until after the birth,’ he said, patting her arm tenderly. ‘I want to put a hormone drip into your arm in a while, so you’re going to be wired up and you’ll have to stay in bed then.’ He walked from the room.

  Jen turned to Avril. ‘Jack? Please will you try to get hold of Jack for me?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, reassuringly. ‘If he answers my calls, that is,’ she said.

  ‘I know you two don’t get on but, Avril, thank you,’ said Jen. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

  Avril shook her head, and Jen could see that she was embarrassed.

  ‘Why did you come out to see me this morning?’

  ‘Oh, nothing for you to worry about, just a personnel check and to bring you a gift for the baby,’ she said. ‘Look, let me get Jack for you.’

  ‘Avril?’

  ‘I can’t have children, Jen. I know you think I’m a cranky old thing,’ she smiled, nervously. ‘But my work is all I’ve got. I’ll never have what you and Jack have.’

  ‘But Hugo?’

  ‘Hugo only thinks about himself, Jen. He is far too selfish to want children,’ she sighed. ‘But at least he won’t leave me.’

  ‘Well, I can never thank you enough – and, believe me, Jack will be just as grateful.’

  Avril raised an eyebrow.

  Jen smiled. ‘You should get to know each other, you’re both as stubborn as each other,’ she said. ‘Oh Lord, I think that’s a real contraction.’

  Questions were being put to Frederick Wainstall thick and fast in the second interview but he didn’t tell them any more than they already knew and Dylan knew the interviews were going nowhere. With a heavy heart and a banging headache Dylan reached into his pocket for his handkerchief. His phone vibrated. Damn, he should have turned it off and he did so immediately with an apologetic nod.

  Dylan reached for the paracetamol as soon as they got back to the office. Vicky slumped in her chair in the CID office, both were exhausted.

  Lisa took the call that came into the office. ‘Wainstall’s shoes have tested positive for blood and the wooden handled knife recovered from the bin did too,’ she said. Dylan breathed a sigh of relief. Forensics would in due course identify whose blood it was. ‘Another positive indication, sir, is that the initial comparisons show the piece of metal recovered from Greenwood’s body appeared to match the knife blade in a perfect fit.’

  ‘You’re required at the hospital, sir,’ shouted Vicky. ‘Jen’s gone into labour.’

  Dylan’s head was in a spin. Did he have time to charge? No, there was too much paperwork remaining to do.

  ‘Get a pen, Vicky. I want you to charge him for me. Nothing is going to stop me from seeing Buttons born,’ he grinned, his face aglow.

  ‘Buttons?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yeah, the baby’s name we’ve given her, you know,’ he said with a flush to his cheeks.

  ‘You big old softie,’ she teased.

  ‘Just charge him, will you? Attempted murder, murder, threats to kill and then charge him with the double murders in a week’s time if I’m not back.’ Dylan grabbed his keys and ran to his car. Vicky followed him.

  Grace and Winston had been knocked down and a catalogue of events had followed in which Denton and Greenwood had been the catalyst – but right now he was going to see the start of a new life for a change.

  Jen was in agony and Avril Summerfield-Preston was right by her side.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Dylan asked.

  ‘Jack, don’t. If it hadn’t been for Avril I would still be lying on the floor at home. She got an ambulance … please. Argh,’ she cried out.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I bought you a present for the baby. Is that okay?’ Avril said, with tears in her eyes. ‘And contrary to your belief that I don’t earn my salary, I do follow my job description to the letter, and Jen was due a visit.’

  Jen squeezed Jack’s hand tightly and started panting furiously. ‘Oh, no, another … argh,’ she screamed again.

  ‘I think my job here is done and I wish you both well,’ she said.

  ‘She’s six centimetres dilated,’ the nurse told the doctor.

  Jen shook uncontrollably. ‘I’m freezing,’ she said to Dylan through chattering teeth.

  ‘Her temperature’s shot up to 39.8,’ the nurse said, writing on the chart hung at the bottom of Jen’s bed.

  ‘Infection,’ the doctor said seriously. Dylan caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the doctor’s shoulder and saw the eyes of victim’s families looking back at him. Is this what it felt like for them when they waited for every word to come out of his mouth to update them on their loved ones?

  ‘Take the drip down and wrap her in ice packs, nurse,’ the doctor demanded.

  Dylan didn’t have time to thi
nk, as a sponge and a bowl of cold water was thrust in his hand to mop Jen’s brow. He could hear Buttons’ heart racing on the monitor.

  ‘It’s just hit 190 beats per minute,’ Dylan said in amazement.

  ‘I want a caesarean section, please,’ Jen begged. ‘I just want the baby out, now,’ she screamed.

  ‘The baby is safe enough and it is so much better for you if you can avoid having a major operation. Look …’ the doctor took Jen’s hand in his and sat beside her on the bed as a contraction subsided. ‘Trust me, please. We’ll try to proceed as we planned and I’ll give you an epidural.’

  Dylan stood next to Jen, mopping her brow when she allowed him. She tossed and turned her head on the pillow, rubbing her cheeks that now looked red and sore. The nurse gave her the gas and air apparatus for pain relief, but she was too weak to hold it. The doctor could see she felt everything as he internally examined her. By the early hours of the morning Jen was ten centimetres dilated and started to push.

  The doctor tried desperately to get the ventouse on the baby’s head because it was lying slightly askew, but it proved impossible.

  ‘Prepare her for theatre, nurse,’ said the doctor, to Dylan’s disbelief. Dylan’s heart was in his mouth and he prayed. He prayed so hard. He thanked God for what he had and begged him not to take it away from him. He even promised to be nice to Avril from now on.

  ‘Jack, don’t worry,’ Jen told him in her drug-induced state.

  ‘I’m not … I just want to see Buttons now.’

  Dylan kissed her forehead and held her as best he could in his arms.

  The spinal injection seemed to take ages to take effect from the mid-chest down. Then there was a cry and Buttons was out in the big wide world. Boy, did the baby howl.

  ‘You’ve got a beautiful little girl,’ the nurse said as she handed Buttons to Dylan. Jens eye’s filled with tears as she saw her two favourite people in the world together for the first time.

  ‘This is what matters, darling. Nothing else,’ Dylan said, his voice full of emotion.

  Jen started laughing through her tears. ‘Until the next murder,’ she said.

  ‘And Jack, make sure you send Avril an update and flowers from me. No… from us all.’

  Jack nodded. ‘Hello, little Maisy,’ he said to his daughter.

  Acknowledgements

  Our special thanks to our publisher, Rebecca Lloyd; and everyone at The Dome Press for their hard work and commitment to making this DI Jack Dylan novel the best it can possibly be. To our literary agent David H. Headley at DHH Literary Agency, who ‘found us’, continues to support us, believes in us as writers, and is as passionate about our storytelling as we are about writing him stories he can pitch to publishers, to find an editor who likes the book enough to buy it! To, David’s PA Emily Glenister – always on the end of the phone with a cheery voice, and the boss’s ear. And, last but not least, to talented designer Jem Butcher for making our book look so good!

  Thanks also to Emily and Maisy Murphy and to Kate Young and Matthew for your kind contributions to Jen’s pregnancy storyline and the subsequent birth storyline of Maisy Dylan – writing is a lot less painful than giving birth!

  Thank you to our family and friends, our children and grandchildren who make us prouder by the day, for their support – bless you all. We couldn’t have done it without you.

  Published by The Dome Press, 2018

  Copyright © R.C. Bridgestock

  The moral right of R.C. Bridgestock to be recognised as the author

  of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organisations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 9781912534142

  The Dome Press

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  London WC2N 4EZ

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