The Kate Fletcher Series

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘I’ve brought you a drink.’

  She placed the glass on the bedside table and switched on the lamp.

  ‘But, before you drink it, I want to talk to you about Jeanette.’

  Dennis struggled to sit up, his eyes wide and unfocussed. Caroline thought he must have been deeply asleep before she had disturbed him. Oh well. Plenty of time for sleep later.

  ‘Do you remember Jeanette?’ she asked. ‘My sister? I really loved her. She taught me swear words. She told me about boys and sex. Not that I believed her at the time. She was incredible. She was bright and funny and talented. I’ve missed her all my life. Do you miss her, Dennis?’

  His rubbery lips moved as he tried to form words but nothing came out.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you do. I used to talk to her you know, after she’d gone. Nearly every night when I went to bed. I used to tell her things that had happened at school. Funny stuff, mostly, but sometimes the difficult things. The bullying and the tormenting. I even talked to her when Mum died and I was old enough to know better. Funny, really.’

  Dennis was shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite make sense of what she was saying. Finally he appeared to get his thoughts together enough to speak. ‘You were always my favourite, Caroline. And your mum’s. Jeanette was a bit wayward. I’m glad you weren’t like her.’

  ‘Wayward!’ Caroline spat. ‘She was a teenager. She was normal.’

  He flinched away from her outburst, his eyes glued to her face as though anticipating a slap.

  ‘Anyway, that’s ancient history,’ Caroline said, holding up the glass. ‘I’ve brought you something special. A cocktail. I think you’ll like it.’

  She held it out to him and he sniffed it suspiciously.

  ‘Not thirsty,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Tough shit. You’re going to drink it.’

  Caroline sat on the edge of the bed and held the back of his head. Wrapping her fingers through what little hair he had left, she tilted his face upwards and put the glass to his lips.

  ‘Drink it!’

  He clamped his lips shut and shook his head like a toddler refusing to eat his greens. Caroline responded by letting go of his hair and pinching his nostrils closed. He tried to pull away from her but she was much stronger.

  Finally he opened his mouth to breathe and Caroline poured a small amount of her concoction towards the back of his throat. He sputtered and coughed but most of it seemed to go down. Twice more she forced him to open his mouth while she pressed the glass against his toothless gums and poured.

  After the third attempt, his jaw went slack and she was able to give him more. He swallowed without complaint until the glass was empty.

  ‘Satisfied?’ he rasped, his eyes already glazing over.

  Was she? She didn’t know how she felt. Not elated or jubilant as she’d expected. More relieved like she’d been carrying something heavy in a sack across her shoulders and she’d finally been allowed to put it down. She stood up without speaking to him, placed the glass carefully on the bedside table, and went back downstairs.

  Time to think. She needed to make it look like she’d been trying to do the decent thing; to stop Dennis’s suffering and to allow him to die without pain. Her fingerprints would be all over the bottles and the glass. Would it look like she’d made the drink and then made him drink it? Would the police be able to tell how she’d held it to his mouth from the position of her fingers? She had no way to know.

  She reached under the sink for a duster and wiped both bottles carefully before taking them upstairs. Dennis was breathing but each inhalation was deep and ragged. He looked like he was asleep but he could just as easily have been unconscious. Caroline checked her watch. She’d have to wait it out for a little while until it was time to meet Maddie.

  She used the duster to wipe the glass and then a thought struck her. If Dennis was supposed to have mixed the drink for himself how come his prints weren’t on the glass or the bottles? She picked up the Ardbeg, picked up Dennis’s right hand with the duster and tried to clamp his fingers around the bottle. Then she repeated the process for the empty glass and the Oramorph. Would that be convincing? But how did he get the bottles and glass into the bedroom? She’d intended to say that she’d brought them. But she’d wiped off her prints. If she picked up the glass, would her prints be on top of his? Would the police be able to tell? Her mind spun out of control as she tried to think her way through every possible scenario.

  In the end, she picked up each item again, leaving her fingerprints, and placed them neatly back on the bedside table. Then she retrieved the Diazepam from her bedroom – no need to hide them now – and put them next to the bottles.

  Dennis’s breathing had slowed further and was hitching in his chest. His right hand suddenly lifted up from the duvet and twitched in the air as though he was conducting an invisible orchestra then it settled again. Caroline sat down on the edge of the bed, removed the hand from the top of the duvet and tucked it underneath, shuddering involuntarily as she touched Dennis’s clammy skin. Pulling the covers up to his chin, she got up again and looked around the room. There was nothing else that she could do. It might take hours to find out if the cocktail had been lethal; hours that she didn’t have.

  A glance at her watch told her that she had less than an hour to get into Doncaster and meet Maddie.

  Leaving Dennis struggling for breath, Caroline went into her bedroom to get changed.

  Chapter 24

  Fabrio’s was a Doncaster institution. Caroline couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t occupied its corner spot near the marketplace. It was where teenagers celebrated sixteenth and eighteenth birthdays, sometimes with friends, sometimes enduring the mortification of a night out with their parents. Family-orientated with a quick turnover of tables, it wasn’t the place for a romantic liaison or a clandestine meeting but Maddie had obviously chosen it because she felt safer talking to Caroline somewhere public and crowded.

  The smell of garlic and herbs greeted Caroline like an old friend as she pushed open the door, and the warmth was almost overwhelming after the chill of the streets. She’d deliberately arrived late so that she wouldn’t have to sit on her own while she waited for Maddie to join her, and she quickly scanned the busy tables looking for the nurse amongst the crowd. Many of the tables were occupied by celebrating families. Balloons floated up from one, trailing curled paper and silver confetti. Another was strewn with wrapping paper; a teenage girl sat among the debris, surrounded by a fortress of boxed presents. The L plates and fancy dress of a hen party dominated the furthest corner; obscenities, in lowered voices out of respect for the clientele, punctuated with peals of loud laughter.

  Maddie was sitting in one of the booths opposite the door. Enclosed on three sides by the wall and high wooden partitions, they were the closest that Fabrio’s offered to privacy. She looked up from the menu as Caroline approached but didn’t smile. ‘Thought you might not come.’

  ‘I said I’d be here. I agree with you. I think we need to talk.’

  Maddie looked surprised. She’d obviously been expecting some resistance or reluctance so Caroline’s compliance seemed to puzzle her. ‘You do? I got exactly the opposite impression when we spoke earlier. In fact I’ve had the impression that you’ve been ignoring my calls.’

  Caroline slid onto the bench seat opposite Maddie and picked up a menu. ‘I was. I’ve been busy. I’m sure you understand the challenges of caring for somebody with terminal cancer.’

  Maddie scowled at her. ‘Of course. But I don’t use it as an excuse not to communicate when it’s important.’

  ‘It’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation,’ Caroline said. ‘I don’t need an excuse. Is the plan to eat here or just have a drink and a chat? I haven’t eaten all day and their pizzas are fantastic.’

  ‘Have what you want,’ Maddie said, shaking her head in bewilderment. ‘It makes no difference to me.’

  They both studied their menus. Caroline realised
that she had been telling the truth when she’d said she was hungry; suddenly everything on the menu looked appealing and she was torn between pizza and pasta. Her appetite hadn’t been very good since she’d been looking after Dennis and she was aware that she’d lost weight; she’d had to put another notch in her belt and some of her jumpers hung off her like sails from rigging on a calm day. She’d need to do some shopping as soon as she found time.

  A waitress appeared and asked if they wanted drinks. Caroline ordered a glass of red but Maddie’s order was interrupted by a scream from the hen party table. The waitress sighed and rolled her eyes, obviously having a difficult evening.

  ‘Thought things would be quiet after New Year,’ Caroline said.

  ‘You’d think,’ the waitress said, turning to her, the light sparking on the diamond stud in her nose. ‘It’s never quiet, though.’

  She took Caroline’s drink order, jotted down a half of lager for Maddie and was about to leave when Caroline said, ‘Hang on. I know what I want to eat. Can we order now?’

  Maddie looked surprised but Caroline didn’t feel like waiting. She ordered dough balls and a pizza, waited until Maddie had ordered, and then added mixed olives and a salad.

  ‘Looks like all this caring has made me hungry,’ she joked but Maddie’s expression didn’t change.

  They sat in silence until the waitress brought their drinks. Caroline scanned the room, aware that Maddie was studying her closely. Caroline was reluctant to engage in conversation until she had thought about what she intended to do about the nurse’s suggestion that they go to the police. Eventually Caroline grew irritated by the other woman’s staring. ‘What? Have I grown another head or something?’

  A smile flickered around Maddie’s lips but then faded. ‘No. I’m just trying to work out what sort of person you are. I don’t know if I can appeal to your better nature, if you have one, because everything that I’ve seen so far suggests that you’re a calculating, scheming bitch.’

  ‘Whoa,’ Caroline said, genuinely shocked. She hadn’t expected Maddie to be like this; she’d only seen her as submissive and resigned to her position. This was new.

  ‘What else am I supposed to think?’ the nurse continued. ‘You encouraged me to accept money from you and didn’t tell me it came with conditions. Then you got me to risk my career and I’m not sure why. I haven’t a clue what’s really going on but I want it to end. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.’

  Before Caroline could respond the starters arrived. ‘Food’s good here,’ Caroline commented, trying to shift the conversation until she could formulate a strategy. She knew that Maddie was right; she had seriously jeopardised her career, but that wasn’t Caroline’s problem. She didn’t want the nurse to go to the police, especially as she was planning to contact them herself if Dennis hadn’t survived the night, but Caroline wasn’t sure how to stop her. She could offer more money but she suspected that Maddie had too much integrity to accept.

  Starter plates cleared, the pizzas arrived and they looked just as good as Caroline remembered. Ignoring her side salad, she used her hands to tuck in, relishing the gooey cheese and rich tomato sauce. Part of her wondered how she could enjoy food so much after what she’d done but another part realised that her appetite was probably a reaction to the stress of the past few weeks. She’d done the hardest part and she was left feeling light, free.

  ‘How is he?’ Maddie asked around a slice of pizza. ‘Your dad. Is he coping? I’m guessing from the morphine that he’s in a lot of pain. He must have deteriorated fairly quickly after he was discharged.’

  Caroline spotted the weakness immediately. Maddie’s training had conditioned her to care, whatever the circumstances. No matter that she’d presented a hard exterior, her sympathy was her flaw. Caroline knew that she could wiggle her way into the crack, exploit it, set a charge and detonate it if necessary.

  ‘He’s not great,’ she said, trying not to smile at the enormity of the understatement. ‘He’s been in a lot of pain and he asks for the morphine quite regularly.’

  ‘You’re careful, though. You don’t give him more than the recommended dose?’

  Caroline thought about the morphine that she’d mixed with the whisky. ‘No. I’ve read the documentation in the box and even done some research online.’

  ‘And is he still aware of what’s going on?’

  Caroline took another bite of pizza, chewing slowly, considering her response. ‘Mostly,’ she said. ‘He has some periods when he’s not sure who I am but he’s usually fairly lucid. He mistook me for my mother once. Forgot that she died.’

  ‘And the sedatives? Does he need those?’

  ‘They help him to sleep. I only use them at night if he’s had an especially bad day,’ Caroline lied. ‘I don’t want him to be doped up all the time.’

  Maddie shook her head in confusion. ‘When you talk about your dad you seem so reasonable, but that time you persuaded me to give you the second prescription you were like a different person. That’s why I wanted to meet here. I don’t know which version of you is real.’

  They continued eating, Caroline pondering what Maddie had just said. She was right to be confused. Caroline was confused. This was supposed to have been so simple. When she had heard that Dennis was dying, she swooped back into his life, intent on making the process as painful as possible. But she’d blackmailed a nurse and tortured her father for weeks only to discover that the end had given her no satisfaction and now she couldn’t go back to her old life.

  If Dennis were dead when she got home then she’d phone an ambulance and hand herself into the police. She’d done her research, courts were usually lenient in ‘mercy killing’ cases, as long as nobody could prove definitively that her account was a lie, that she’d actively murdered her father rather than just giving him the means. She might even get away with a suspended sentence.

  Maddie could be an obstacle, though. If she insisted that they go to the police then questions would be asked about the amount of drugs Caroline had acquired and what she’d been using them for since Dennis had been released from hospital.

  ‘I suppose they’re both real,’ Caroline said, responding to Maddie’s question. ‘I’ve done my duty in caring for my father but I’ve not been very ethical in the way I’ve gone about it.’ She wiped her lips with a napkin. ‘And I’m not going to go to the police. Not yet. I have to bury him first, then I can face the consequences.’

  Maddie’s expression tightened as she took in the enormity of Caroline’s statement. ‘Bury him? He’s dead, then? I thought you said…’

  ‘I’m not sure. His breathing was getting slower and shallower when I left.’

  ‘You should have rung me, cancelled. I’d have understood.’

  Would you? Caroline thought. Would anybody really have understood?

  ‘Look,’ Maddie said, wiping her mouth and standing up. ‘I want to be angry but I know that now’s not the time. We’ll go to the police when this is over. I can accept whatever’s coming to me if you can.’

  Caroline nodded, trying to think her way out of the situation. If she went to the police and confessed to blackmail to save Maddie she’d almost definitely be jailed. Acquiring the drugs by coercion would indicate premeditation. Murder carried a much longer sentence than assisted suicide. Why should she confess? The nurse was nothing to her. She hadn’t been part of the plan at first; she was just collateral damage.

  ‘Let me give you a lift home,’ she offered, trying to buy herself more time. ‘We can talk about it in the car.’

  Maddie tried to protest but Caroline had already left fifty pounds on the table and was shrugging on her coat.

  ‘Come on. Five minutes. I think I’ve got a better plan which will keep both of us out of trouble.’

  Maddie had still been reluctant to get in the car despite the wind that was knifing through the streets. The pavements were already glazing with frost and the sky was blue-black and clear. Caroline managed to get Maddie to agre
e to a lift home after she’d slid twice on the icy cobbles of the marketplace. She gave Caroline her address and got into the passenger seat of the BMW, sitting as far away from Caroline as possible.

  They’d just set off to the west of the town when Maddie asked, ‘So what’s this great plan?’

  ‘Just wait,’ Caroline said, negotiating a tricky junction and turning onto the narrow lane that ran beside the canal. She checked her mirrors and then pulled into a parking place that allowed access to the bank side.

  ‘What’re we doing here?’ Maddie asked. Caroline wasn’t sure. She’d been driving on instinct; trying to make some sense of the situation but she couldn’t see a way out for herself that didn’t involve getting arrested and jailed.

  ‘Get out!’ Caroline spat. ‘Get out of my car! You can walk home. Go to the police if you want but it won’t do you any good. I’ll just deny everything.’

  ‘It’s pitch black,’ Maddie said. ‘You were going to take me home. I can’t walk from here, it’s not safe.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Caroline said. ‘I just want you out of my car and out of my life.’

  Barely thinking, Caroline released her own seatbelt, grabbed Maddie’s bag and leapt out of the door, slamming it behind her.

  ‘Hey!’ Maddie yelled. ‘What the hell, Caroline? What’re you doing?’ There was a satisfying tremble in her voice.

  ‘Come and get it, then,’ Caroline taunted, pushing through a gap in the hedges and setting off at a jog along the towpath. The moon was three quarters full and the path was almost floodlit by its brightness. She took a few more steps and then slowed as she saw the lights around the lock up ahead. She had no idea what she was doing. Somewhere in her mind she thought that if she could really frighten Maddie, threaten her, whatever, she might be able to convince her not to go to the police. Luring her to somewhere dark and remote would be a good start but she wasn’t sure what she could do to ensure Maddie’s silence. A crunch of gravel behind her. The other woman was following.