by Val McDermid
She gave the flouncing sigh of a woman much put upon and lifted the water glass, prodding the straw towards his dry lips so he could drink without having to sit up. He sucked at the water, taking it in small sips, enjoying the sensation as his mouth recovered moistness. Suck, savour, swallow. He repeated the process till he’d drunk half the glass, then let his head fall back on the pillow. ‘You don’t have to be here,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’
She snorted. ‘You don’t think I’m here from choice, do you? Bradfield Cross is one of my client accounts.’
That she could still let him down so brutally was no surprise but it didn’t stop it hurting. ‘Keeping up appearances, eh?’ he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
‘When my income and my reputation are at stake? You bet.’ She gave him a sour look, the eyes that were so like his narrowing in appraisal. ‘Don’t pretend you disapprove, Tony. When it comes to keeping up appearances, you could represent England at the Olympics. I bet none of your colleagues has a clue what goes on in your grubby little mind.’
‘I had a good teacher.’ He looked away, pretending to watch the morning magazine show on the TV.
‘All right then, we don’t have to talk. I’ve got work to do and I’m sure we can get someone to bring you some reading material. I’ll stick around for a day or two, just till they get you on your feet. Then I’ll be out of your way.’ He heard her shift in her chair and the tap of fingers on keys.
‘How did you find out?’ he said.
‘Apparently I’m on your personnel records as your next of kin. Either you haven’t updated them for twenty years or you’re still the Billy No Mates you always were. And some clever clogs senior nurse recognized me when I walked in. So I’m stuck here for as long as propriety demands.’
‘I had no idea you had any connection to Bradfield.’
‘Thought you were safe here, did you? Unlike you, Tony, I’m a success story. I have connections all over the country. Business is booming.’ When she boasted, her face softened.
‘You really don’t have to be here,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell them I sent you away.’ He spoke quickly, his words tumbling over themselves in an attempt to minimize the effort of speech.
‘And why exactly should I trust you to tell the truth about me? No thanks. I’ll do my duty.’
Tony stared at the wall. Was there a more depressing sentence in the English language?
Elinor Blessing swirled the whipped cream into her mug of mocha with the wooden stirrer. Starbucks was a two-minute walk from the back entrance of Bradfield Cross, and she reckoned there was a groove in the pavement worn by the feet of junior doctors fixing themselves with caffeine to keep sleep at bay. But this morning she wasn’t trying to stay awake, she was trying to stay out of the way.
A vertical line furrowed between her brows and her grey eyes stared into the middle distance. Thoughts tumbled over each other as she tried to figure out what she should do. She’d been Thomas Denby’s SHO for long enough to have formed a pretty clear opinion of him. He was probably the best diagnostician she’d ever worked with, and he backed it up with solid clinical care. Unlike a lot of consultants she’d seen, he didn’t seem to need to massage his ego by trampling junior doctors and students into the dirt. He encouraged them to take an active role in his ward rounds. When his students answered what was asked of them, he appeared gratified when they got it right and disappointed when they got it wrong. That disappointment was far more of an incentive to learn than the sarcasm and humiliation dealt out by many of his colleagues.
However, like a good barrister, Denby was generally asking questions whose answers he knew already. Would he be quite so generous if one of his underlings had the answer to a problem he had failed to solve? Would he thank the person who interrupted the smooth flow of his ward rounds with a suggestion he hadn’t already considered? Especially if it turned out that they were right?
You could argue that he should be pleased, no matter who came up with the theory. Diagnosis was the first step on the journey of helping the patient. Except when it was a diagnosis of despair. Incurable, intractable, untreatable. Nobody wanted that sort of diagnosis.
Especially when your patient was Robbie Bishop.
There was, Carol thought, something dispiriting about knowing your way round a hospital so well. One way or another, her job had taken her to all the major departments of Bradfield Cross. The one advantage was that she knew which of the congested car parks to aim for.
The woman on duty at the nurses’ station on the men’s surgical ward recognized her. Their paths had crossed several times during the surgery and recovery of a rapist whose victim had miraculously managed to turn his knife against him. They’d both taken a certain amount of pleasure in his pain. ‘It’s Inspector Jordan, isn’t it?’ she said.
Carol didn’t bother correcting her. ‘That’s right. I’m looking for a patient called Hill. Tony Hill?’
The nurse looked surprised. ‘You’re a bit high on the totem pole to be taking statements.’
Carol debated momentarily how to describe her relationship with Tony. ‘Colleague’ was insufficient, ‘landlord’ somehow misleading and ‘friend’ both more and less than the truth. She shrugged. ‘He feeds my cat.’
The nurse giggled. ‘We all need one of those.’ She pointed down the hallway to her right. ‘Past the four-bed wards, there’s a door on the left right at the end. That’s him.’
Anxiety worrying at her like a rat with a bone, Carol followed the directions. Outside the door, she paused. How was it going to be? What was she going to find? She had little experience of dealing with other people’s physical incapacity. She knew from her own experience that when she was hurt the last people she wanted around her were the ones she cared about. Their obvious distress made her feel guilty and she didn’t enjoy having her own vulnerability on display. She would have put money on Tony sharing similar feelings. She cast her mind back to a previous occasion when she’d visited him in hospital. They hadn’t known each other well then, but she remembered it hadn’t exactly been a comfortable encounter. Well, if it turned out that he wanted to be left alone, she wouldn’t stick around. Just show her face so he’d know she was concerned, then bow out graciously, making sure he knew she’d be back if he wanted her.
Deep breath, then a knock. Then the familiar voice, blurred around the edges. ‘Come in if you’ve got drugs Carol grinned. Not that bad, then. She pushed the door open and walked in.
She was immediately aware that there was someone else in the room, but at first she only had eyes for Tony. Three days’ stubble emphasized the grey tinge to his skin. He looked as if he’d lost weight he could ill afford. But his eyes were bright and his smile seemed like the real thing. A contraption of pulleys and wires held his knee braced in its splint at an angle that looked scarcely comfortable. ‘Carol,’ he began before he was interrupted.
‘You must be the girlfriend,’ the woman sitting in the corner of the room said, the accent faint but recognizably local. ‘What kept you?’ Carol looked at her in surprise. She looked to be a well-preserved early sixties, doing a good job of keeping the years at bay. The hair was skilfully dyed golden brown, the make-up impeccable but understated. Her blue eyes held an air of calculation, and the lines that were visible did not speak of a kind and generous nature. On the thin side of slender, she was dressed in a business suit whose cut raised it above the average. Certainly well above what Carol could afford to pay for a suit.
‘Sorry?’ Carol said. She wasn’t often caught on the back foot, but even villains were seldom quite so blunt.
‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Tony said, irritation apparent. ‘She’s Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan.’
The woman’s eyebrows rose. ‘You could have fooled me.’ A thin smile, entirely lacking in humour. ‘I mean about the girlfriend part, not about you being a copper. After all, unless you’re here to arrest him, what’s a senior police officer doing sniffing around this usele
ss article?’
‘Mother.’ It was a snarl through clenched teeth. Tony made a face at Carol, a mix of exasperation and plea. ‘Carol, this is my mother. Carol Jordan, Vanessa Hill.’
Neither woman made a move to shake hands. Carol fought back her surprise. It was true that they’d never spoken much about their families, but she had formed the distinct impression that Tony’s mother was dead. Pleased to meet you,’ Carol said. She turned back to Tony. ‘How are you?’
‘Cram-jammed with drugs. But at least today I can stay awake for more than five minutes at a time.’
‘And the leg? What are they saying about that?’ As she spoke, she realized Vanessa Hill was packing her laptop away in a bright neoprene case.
‘Apparently it was a clean, single break. They’ve done their best to stick it together…’ His voice tailed off. ‘Mother, are you going?’ he asked as Vanessa rounded the end of the bed, coat over her arm, laptop slung over her shoulder alongside her handbag.
‘Bloody right, I’m going. You’ve got your girlfriend to look after you now. I’m off the hook.’ She made for the door.
‘She is not my girlfriend,’ Tony shouted. ‘She’s my tenant, my colleague, my friend. And she’s a woman, not a girl.’
‘Whatever,’ Vanessa said. ‘I’m not abandoning you now. I’m leaving you in good hands. A difference that will be apparent to the nursing staff.’ She sketched a wave as she left.
Carol stared open-mouthed at the disappearing woman. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said, turning back to Tony. ‘Is she always like that?’
He let his head fall back on the pillow, avoiding her eyes. ‘Probably not with other people,’ he said wearily. ‘She owns a very successful consultancy business in HR. Hard to believe, but she oversees personnel decisions and training in some of the country’s top companies. I think I bring out the worst in her.’
‘I’m beginning to understand why you’ve never talked about her.’ Carol pulled the chair out of the corner and sat down next to the bed.
‘I hardly ever see her. Not even Christmas and birthdays.’ He sighed. ‘I didn’t see much of her while I was growing up either.’
‘What about your dad? Was she that rude to him?’
‘Good question. I have no idea who my father was. She’s always refused to tell me anything about him. All I know is that they weren’t married. Can you pass me the remote control for the bed?’ He dredged up a proper smile. ‘You saved me from another day of my mother. The least I can do is sit up for you.’
‘I came as soon as I heard. I’m sorry, nobody called me.’ She passed him the remote and he fiddled with the buttons till he was half-upright, wincing as he settled. ‘Everybody assumed somebody else had told me. I wish you’d let me know.’
‘I knew how much you needed a weekend off,’ he said. ‘Besides, there’s only so many favours I can call in and I thought I’d rather save them for when I really needed them.’ Suddenly his mouth fell open and his eyes widened. ‘Oh shit,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you been home or did you go straight to the office?’
It seemed an odd question, but his manner was urgent. ‘Straight to the office. Why?’
He covered his face with his hands. ‘I am so sorry. I forgot all about Nelson.’
Carol burst out laughing. ‘A nutter smashes your leg with a fire axe, you spend the weekend in surgery and you’re worried about not feeding my cat? He’s got a cat flap, he can go and murder small animals if he gets desperate.’ She reached for his hand and patted it. ‘Never mind the cat. Tell me about your knee.’
‘It’s wired together but they can’t put a proper pot cast on it because of the wound. The surgeon says they have to make sure that’s healing properly, that it’s not infected. Then they can put a cast on it and maybe I can try to move around with a walking frame by the end of the week. If I’m a good boy,’ he added sarcastically.
‘So how long are you going to be in hospital?’
‘At least a week. It depends on how good I get at moving around. They won’t let me out till I can get about with the walking frame.’ He waggled his arm. And probably without the intravenous morphine too.’
Carol grimaced sympathetically. ‘That’ll teach you to play the hero.’
‘There was nothing heroic about it,’ Tony said. ‘The guys who were trying to drag their mate out of there, they were the heroes. I was just the diversion.’ His eyelids fluttered. ‘That’s the last time I work late.’
‘Do you need anything from home?’
‘Some T-shirts? That’s got to be more comfortable than these hospital gowns. And some pairs of boxers. It’ll be interesting to see if we can get them over the splint.’
‘What about something to read?’
‘Good thinking. There’s a couple of books I’m supposed to be reviewing on my bedside table. You can tell which ones they are because they’ve got Post-It notes on the covers. Oh, and my laptop, please.’
Carol shook her head in amusement. ‘You don’t think this might be a good opportunity to chill? Maybe read something frivolous?’
He looked at her as if she was talking Icelandic. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t think anybody’s expecting you to be working, Tony. And I think you might find it’s not as easy to concentrate as you imagine.’
He frowned. ‘You think I don’t know how to relax.’ He was only half-joking.
‘I don’t think that. I know it. And I understand, because I have similar tendencies.’
‘I can relax. I watch football. I play computer games.’
Carol laughed. ‘I’ve seen you watch football. I’ve seen you play computer games and there is no sense of the word “relaxing” that applies to either activity where you are concerned.’
‘I’m not even going to dignify that with a response. But if you are bringing the laptop, you might as well bring me Lara…’ He gave her the full twinkle.
‘You sad bastard. Where will I find her?’
‘In my study. On the shelf that your left hand would reach if you stretched out from the chair.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘And now it’s time for you to go. I need to sleep and you’ve got a Major Incident Team to run.’
Carol stood up. ‘A Major Incident Team with no major incidents to run. Not that I’m complaining,’ she added hastily. ‘I don’t have a problem with a quiet day at the office.’ She patted his hand again. ‘I’ll pop back this evening. If there’s anything else you need, call me.’
She walked down the corridor, already pulling out her mobile phone so she could turn it back on as soon as she left the hospital building. As she passed the nurses’ station, the woman she’d spoken to earlier gave her a wink. ‘So much for feeding the cat.’
‘What do you mean?’ Carol asked, slowing.
‘According to his mum, he does a bit more than that for you.’ Her smile was arch, her eyes knowing.
‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Does your mother know everything about you?’
The nurse shrugged. ‘Point taken.’
Carol juggled bag and phone and pulled out a card. ‘I’ll be back later. That’s my card. If there’s anything he needs, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘No problem. Good cat feeders are hard to find, after all.’
Yousef Aziz glanced at the dashboard clock. He was doing well. Nobody expected him to make it back from a nine o’clock meeting in Blackburn much before lunchtime. Everybody knew what Monday morning trans-Pennine traffic was like. But what they didn’t know was that he’d rearranged the meeting for eight. Sure, he’d had to leave Bradfield a bit earlier, but not the whole hour, because he would avoid the worst of the rush hour this way. To cover himself, all he’d had to say to his mother was that he wanted to be sure he wouldn’t be late for this important new client. He knew he should have felt uncomfortable when she’d used his supposed punctuality as a stick to beat his little brother with. But it was water off a duck’s back with Raj. Their mother had spoiled him, the youngest son, and now she
was reaping what she’d sown.
The main thing was that Yousef had created a little window of opportunity for himself. It was something he’d grown accustomed to doing over the previous few months. He had become adept at squeezing unmissed hours from the working day without raising suspicion. Ever since…He shook his head as if to dislodge the thought. Too distracting. He had to try to compartmentalize the warring elements of his life, otherwise he would be bound to give something away.
Yousef had kept the Blackburn meeting as tight as he could without appearing rude to the new client, and now he had an hour and a half for himself. He followed the instructions of his satellite navigation system. Down the motorway and into the heart of Cheetham Hill. He knew North Manchester pretty well, but this particular section of the red-brick warren was unfamiliar. He turned into a narrow street where a battered terrace of weary houses faced on to a small industrial estate. Halfway down, he spotted the signage for his destination. PRO-TECH SUPPLIES, in scarlet against a white background inside a border of black exclamation marks.
He parked the van outside and turned off the engine. He leaned on the steering wheel, breathing deeply, feeling his stomach wind itself into knots. He’d hardly eaten anything that morning, using his urgency to get to his meeting to defuse his mother’s oppressive concern with his recent loss of appetite. Of course he’d lost his appetite, just as he’d lost the ability to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. What else could he expect? This was how it was when you embarked on something like this. But it was important not to arouse suspicion, so he tried to be away from the family table at mealtimes as much as he could.
Given how little he was eating and sleeping, he couldn’t quite believe how energized he felt. A bit light-headed sometimes, but he thought that was more to do with imagining the effect of their plan than the lack of food and rest. Now, he pushed back from the steering wheel and climbed out of the van. He walked through the door marked RETAIL SALES. It led into a room ten feet square partitioned off from the warehouse behind. Behind a zinc-topped counter that bisected the room, a skinny man hunched over a computer. Everything about him was grey-his hair, his skin, his overalls. He looked up from his computer screen as Yousef entered. His eyes were grey too.
