by Michael Wood
Recently, Adele had found herself becoming more emotional regarding the people who came to her mortuary. Lucy Dauman was relatively new to the profession, and she was slowly becoming hardened to the realities, seeing the dead as puzzles to be solved. Adele had taught her well, yet it seemed she herself was heading in the opposite direction. Maybe it was time to rethink her career.
She had always coveted such a prestigious position but now, something had changed. And she knew exactly what. Last November, she’d performed an autopsy on a thirty-seven-year-old woman, Francesca Mary Rhodes, who had died after falling down the stairs during a confrontation with a burglar. Adele had performed the initial post-mortem and had answered the many questions Francesca’s husband, Roger, had about his wife’s death. Roger had told Adele all about his wife, the amazing adventures she’d packed into her thirty-seven years, and Adele found herself admiring the woman.
When the burglar was arrested and the case went to court, his defence requested a second post-mortem. Simon Browes was due to perform it, but his car broke down on the M1. Everything was set up, so Adele stepped in at the last minute. When she looked down at the dead expression of Francesca Rhodes, everything she had learned about her came to the surface. It was like cutting open a relative. Adele performed her task with the utmost professionalism, but she was scarred in the aftermath. Every autopsy afterwards was tainted. Whenever she looked at a person on the slab, she invented a fiction for them: married or unmarried, children or none, job, hobbies, favourite films, music, books, food. That initial incision was like sinking the blade into the chest of a close friend.
Adele was sat behind the wheel of her car on the Parkway, too close to the crime scene for her liking. She looked out of the windscreen at the sea of bodies on the ground and cried. Her eyes blurred with tears, but she was still able to see Lucy working alongside Sebastian Flowers with professional ease.
Adele had worked on huge crime scenes with a high body count on many occasions – perhaps too many. She always thought she was in control, though. Her friendship with Matilda had helped a great deal. Whenever one of them had a particularly troubling or harrowing day, they had the other to support them. With Matilda as her rock, the prospect of falling apart, of cracking up, never came into her mind. Now, her meltdown came at a time when she was needed the most, and she had no option to give in to it. Her body was telling her she’d endured too much in the past few years.
The thought of losing her best friend, her confidant, added to the deaths of Valerie, who’d been struggling with the health of her husband of thirty years, and Ranjeet, whose first child wasn’t even a year old yet, all contributed to her very public collapse.
As much as Adele wanted to retreat to the safety of her home, plunge under the duvet and sleep for ever, she was needed elsewhere. Matilda needed her. Not caring whether she was in a fit state to drive or not, she put the car into reverse and performed a handbrake turn at speed before charging up the Parkway away from the crime scene.
Adele parked in a side street around the corner from the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, as there were no spaces available in the car park. As she walked towards the entrance, she looked up and saw a pub, aptly named The Doctor’s Orders. She felt like a small drink of something strong would steady her nerves, stop her hands from shaking and silence the miasma of voices shouting in her head.
She pulled open the door and entered the dimly lit building. It was relatively busy for early afternoon. She found a space at the bar and slumped against it.
‘Whisky. Make it a double,’ she said to the student barman as she rifled through her handbag for her wallet.
‘What kind? We’ve got Jack Daniels, Glen Ness, Jameson…’
‘I really don’t care,’ she said, giving him a dead-eyed look.
‘Ok.’
Adele watched him slowly prepare her drink. He placed the glass on a red paper napkin in front of her. She couldn’t snatch it up fast enough. She slugged it back in one gulp. It burnt her throat and she hated the taste, but it was like a shot of adrenaline to the heart; it was exactly what she needed.
‘Same again,’ she said as she slapped the empty glass down on the counter.
Once at the hospital, Adele felt lightheaded. On an empty stomach, two double whiskies will do that to anyone. Before going to see Matilda’s parents, she went into the toilets to splash some water on her face and compose herself. When she looked up at her reflection in the mirror, she was shocked to see who was staring back at her. She didn’t recognise this wreck of an old woman with lank, lifeless hair, dry, wrinkled skin, and the pain and suffering of a countless number of dead people in her eyes. The tears came, and they refused to stop. She crumbled and was found ten minutes later by Penny Doyle.
‘Adele! Oh my God! What’s happened?’ Matilda’s mother ran over to her, squatted and grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her into a tight embrace. ‘Has there been any news? Have you heard anything? She’s not… Please don’t tell me she’s…’ Penny couldn’t finish her barrage of questions before she, too, was overcome with tears. Together, they sat in a heap on the cold, dirty floor of the ladies’ toilets, sobbing in each other’s arms.
‘I just … I don’t know,’ Adele eventually said as she pulled herself out of Penny’s hold. As comforting as it was, her overpowering perfume could only be endured for so long. She looked up into Penny’s eyes, saw the anguish and hurt she was feeling, and decided the mother of someone undergoing emergency brain surgery to remove a bullet was not the person to open up to about her own pain. ‘I just needed a few minutes,’ she said.
Adele pulled herself up and went back to the sink to wash away the tears. She made every effort not to look at her reflection in the stained mirror.
‘I find crying helps,’ Penny said. ‘I do it more than I like to admit.’
‘Really?’ Adele asked, turning around.
‘People think I’m this cold, hard woman. Frank does. And I know Matilda does, too, but I’m really not.’ She tried to smile through the pain. ‘I worry every single day about Matilda – more so since James died. I try to bury my head in the sand, act like I don’t know what’s going on. If I don’t ask how her day’s been, then I’ve nothing to worry about. But all I’m doing is driving a wedge between myself and my daughter.’
‘You’re not,’ Adele tried to reassure her.
‘I am.’ Penny looked at herself in the mirror. She shook her head. ‘On the odd occasion Matilda does come for a visit, things are very strained between us. The conversation is stilted. I see her and Frank having a laugh and a joke – we don’t have that kind of relationship. I’m the uncaring, unfeeling, emotionless mother.’
‘But you do care.’
‘Of course I do.’
‘You should have told her.’
‘I know. Now it looks like I’ve left it too late,’ she said. Her bottom lip began to wobble, and the tears rained down her face, leaving tracks in the recently touched-up make-up.
‘It’s not,’ Adele said, unconvincingly.
‘You can’t say that. I doubt many people survive a bullet to the head.’
‘Matilda’s a fighter.’
‘If James was still alive, I’d agree with you. Since he died, though … she’s lost her will to survive.’
‘I don’t agree with you.’ Adele wiped her nose. ‘She loves her job. She loves her colleagues. She’s in an exciting new relationship. She has a great deal to live for.’
‘She also has a great deal to die for, too.’
Adele gave a half-laugh. ‘Matilda doesn’t believe in an afterlife. She knows she isn’t going to be reunited with James again.’
‘Neither did my mother. She was widowed for fifteen years. When she was diagnosed with lung cancer, she didn’t want any treatment. She’d had enough. I’ll never forget her final day. I sat by her bed, held her hand, and we talked. In her last few minutes she spoke of George, my dad. She said she could see him. I’d never seen her look so content. She di
ed with a smile on her lips, thinking she was going to be with George again. Maybe that’s what happens when we die. Maybe Matilda’s on that operating table, right now, waiting for James to come for her.’
Adele swallowed her emotion. It was difficult for her to accept the notion of an afterlife, but nobody knows what happens in our final moments. As a woman of science, Adele always believed that when we died, that was it, game over. Was there something more? Penny’s mother certainly thought so. She just hoped Matilda didn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Homicide and Major Enquiry Team suite was a hive of activity, and Christian felt the change in atmosphere the moment he stepped through the glass doors.
Civilian and uniformed staff were busy answering phones and logging any information into the HOLMES2 system, as well as putting the more urgent information on the board at the top of the room. Calls seemed to be coming in all the time; whether they were genuine sightings, paranoid members of the public believing what they saw or suspicious or cruel hoax calls remained to be seen. Either way, every single call needed to be followed up.
‘Wendy Turton has given us a good description of the man who mugged her,’ Scott said, jumping up from his desk as soon as he saw Christian.
‘Why are we dealing with a mugging?’
‘She works in the building opposite. Her key card was used by the gunman to gain access. You asked me to follow up, sir.’
‘Of course. Sorry, Scott, my memory froze for a moment there.’ He headed for his office, indicating for Scott to follow. ‘Go on.’
‘She was working late, putting in some overtime, so when she left it was pitch-dark, and there weren’t many people around. She was going to her car when this bloke came from nowhere. He jumped her from behind, threw her to the ground, snatched her bag and ran. Now, here’s the interesting bit; he runs away, but stops. Looking back after what’s happened this morning, Wendy thinks he realised she was wearing her lanyard around her neck and it wasn’t in her bag as he must have originally thought. He came back towards her, grabbed hold of the ID and yanked it from her.’
‘And she saw his face when he came back?’
‘She did,’ Scott replied with a smile.
‘Excellent.’
‘She’s given me a description and I’ve asked if she’ll come in to speak to someone about putting together a composite. I thought she’d have refused – she was feeling very sorry for herself – but when I told her about how many officers we’d lost, she said she’d come straight in. She’s downstairs now.’
‘Brilliant work, Scott. We need to run it by Sian’s homeless friend.’ Christian leaned on his desk for support. He looked overworked and stressed. He’d already loosened his tie and rolled the sleeves up on his shirt. He was always well turned out and professional in his appearance.
‘Since the press conference, the phones have been ringing like crazy, but not with anything useful,’ Scott said.
‘Any sightings of our gunman?’
‘Nothing concrete. There’s a team going door to door either side of the Parkway but CCTV from there only shows the traffic on the roads and not on the bridge. Some of those who were injured in the shooting have been questioned and have dashboard cameras in their cars. We’re getting the footage from those. But, like you say, until we know the name of this bloke, it’s going to be useless.’
‘I’ll have a word with the Chief Constable,’ Christian said after releasing a heavy sigh. ‘We need the public to see images of this man. Somebody has got to know who he is.’
‘Not necessarily if he’s a loner.’
‘He’ll still have family. Parents. And neighbours. Somebody will recognise him.’ Christian sounded determined, even though his face belied his words. ‘Any news from the hospital?’
‘No. I’m guessing she’ll be in theatre for a long time yet.’
Christian looked out into the main suite. Sian was at her desk. She was talking on her mobile, head down, wiping her nose with a saturated tissue. Rory was stood by the window, looking down into the car park below, which was still a closed crime scene. Aaron was next to him. Neither of them were talking. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.
‘I phoned to check on Kesinka,’ Scott said to break the silence. ‘Her mother answered. She seems nice. She told me that she’d put Kesinka to bed and was taking care of the baby for a while. I said I’d call back, keep in touch, that kind of thing. I was thinking, should we organise some kind of whip-round or something?’
‘That’s a good idea, Scott,’ Christian said with a hint of a smile. ‘Maybe something to talk about on another day.’
‘Yes, of course. A lot to do today.’
‘Yes.’
Christian’s phone rang. He quickly snatched it up. ‘DI Brady.’ He listened for a while. His eyes widened. He closed them and slumped down in his seat. ‘Right. Thanks for letting me know.’ He hung up.
‘More bad news?’ Scott asked.
Christian’s eyes had filled with tears. It took him a moment to speak. ‘That was Janice, the Chief Constable’s secretary. Valerie’s husband, Arthur, died this morning. He had another stroke in his sleep.’
‘Bloody hell. That poor family.’
‘I know.’
‘I wonder if he knew.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Some people, when they’ve been together for so long, they have a connection, don’t they? Maybe on some unconscious level, Arthur knew what had happened to his wife and just let himself go.’
‘Whatever helps you sleep at night, Scott,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘Right, plan of action. We don’t know who the gunman is yet, but we need to be seen to be on top of this. That means a presence on the streets. I’m seeing far too many officers around the station standing around, doing nothing. I want as many cars out there as possible.’
‘The thing is the phones are ringing all the time. Schools and colleges are asking if they should send their students home. We’ve had someone high up at Meadowhall asking what’s going on and Bramall Lane have called three times asking about their charity event tonight. We can’t answer all these calls and be out there at the same time.’
‘Our number one priority is to catch this gunman before he has a chance to strike again. We can’t do that by answering sodding phones,’ Christian said, getting riled.
‘But we don’t know where’s he’s going to strike again.’
‘We can’t just sit back and wait for him to kill more people. Why is it taking so fucking long to find out who he is?’ Christian exclaimed, kicking the underside of his desk. He stood up and went over to the window.
The view looked out onto the sprawl of Sheffield and out towards the countryside. Before the expanse of green, there was a palette of different shades of grey from the concrete buildings that made up Sheffield’s city centre. Shops, offices, hotels, new and old, some of them abandoned, awaiting demolition or just decaying. In a city of over half a million people, one man was out there with a gun. He had all the power to change every one of those lives for ever. And right now, he was winning.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Matilda had been in surgery for more than two hours. She had a large, comminuted skull fracture with depressed fragments and the small pieces of broken bone needed to be painstakingly removed. Where possible, they would be stuck back together with plates and screws and put back in place in the final stage of the operation, like the last piece of a jigsaw once the swelling had been reduced. That part of the procedure was still a long way off though, and surgeons were working hard to drain blood and monitor the swelling.
At the beginning of the operation, a catheter was inserted. The nurse, a young operating department practitioner, struggled with the amount of blood. She should have called for help but assumed this amount of blood loss was natural from a patient brought in with gunshot wounds. It was only when a senior scrub nurse noticed how long it was taking her to insert the catheter that she intervened. Despite the trauma the
body was facing due to being shot, there was no reason why Matilda should be bleeding from her vagina.
Adele was at a vending machine next to the theatres. Frank and Penny had begun arguing once again, this time about Matilda’s sister, Harriet, who had recently separated from her husband and moved out of the four-bedroom house with sea views and massive back garden to a temporary flat above a betting shop. Penny, ever the snob, was urging Frank to step in and talk her daughter into returning to the family home, even if the only reason was to keep up appearances. Frank, however, was siding with his daughter. Her husband had been concealing an affair for two years and even managed to keep an eighteen-month-old daughter hidden from his wife. When the affair was exposed, Harriet left, and Frank admired her for giving up so much.
Adele glared at what the vending machine was offering. She wasn’t hungry. She felt sick. The garish chocolate wrappers, the sad-looking sandwiches sealed in plastic didn’t appeal. Her mind was blank. She jumped when a hand was placed on her shoulder.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’
Adele turned. She recognised the middle-aged woman in a blue nurse’s uniform but couldn’t remember her name.
‘That’s ok. I was miles away, sorry.’
‘I wouldn’t recommend any of the sandwiches. I think they’ve been in there since before the millennium.’ She offered a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
‘Thanks for the warning,’ Adele said, stepping away. ‘Is there any news?’
The nurse took Adele by the elbow and led her to a row of empty seats opposite. She sat her down and took the seat next to her.
