Still Life (Still Life Series Book 1)

by Isobel Hart

  Elliott frowned. “Look, I don’t know anything for a fact yet. That’s what we’re trying to find out. All I do know is that two of my patients came back from the dead that night and I’ve had one other since then. Patients that, honestly, I thought didn’t stand a chance. It made me ask questions, especially when they found that there was a virus in the fog that had assimilated itself into these same patients. So, I asked Malcolm to do me a favour and look at some of the samples of the cases that seemed unusual, and now he’s found active virus in two people who also had an atypical outcome. Is it statistically significant? Probably not, not yet – we need a bigger sample. But it is almost a trend.”

  “You think Edward should have died that night?”

  He lowered his head, his shoulders slumped, and then lifted his eyes to look at me. “I’m sorry, Sam, I shouldn’t have told you like that, but I won’t lie to you. I do. I was amazed he even survived the surgery. His liver was shredded in the accident. He was barely alive when he got to me. Then, when his heart crashed, he was flatlining for more than ten minutes. We’d done everything to bring him back but there was no response. And then his heart just started again on its own? Seriously? Apart from on the occasional TV medical drama, that just doesn’t happen.”

  “So the virus saved him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. We need to look at his sample, maybe use that blood from the elephant ornament you took from the flat, and of any others who seem to have survived against the odds. Then perhaps we’ll understand a bit more about all this.”

  I nodded, unable to speak as I tried to process what he’d told me. It didn’t seem quite so funny anymore.

  “Hey, let’s get out of here. I think we’ve done all we can for now. Malcolm, can you get on to the records department and pull any records that were coded for resus activity? Then can you look at death rates? The end-of-year datasets should be in any day, but we need to look at the statistics for incidence of death after the fog in the different populations, to see if there is any noticeable change. It would be worth looking at males and females for comparison.” He printed off copies of the two records we’d looked at, using an old printer that groaned into action in the corner of the room, spitting out the paper straight onto the floor.

  “Won’t the Public Health people pick this sort of information up?” I said, as he scooped the papers up from the pile at the bottom of the machine. “Why do you have to do it? Can’t we just tell someone?”

  “We will tell people. I think we just need to know a bit more first before we do. Public Health won’t have that sort of data yet, or be able to pick out the trends for another year at least – by that time we might already be too late.”

  “Too late for what? What are you worried about?”

  “I don’t know,” Elliott said, running his hand through his hair. “I can’t think that far ahead. I need to take this one step at a time right now. I just know we need to get answers to some questions first. And then, once we have them, we can decide what to do next.”

  I shuddered, feeling uneasy. Elliott powered down the PC, before we filed back towards the hospital entrance, the mood more sombre, each caught up in our own thoughts. From the reception area Malcolm headed off to the records department, while Elliott and I walked the short distance back to my car.

  “Samantha?” a voice called to me from across the car park. I stopped, frozen in my tracks, Elliott tensed beside me. Without asking, I knew we were both thinking the same thing; Edward had found me.

  Elliott glanced over his shoulder. “It’s not him,” he said under his breath.

  The voice called a second time and I turned. A guy approached us from the other side of the car park. I recognised him, but for the life of me couldn’t place him or recall his name. We stayed rooted where we were, waiting for him to reach us. He walked quickly, with purposeful strides, a big smile directed at me.

  “Oh, hi,” I said when he was still more than ten paces away, embarrassed to be unable to introduce him to Elliott. “I can’t remember his name,” I whispered out the corner of my mouth.

  “Hi,” said Elliott, when the guy got close enough. “Elliott Harvey, nice to meet you.”

  “Hi,” he replied, his eyes sliding from me towards Elliott. “Damian Fisher. I’m a friend of Edward’s. We met at the coffee shop a couple of weeks or so ago,” he reminded me, picking up on my lack of recall.

  “Of course.” I offered him a big smile, kicking in to professional mode. “It’s great to see you again. Were you visiting someone?”

  “Yeah, a couple of people I know in here. Where’s Edward?” he looked around as if he expected him to appear at any moment.

  I scanned the vicinity too in case he knew something I didn’t. My hand moved towards my throat unconsciously, drawing Damian’s attention to my neck. He couldn’t fail to notice the bruises there. I didn’t miss the faltering smile and the darkening of his expression. Neither did Elliott, who took hold of my arm.

  Damian scowled at his touch.

  “Well, it was nice to meet you, Damian. I hope to see you around sometime,” Elliott started to pull me away. “We need to go, Sam,” he said, almost dragging me along by the arm.

  “That was rude!” I hissed when Elliott and I were back in the car and the doors were closed. He locked them. The man, Damian, hadn’t moved, he was still standing on the kerb, watching us.

  Elliott started the car and pulled away slowly, pretending indifference, but his hands shook as he held the wheel. “You met him – Damian – at a coffee shop with Edward?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Who else was there?”

  “Umm . . . about six others and us. Richard was there too. Why?”

  “Because Damian Fisher was the name on the acute asthma patient record I just pulled.”

  Chapter 14

  “Can you remember the names of the other people who were at the coffee shop with you?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it, since I didn’t remember that guy’s.” I tried to think. “I could recognise faces, I reckon, but not names. I’m sorry.” I felt like a failure. “They were all men, if that helps?”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. Why? Do you think they had the active virus too?”

  “I don’t know. It could be. It possibly links them to the virus. If we knew their names, we could look at their medical records for any anomalies.”

  I nodded. It made sense.

  “Hey, when we met up before, you told me Edward was different after the accident. Can you tell me a bit more about how he was different?”

  I sighed. I didn’t want to talk about Edward. “I told you we’d been going to split up?”

  Elliott glanced over at me and nodded.

  “The Edward I knew was an arse. Handsome, but lazy, selfish and unfaithful in a nutshell. Then, after the accident, it was like he couldn’t do enough for me. It was weird. He was so thoughtful it was disconcerting. A complete one-eighty in personality.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “Yes, sometimes . . . more than sometimes. When he wasn’t trying to strangle me,” I added, unable to resist the sarcasm.

  Elliott ignored my feeble attempt at humour. “We need to speak to someone else who knew a person affected by the virus before it activated. We need to know if any of the others have noticed a difference.”

  “Well, Richard lives at home with his parents. I remember him telling me that. If you can get his address off the records you printed, we could talk to them. I don’t know anything about this Damian guy.”

  Elliott pulled over and retrieved the medical records from his inside pocket. He scanned through them until he found Richard’s home postcode, which he quickly entered into Google Maps. It turned out Richard only lived a couple of miles away.

  “We’re going now?” My voice sounded an octave higher than normal, despite my still tender throat.

  Elliott nodded, on a mission, making a quick U-turn across the traffic. As we drove th
e diminishing distance to our destination, I couldn’t escape the feeling that this probably wasn’t the greatest idea we’d ever had.

  We pulled up, all too quickly, on a road outside a large detached house. It was a quiet, affluent area, each house set back from the road and ringed by a privet hedge. Private and secure. I figured Neighbourhood Watch were active in the area when more than one upstairs curtain twitched in the adjacent houses during the time we sat in the car and observed the house. Two cars were parked on the gravel driveway, which seemed to indicate that at least someone was home.

  “Hey,” I said, as Elliott reached to open his door, “should you really be doing this?” This constituted a massive breach of patient confidentiality. If Richard’s parents complained about Elliott turning up on their doorstep, and they traced it back to him accessing and using the notes from the hospital, he could lose his job. It seemed too much of a risk for him to take.

  “What do you mean?” After I explained my thinking, he frowned at me. “I don’t care. This feels too important.”

  “Why, though? Important enough to risk your job?”

  “I can’t explain it. It feels like there’s something hidden in all of this. Something we need to find out.”

  “Well, Sherlock, I’m all for a bit of digging, but not at the cost of your job. Let me go in there and talk to them.”

  “No!”

  “Seriously, I can tell them I know Richard from the hospital, that he’s a friend of Edward’s and that I wanted to speak to him about the fight we had. It’s a reasonable reason to be there, and it won’t end up with you losing your job.”

  “What if they try to do something to you?”

  “What do you think they’re likely to do? Really? Beat me with a soft floral pillow? I mean, look at the area.” Flowery curtains with matching pelmets adorned every window visible from where we were sitting.

  “I don’t know. I don’t like it. What if he’s in there?”

  “Richard?”

  “Yes, what will you say?”

  “The same as I planned to say to his parents. Look, if it seems bad I’ll get out fast, but you’ve got to admit that it makes more sense than you turning up with a load of questions.”

  He huffed, then nodded with apparent reluctance. “Text me, let me know you’re okay. I’ll be right here. If you need me, I’ll be straight in there.”

  “You gonna knock the door down, Hulk?” I grinned at him.

  “If I have to.” He huffed again, but with a small smile this time. I smiled back. He was really quite adorable, but I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind as I opened the door and slipped out before he could protest any further.

  The gravel crunched under my feet as I threaded my way past the parked cars, heading towards an intimidatingly large red front door. I couldn’t find a bell, so I grasped the black metal knocker and rapped hard before my courage fled. As I waited, I glanced back towards Elliott. He watched me from within the shadows of the car, his outline dark. I tried to smile, but the moment was cut short when the door swung open.

  I turned to find myself face to face with a small woman who, judging from the steely tint in her hair and the lines on her face, looked to be in her sixties. Her hair was styled into a sharp bob, her slim frame dressed neatly in a skirt and blouse. She looked educated and affluent. “May I help you?” she asked, her eyes darting to the car in the road behind me, as if sensing another presence. I sensed her trying to remember details in case she needed them for a Crimewatch re-enactment.

  “Hi,” I said, employing my most professional and friendly smile. “My name’s Samantha Davis. My boyfriend, Edward Patterson, is friends with your son. I wondered if Richard was home. I wanted to talk to him about something.”

  “Oh . . . oh,” she stammered, clearly taken aback by my request. “Oh, I’m sorry, he’s out right now. You’ll have to come back later, but I’ll tell him you called.” She started to close the door. I knew I needed to act fast if I wanted to get in there.

  “Oh,” I said, wiping the corner of my eye. “I’d so hoped to catch him. Can I leave you my card for when he comes back?” I reached into my bag and pulled out one of my business cards from work. It had my mobile number on it. I handed it to her. “I just don’t know what to do.” I dabbed at the corner of my eye again with a tissue from my bag. “I’m at my wits’ end.”

  “Are you okay, dear?” she said solicitously, taking and pocketing my card, her natural concern when faced with someone in distress making her pause, the door widening again. Her kindness and empathy for others had won out over her caution of strangers. I felt bad for fooling her.

  “Not really.” At least that was the truth. “Edward and I had a massive row. I moved out. I don’t know what to do about it. I thought Richard might be able to advise me since they seem to be such good friends these days . . .” I let my voice trail off. The pause lengthened between us.

  “You can wait if you want,” she offered finally. “Would you like a cup of tea?” She looked over my shoulder at Elliott waiting in the car. “Does your friend want to come in too?” She sounded more uncertain again given the prospect of a second stranger coming into her home.

  “No, he’s fine. He’s a work colleague. He just offered to drive me over here because I was upset. He’s doing some work in the car while he waits for me; he’ll be fine where he is. Thank you so much, Mrs Rawson.” I smiled as I stepped quickly through the doorway. She closed the door behind me.

  I followed her inside into a wide Victorian hallway. Immediately in front of us, stairs ascended to the first floor. Everywhere I looked there were shelves and sideboards filled with porcelain figurines. I clutched my handbag closer to my chest, for fear of knocking something off, and followed her as she led the way into the kitchen directly ahead.

  A country kitchen theme prevailed. Wood everywhere, only broken up by the hulking presence of a large Aga, completely at odds with its suburban setting, which warmed the kitchen to beyond comfortable. I sat where she indicated I should, at the large pine table that filled one end of the room, on a pine chair, gazing up at the pine cupboards while she filled the kettle and then set it upon the ever-ready Aga to boil. The silence became uncomfortable as the minutes ticked past, made more so by the heat. I unpeeled my coat and pushed my hair off the back of my neck to cool myself a little, watching her as she first warmed a teapot with the freshly boiled water, tipping it away before adding real leaf tea and then finally more of the water. She placed the teapot in the middle of the table on a cast-iron stand, and then covered it in a cosy.

  I felt sorry for the pot, which must have been sweltering under there in this heat. God knew it didn’t need the hand-knitted cover to keep it warm.

  She decanted some milk from the carton in the fridge into a small jug and placed it onto the table along with two decorated bone china mugs. “Biscuit?” she offered, reaching for a packet of chocolate digestives in the cupboard. I nodded, and she emptied some from the packet onto a similarly decorated plate before offering them to me.

  Finally, all required hostess courtesies met, she sat down beside me while we waited for the tea to steep. “How long have you been with Edward?”

  “A couple of years.”

  “That’s a long time.” She straightened the teapot, fiddling with it until she had it perfectly centred on the stand. She appeared to be struggling to make small talk, seemingly unused to it.

  I took a deep breath. It was now or never. “It is, but I think it might be over now. He’s changed so much recently.” She watched me as I stared down at my half-eaten biscuit. “That’s why I’m here, really. Edward seems to see more of Richard than any of his other friends. His old friends, I mean. Since the accident, he seems to want to see different people. I thought if anyone knew what he was thinking . . .”

  “I met Edward the other day,” she said. “He came to the house. He’s very handsome.”

  “Yes, he is,” I agreed, wondering when he had come here. He’d n
ever mentioned it. As far as I knew, when he left the house he went to work. It seemed there was a lot about Edward I didn’t know.

  Mrs Rawson stood, and collected a strainer that she placed over the top of one of the bone china mugs. Then she poured the tea, before repeating the process with the second cup. “Milk?”

  “Please,” I replied, wondering how to get the conversation onto Richard. I needn’t have worried.

  She held up a sugar cube with a small pair of tongs, and looked at me expectantly.

  I shook my head.

  “Richard has changed recently too.” She fixed her eyes on a spot on the table, as if she were uncomfortable talking about it with me.

  “In what way?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She paused and looked over her shoulder as if she half expected him to creep up on her at any moment. “Since he came home from hospital the last time, he seems quite different.” My heart thumped at her words. “He’s always been such a quiet boy. He’s been ill from a young age so . . . it’s limited him a bit, I suppose . . . made him need us more than most boys his age would still need their parents. But we’ve always been happy, the three of us. He’s always been very kind . . . thoughtful. But since he came back the last time . . .”

  “He’s different?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, sounding relieved to say it out loud. “He’s always out now, and then when he isn’t . . .” She hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with the topic.

  “Edward suddenly wanted lots of things he’d never wanted before, like a baby. He’d always hated kids. It seemed like I’d brought a stranger home from the hospital.” I hoped she’d continue talking if she thought our experiences were similar.

  She paused to top up our cups, and then spoke again, this time in a whisper. “Richard’s always been very respectful of us, but then the other day he came home with a woman. A stranger . . . not really our sort of girl, if you know what I mean?”