The Simple Death

by Michael Duffy

  Since yesterday he’d been wondering if someone, maybe McIver, had told her about Conti. The timing of her return prompted the question. Now, looking at the shock in her, he saw it was just a coincidence.

  ‘It is, it will be. I promise.’

  ‘My God. I don’t believe this.’ She began to walk again, up the hill. He went to touch her and she turned around and cried, ‘Stay away from me! I’m going back to Brisbane.’

  He took her arm and she flinched, looking at him with fear, but he didn’t care anymore.

  ‘You do what you want,’ he said slowly. ‘I love you. Tomorrow I’m telling her it’s over. But this is our last chance. Come back now or stay away forever.’

  She was just staring at his hand on her arm, and he wasn’t even sure she’d heard him. He resisted the urge to say it again. He let go and she ran, stumbling a bit further up the hill on the uneven footpath, so that he wanted to go help her, but she recovered and walked away out of sight, into the darkness.

  His heart hurt but not as much as he expected. He felt all right with what he’d done, could live with it. Being a detective was all about patience, working over time to reach a conclusion. You learned to stand back from the moment, and maybe he had learned that lesson too well. But now he was in the moment, and he hoped he’d forced her to be there too. There was a need to set things in motion again, wherever it might lead them.

  Conti rang later in the night, back from Lismore.

  ‘Hello stranger,’ she said. ‘Long time no speak. What’s happening?’

  He jumped into it, told her about Anna’s return, feeling stupid. Explained he didn’t know what was happening, but needed to keep himself free. Hoped when things were clearer—

  She said, ‘This just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What? It’s just—’

  ‘Too many surprises for a simple girl. It’s over.’

  He pushed the relief down, looking for some sadness. But there was hardly any.

  ‘It doesn’t—’

  ‘It was one night.’

  ‘I’m not a one-night person,’ he said.

  ‘Nor me. But that’s what it was.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘A night that never happened. I’ve got to work with you in twelve hours. This never happened.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  ‘We’re agreed on this?’

  He managed to wait two seconds before saying, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fuck you, Nick.’

  Thirty-eight

  2 April

  Cancer is the devil’s sickness, it comes from the mutation of cells for no reason known to medical science most of the time. It is pure evil.

  6 April

  The devil is at work in the ward, sometimes I will go into a room and know he has just been in there. I know it from the pain in the faces of the patient and the horror in their loved ones. People don’t know what goes on there. Afterwards, the living just want to forget. They want to forget it will happen to them in many cases because the sickness is genetic. When the devil comes back for them in later years, do they feel sorry? They must panic. I see panic everywhere. My colleagues deal with this with jokes and alcohol and drugs.

  13 April

  Mrs Collor has bowel cancer. She resided in an old place in Darlinghurst all alone they said when they found her it was disgusting. It is too late to stop so it is just her and the pain. Every night after tea she asks me to do something, today she was screaming I Want To Die. I tried to talk to Sara about this but she just doesn’t want to know. Some of them do it too, I’m sure but they will never tell you. They will not talk about it. Pain is evil.

  15 April

  Mrs Collor again at it tonight, the patients on either side complaining, but I gave them something to sleep. Mrs C looked me in the eyes and asked me to help her die. I said no, we can’t do that here. Really you cannot take the risk she might say something before it happens. But I look into her eyes and see myself there, I cannot believe the others ignore her world of hurt. It will happen soon. The devil is in her anyone can see that who looks. People do not understand with new technology the devil has found new places. But it is our duty still to fight him. To fight evil.

  MONDAY

  Thirty-nine

  Troy was in Manly for a ten o’clock briefing. Five minutes before it was due to begin, he had a call from a man who introduced himself as Kevin Tryon. In a gruff voice Tryon said he ran a large security company, was up from Melbourne for the day. Could he take Troy to lunch?

  ‘I’m not looking for a job,’ said Troy.

  Tryon was the company that had provided security for The Tower.

  ‘It’s not that. I’d just like to have a word with you about something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’d really rather tell you in person.’

  Troy wondered why, but he was still interested in anything to do with The Tower. One of the security guards central to the whole thing had escaped overseas. Maybe Tryon had heard something. He arranged to see him down on the Corso at midday.

  Looking up, he saw Conti standing next to the desk.

  She said, ‘Hello, detective.’

  ‘Officer.’

  ‘No ring yet?’

  He held up his left hand and realised he hadn’t even thought about putting his ring back on.

  ‘I told you, it’s—’

  ‘Paula Williams still has a job?’

  He took a deep breath; life goes on. ‘No idea.’ Looked at his watch. ‘We’ll find out soon.’

  ‘I heard the three files were handed over on the weekend.’

  ‘Someone was busy.’

  ‘Not you?’

  ‘Not me. I—’

  ‘You had other things to do.’

  Conti went off and McIver appeared and said, ‘That file business is sorted. I had a word to Saunders.’

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘It’s sorted. Conti knows?’ Troy nodded, about to ask what had been said. ‘Tell her to keep it quiet, briefing now.’

  He walked away.

  At the meeting, McIver introduced two new members of the strike force. One was Danny Chu, who’d just finished another investigation. The other was Donna Evans, an investigator with the Health Care Complaints Commission, a government agency responsible for investigating medical malpractice. Over the weekend the experts had decided the mortality stats were not necessarily sinister but deserved further investigation. It was, Troy thought, a deeply irritating con- clusion. Mac explained the HCCC would be obtaining and reviewing patient files for all who had died in Oncology, while Homicide concentrated on the staff. Evans would be their liaison with the HCCC, and also provide knowledge about hospitals.

  ‘The most useful thing I can tell you at this point,’ she said, ‘is that the stats might not mean a thing. Even if they do, the unexpected deaths could have been accidents. Maybe a particular doctor or nurse was off their game, depressed.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s the new ward-management system?’ said McIver.

  ‘We can’t find any evidence BRISTOL was associated with increased mortality in the UK.’

  ‘What’s the worst possibility?’ said Conti.

  ‘A member of staff is killing patients.’ There was a murmur of conversation. ‘But we have no reason to think that.’

  ‘Why would anyone do such a thing?’ said Conti.

  ‘Hypothetically? Could be a misguided sense of mercy, or for kicks. It’s happened overseas, there’s a range of possible motives.’

  ‘But hospitals are full of medical experts,’ Troy said, recalling Ian Carter’s argument. ‘They’d be the worst place in the world to kill someone.’

  Evans was shaking her head before he’d finishe
d. ‘A lot of serial killers have operated in health-care facilities. Nursing homes are most popular, they provide opportunity and lack of suspicion. If you are a serial killer, it beats leaving bodies in parks.’

  McIver said, ‘All our other lines have run down. Late last week we discovered we hadn’t been given three complainant files, they’ve now been obtained and checked out, all refer to deaths in Oncology.’ He glanced at Troy and kept talking. ‘So today we hit the oncology department. Right now, the only motive we have for Pearson’s demise is someone was trying to cover up deaths on the ward. We don’t know how these people died, but maybe someone didn’t want anyone making a fuss. The time of Pearson’s death fits with the timing of his request for stats.’ He looked around. ‘The pethidine angle also points to the hospital. As you know, the pethidine appears to have been stolen from the hospital pharmacy and that’s being investigated by other officers.’

  He looked at Rostov, who said, ‘We have no information yet.’

  ‘We’re looking for a staff member who might have killed Pearson to cover up deaths, either because they’d killed people, maybe by accident, or just to make the department look good. Ian Carter has an alibi, we’re looking at all other staff, including those who left in the past six months.’

  ‘But the stats are still there,’ someone said. ‘Why would killing Pearson solve the problem?’

  ‘Because he was the one who might have made waves. We know for a fact Saunders and Carter would have interpreted them into insignificance, their focus was on BRISTOL. If Pearson hadn’t got interested, the stats would have been filed away like all the others.”

  Troy said, ‘Anything on Valdez?’

  ‘The search continues,’ McIver said. ‘But the timing’s tight and I’ve got him down as angry, not someone who’s going to arrange something this elaborate. Also, where would he get the pethidine?’

  ‘Plus, turns out he had a bushy beard at the time Pearson died,’ Rostov said. ‘Bourke rang that through Saturday, and yesterday we contacted everyone who’d been at the Pearsons’ party to ask if they’d seen a man with a big beard. No one did. So we can’t explain how Valdez could have planted the pethidine at the flat.’

  McIver had a list of the staff who’d worked in Oncology at St Thomas’ for the previous two years. There were dozens of names. He explained the next step would be to obtain and examine their employ- ment records, and organised teams of detectives to start work that afternoon. He handed out copies of the list, and Troy took a copy and read, idly and then with surprise.

  ‘Julie Cornish,’ he said. According to the list, she’d left Oncology six months ago. ‘She was at Charity Hospice, part of the hospital. She died last week.’

  People stopped talking.

  ‘How?’ said McIver.

  ‘She wasn’t murdered.’

  Evans said, ‘It’s possible Pearson had a source for his concerns about Oncology.’

  ‘Julie?’

  He recalled Cornish, the way she’d cared and her confidence in the room where a patient had just had some sort of attack. He could imagine her talking to an ombudsman if she had concerns about what had been going on in her own department. Maybe that was why she’d left.

  ‘If someone did kill Pearson,’ Evans said, ‘they might go to his source too.’

  McIver pointed at Troy: ‘Conti and you. Check out her death.’

  After the briefing, Conti said, ‘What was that all about? With the files?’

  ‘Mac’s dealt with it. Wants it forgotten.’

  ‘Williams should be charged,’ she said, indignant.

  Her face was flushed and he was reminded of the other night. Wondered if he’d lost Anna for good.

  ‘Saunders too, if he was behind it.’ she said, Troy shrugged. ‘I’m going to have a word to the sarge.’

  ‘Don’t. He’ll have told Saunders he’s keeping it quiet. That way he’s owed a favour.’

  ‘But why did they hold back the files? Saunders might be a person of interest.’

  ‘Mac mustn’t think so.’

  ‘You and I, we’re just expected to accept that?’ She was struggling with this, despite her intelligence.

  ‘Now you’re getting it.’

  ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘You should write it up as a case study,’ he said, ‘for your MBA.’

  Forty

  On the morning Leila returns to work there is nothing much happening; most of her colleagues are away at a conference. She reprimands Amie, her personal assistant, for not telling her about this last week. Standards have dropped while she’s been away, but she’ll change that soon. For two hours she reads emails, and some of the paper left for her by the woman who’s been acting in the job, then hangs a few of her things on the wall, taking back possession. It is hardly worth it: she’ll be moving as soon as the results of the selection process for the new job are announced.

  The first call of the day is personal, from Paul Gorman the wine expert. He called Leila after the break-in, told her the police had interviewed him and he’d explained he hadn’t been to the house yet. He sounded more amused than offended by the whole thing, promised he would do the job soon. And now he has.

  ‘No good news, I’m afraid. Would have been some wonderful drinking five years ago, but I’m recommending you throw out eighty per cent.’

  Leila feels a stab of irritation at her mother’s decision to keep all the wine. It was a folly, a folly buried in a basement. ‘That much?’

  ‘Australian reds, they’re not built to last. The problem is, he bought them close to their prime.’

  What a shame, she thinks, that all the soporific power of those thousands of grapes cannot be compressed into one small bottle and given to Alecia Parr. All she wants is to go to sleep forever.

  ‘Should get a few thousand if you send the rest to auction,’ Gorman says, ‘or you can drink it yourselves. I’ve left you a list of what’s what. It’s on the kitchen table next to an old book I found behind some cases in the cellar.’

  ‘What sort of book?’

  ‘Looks like a ledger, but from the contents I’d say it’s some sort of diary.’ It takes a few seconds for what he’s said to sink in. Like finding something in the wrong place and not recognising it at first. ‘I’ve left the invoice on the table too.’

  Leila disconnects and goes to the door. She tells Amie to get her a car out of the pool, immediately. Something has come up.

  As she drives, she thinks about Alecia Parr and the pain she must be feeling at this moment. There is a temptation to drive faster but she resists, knowing that people like Alecia can only be helped if others stay within the law, as much as possible. The key is not to draw attention to yourself. But now Alecia’s suffering is almost over. Leila called Carl from the office and he sounded excited, said he’d meet her at the house, with the bottle. Leila desperately wants to do this, for Alecia and for Stuart. Once she hands over the bottle, a debt will be repaid.

  Carl is waiting in the front garden, dressed quite well in a long-sleeved shirt and chinos. He is smelling some of the roses with an air of authority. That is one of the things that has confused her about him, she realises as she opens the gate: that he acts and often looks like someone more important than a nurse. This is snobbish, but she’s realised lately she has become less tolerant. On the whole this does not worry her.

  ‘These Cecil Brunners are magnificent,’ he says. ‘Hello, Leila.’

  ‘Carl.’ He is bigger than she remembers, pale and drawn today, and why not: he has just lost his girlfriend. ‘I am so sorry about Julie.’

  ‘Yes. It’s the shock. She was such a healthy person.’

  ‘How are you bearing up?’ she says as she takes out her keys.

  He is not looking at her, but that is how he is, not one for meeting your eye.


  ‘Not too well. Have you seen the diary?’

  ‘No. Someone else found it. Let’s go and have a look.’ She smiles at him. ‘A tradesman. He assured me he didn’t read it.’

  He nods and says, ‘I found something Julie hid in my place.’ He pulls out an envelope and goes to give it to her, but she is busy with the lock. The envelope looks familiar. ‘It’s five hundred dollars,’ he says. ‘I think it must be the expenses you gave Julie.’

  It’s the money Julie said she’d lost at the shops. Leila opens the door and they go into the front hall.

  ‘She left it at your place?’

  ‘Julie was a bit that way, I’m afraid, theft and lies. You didn’t know?’

  ‘It surprises me.’

  They go down the hall to the kitchen, see the diary sitting on the table, with Gorman’s invoice next to it. He says, ‘It was one of the reasons we had to leave Brisbane.’

  Leila nods and puts it aside, to be thought about later. It’s a shock, but Carl is obviously distraught, he might be exaggerating.

  The ledger is red and formal. She wonders if she would have read some of it’s contents if she had the chance.

  ‘You’ve got the Nembutal?’

  He takes a bottle out of a pocket and places it on the table, along with the envelope, then puts his hand on the ledger. The bottle looks just like the one she gave Julie. It’s strange to realise she handed over something like this to someone she knew so little about.

  ‘I’m sorry about what I said on the phone,’ he murmurs. ‘I was just desperate for this, it’s about protecting Julie’s memory.’ Sounding choked with emotion, he starts to cough and in a moment there are tears running down his cheeks.

  ‘I’ll get you some water,’ she says.

  ‘No. I need to go to the bathroom.’

  She nods, picks up the invoice, trying to ignore the awful sound of his rasping coughs as he leaves the room.

  She takes up the bottle and checks it is still full. There are no puncture marks in the rubber on top. She puts it down and looks at the diary, thinks she might have a quick look after all. Her right hand moves down, almost of its own volition, and opens the cover. She hears a slight noise behind her. As she begins to turn, there is a flash of pain across her head, and the room slips out of sight.