Spare Me the Truth

by CJ Carver

  Would it ever go, she wondered? And what about her guilt? She’d never told anyone what had happened. Her culpability was her cross to bear. Only Martin, a fellow GP, knew what she’d done but he hadn’t reported her, thank God. And ever since he’d moved out of the area, sometimes a whole week could go by without her thinking of Simon and the consequence of her actions. But when she was reminded – like now – the heaviness returned.

  Turning away, she rummaged in her rucksack for some fresh underwear and came up with a purple satin bra that Ross had bought her last Christmas. Unfortunately the pair of matching knickers hadn’t made it in her rush out of the house this morning, and she ended up pulling on an old cotton pair that she’d thought she’d thrown out ages ago. They used to be a buttery cream but were now a hideous ashen colour. She really should clear out her underwear drawer. A tidy underwear drawer showed a tidy . . . what? Tidy mind?

  Ross’s underwear drawer was immaculate, every item neatly stacked, his socks put together and folded inside out so they resembled a single flat sausage. Was Ross’s mind particularly tidy? Perhaps it was, compared to hers. He seemed to know what he was doing and when, whereas she led a more chaotic life, always arriving everywhere slightly out of breath and slightly dishevelled. Luckily, he didn’t seem to mind. Like last Thursday, at his office Christmas party. She’d careered into the gallery – TDK Investment Bank had requisitioned an exhibition space at Tate Britain for the evening – alternately trying to drag her fingers through her unruly hair and hopping on one foot in an attempt to keep her slingbacks in place. Ross had simply wrapped his arm around her waist, drawn her close and kissed her, murmuring, ‘God, woman. Are you worth the wait, or what?’

  She could say the same about him. She’d been single for three years while she’d completed her foundation training attached to Winchester Hospital and then bang! There he was. And two years later she couldn’t believe how she’d survived without him. He was gorgeous. He was generous. He was kind. He listened when she moaned about her workload. He spoiled her. He dropped everything to be there when she needed him. And he did DIY. When her best friend Sally heard that he could wire a house, tile a bathroom and sent her flowers every week, she’d said if Grace didn’t marry the man, she would.

  ‘What if I told you he can’t cook?’ Grace said.

  ‘What are takeaways for?!’

  Where was the nearest takeaway to Lone Pine Farm? Grace wondered. Was there even a takeaway restaurant in Duncaid? She’d never worried about not being able to cook before and now she wondered if she should do a cookery course. Oh, God. She still couldn’t believe he wanted to move to Scotland. Scotland! And he wanted her to move up there with him. She’d only just moved to Ellisfield. She’d done barely six months of her salaried position, with a view to eventual partnership. If she even hinted she might be moving, they wouldn’t be best pleased. Not that she’d said as much to Ross right then because she’d been so shocked she couldn’t have vocalised a single thought if she’d tried.

  ‘You know I’ve wanted to do something different for ages,’ he had told her. They were sitting at her kitchen table in her cottage, sharing a bottle of red wine and waiting for the beef and onion pie she’d bought from the local butcher to heat in the oven. ‘Investment management is all very well, but it’s not me. Yes, I like the client contact, that’s the best bit in all honesty, getting their objectives and strategies absolutely right, but the rest of it . . . well, it’s become a bit of a slog. I don’t want to wear a suit anymore.’

  ‘Yes,’ she had said cautiously. ‘You have mentioned it.’

  But she hadn’t taken him seriously. She thought everyone who worked in the city had dreams of moving to the country but never acted upon them. They’d played what she thought was a game when they were lying in bed, picturing her jumping into her four-wheel-drive with her doctor’s bag to do some house calls and Ross coming home with a freshly caught trout and pan frying it for supper on their wood-burning Aga.

  But it wasn’t a game any longer.

  Ross looked at her, seeming to pick up on her reticence. ‘I thought you said you were getting frustrated with townie-style patients? That you found them excessively demanding?’

  True. She’d been attracted to the thought of treating rural people whom she assumed were more robust and self-reliant. Only last week she’d had a phone call from a woman demanding a house call for a common head cold.

  ‘But what about my patients?’ she said. ‘The last doctor was only here for a year, and now I have to tell them I’m doing the same? Abandoning them after a few months? I’m only just getting to know them . . .’ And their likes and dislikes, she added silently, their husbands and wives, their children and their pets.

  ‘By moving now,’ Ross said reasonably, ‘it won’t be half as hard a wrench as it would be in another year or more.’

  Don’t you understand? I don’t want to go! she shouted inside. But I don’t want to lose you!

  She licked her lips. ‘I’m not sure if it’s financially viable. Is it? I mean, I’m not earning enough to –’

  ‘Look.’ He leaned forward, expression deepening. ‘You don’t have to put anything in. This is my project, but of course I want to share it with you. My finances are OK, I can buy the farm twice over with what I can get for my apartment. I can then plough the remaining money into renovating the outbuildings. I can easily swap my car for a second-hand Land Rover . . .’

  He went on to outline his plans. He’d found the perfect farm near the Cairngorms, beautiful and wild with a trout-fishing stream as well as a small loch. Trails led from the farmhouse over rugged moorland that was home to red grouse and deer. The fact the place was almost in ruins, the cottages dilapidated, wasn’t a drawback because he was dying to do them up and turn the place into a highland adventure holiday destination: horse riding, mountain biking, hiking, shooting, stalking and fishing.

  ‘I didn’t think you rode,’ she said. She was glad her tone was relatively light and didn’t reflect how she felt; bewildered and increasingly panicky.

  ‘I’m going to learn.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you were so . . . ’ She took a breath. ‘Serious about this.’

  He frowned and she knew she was on dangerous ground.

  ‘So soon,’ she added swiftly. ‘I didn’t think you’d find anywhere for at least a couple of years.’

  His brow cleared. ‘Neither did I. But it’s perfect.’ He leaned forward, his eyes alight. ‘You’re going to love it, Gracie!’

  Although she knew it was childish, already part of her hated the place for upsetting what had been, for her, a perfect couple of years that she’d assumed were going to stretch into a perfect couple of decades. Lone Pine Farm. God, even the name gave her the creeps.

  Slicking on some mascara and a sweep of blusher – any tan she’d caught during the summer was long gone – she wondered what her mother would think. Mum had only met Ross a few times but she was a great judge of character and would give a balanced, impartial view on the situation. It wasn’t often Grace needed her mother’s advice, always dispensed perfectly objectively and without favouring her daughter, but today it would be welcome.

  Dressed in jeans and a stripy woolly jumper she’d bought in Cornwall years ago, Grace legged it to the kitchen, but her mother wasn’t there. No smell of croissant either, or coffee.

  ‘Mum!’ she called. ‘Where are you? I need your advice!’

  Normally this would have had her mother appear by her side in a flash – Grace could count on one hand the amount of times she’d asked her mother for help and vice versa – but the house remained silent.

  ‘Mum?’

  She didn’t bother checking the sitting room or downstairs bathroom but went straight to her mother’s office. The door was ajar. She could hear the fan of a computer humming.

  ‘Mum?’

  Grace pushed open the door and peered inside. It took a moment for her brain to process what she was seeing.<
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  Her mother was sprawled on the floor. She appeared to be unconscious. Her lips were blue. The fingers of her right hand had spasmed into a claw.

  Grace stumbled across the room, fell to her knees.

  Her mother wasn’t breathing. She couldn’t feel her heartbeat, or a pulse.

  For a moment she went lightheaded.

  Then her training kicked in.

  Forget she’s your mother. She’s a patient. Save her.

  She scrambled up and grabbed the phone. Dialled 999. Asked for an ambulance, paramedics. Told them she was a doctor and that it was a blue light case. Gave the operator the address.

  Inside, she was screaming and cursing herself for not keeping a defibrillator in her car. She had a first-aid kit, but not a goddamn defib!

  Working fast, she found the lower end of her mother’s breastbone. Found the midline. Placing the heel of her left hand on her mother’s chest and interlocking the fingers of both hands, she began compressions, counting out loud.

  ‘One, two, three, four, five . . .’

  Current protocol – if you were trained in CPR – stated that you should give thirty chest compressions before giving two breaths, and you keep going until the ambulance arrived.

  ‘Come on, Mum! Don’t give up!’

  Thirty compressions. Two breaths.

  CPR took an enormous amount of energy and already she was tiring but she kept going, kept up the pressure.

  ‘Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen . . .’

  The doorbell rang. Grace turned her head and yelled, ‘Come in!’ but nothing happened. Her mother would have locked the door.

  The doorbell rang again.

  ‘Oh, God God God . . .’ Grace leaped up and tore along the corridor, feet flying. She flung open the front door and when she saw it wasn’t a paramedic but Dan Forrester, her mother’s amnesiac friend, she panted, ‘I’m waiting for the ambulance, show them in when they get here, would you?’

  She didn’t explain any further but raced back inside.

  Every minute her mother remained like this was another minute of sustained brain damage.

  She’d barely started the compressions again when Dan came to squat opposite her. ‘Let me,’ he said. ‘I know what to do.’

  Grace ignored him.

  ‘You’re tiring,’ he said. ‘I’ll compress, you breathe. More efficient.’

  She waited until she’d completed thirty compressions and finished her second breath into her mother’s lungs. Gasped, ‘Go.’

  ‘I left the front door open,’ he told her as he pulsed the heels of his hands on her mother’s chest. ‘They’ll find us, no problem.’

  ‘OK.’

  They didn’t stop until the paramedics drew them aside. One started trying an IV line. The other exposed her mother’s chest, attached sticky pads and started defibrillating.

  No response.

  They worked fast, rolling her mother onto a stretcher and hastening her outside, into the ambulance. Grace hurried after them. She sat to one side, holding her mother’s hand while they continued CPR. Her mother’s hand was warm, but lifeless.

  She said, ‘Come on, Mum. Make an effort!’ Her voice was trembling. ‘You’re too young to die!’

  Siren blazing, the ambulance accelerated down the street. Grace clutched her mother’s hand, begging, pleading for her to fight back and not die, dammit!

  But Stella Reavey couldn’t hear her daughter’s pleas, or see the pain and panic in her eyes, because when they arrived at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, nine miles away, she was pronounced DOA. Dead on arrival.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Friday 23 November, 9.10 a.m.

  Bella was naked. Lying on a cold floor.

  Pitch dark, black black black.

  Pain. Great waves of pain. Nausea.

  Dark.

  Thirsty.

  She needed water. She tried to move but it was impossible. Her limbs refused to budge. They were shrieking endlessly. Pain pain pain.

  Wet sticky stuff everywhere. Her blood.

  She’d thought she was dead.

  But she wasn’t.

  She was alive.

  Help!

  Her mouth was gummed with blood. Pieces of tooth. She wanted to scream and shout but all that came from her throat was a dry rasping sound.

  Please, can anyone hear me?

  More rasping.

  Nobody was going to hear. She had to make more noise.

  The next thought sent panic racing: what if the man heard her? The man who’d done this to her? The man she’d laughed at when he’d brought out a pistol and pointed it at her. She’d thought it was a joke until he pulled the trigger. A fizzing, crackling sound and then the most indescribable pain shot through her body and she fell to the floor, unable to move, unable even to shout.

  He’d stepped over her. Pushed some cloth into her mouth. The gun had fine leads hanging from it. Leads that were attached to her body. She’d never seen a weapon like that in real life before, but she’d heard about them.

  A taser.

  He’d used it on her twice. Agony. But then he’d given her an injection. Whatever it was made her feel wobbly, and then the space behind her eyes began to change and she felt as though she’d been thrown outside herself and into a strange new kind of reality. Nothing could touch her there, nothing hurt. Not like now.

  She wasn’t sure what he’d done to her but it was bad. She kept fainting. Retching before passing out again. The atmosphere was dense, airless. She was gasping for oxygen. Was she going to suffocate? She managed to roll her head to the side and felt a tiny trickle of cold air on her cheek. Fresh air. But what about her thirst? How long could a person live without water? Days? Or less? She knew it wasn’t long. She had to do something.

  Bella lifted her head a fraction and let it fall to the floor. She barely made any sound. She tried harder.

  Thud.

  That was better. She did it again.

  Thud.

  And again, and again.

  She had no idea how much time was passing. After a while her head felt as though it was swelling. About to explode. She knew she was bleeding profusely. Losing blood. She had to make more noise. Get help.

  She tried to raise her arm. She could feel something metal on her left wrist. It wasn’t a watch, more like a big, chunky bracelet. She didn’t wear bracelets like that. What was it?

  An immense pain swept her in and out of consciousness.

  Tears streamed down her face.

  ‘No,’ she mumbled.

  She didn’t want to die. She was only eighteen. She had her whole life ahead of her. She wanted to travel the world. See the pyramids. Go shopping in New York. Swim with dolphins.

  And then she heard footsteps approaching. Crunch, crunch. Shoes walking on what sounded like gravel. She began to whimper. Please God it wasn’t him. She didn’t want to die.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Friday 23 November, 9.30 a.m.

  Lucy stepped over an oil-smeared puddle, her boots crunching on grit. Howard walked beside her. He hadn’t wanted to come but when Lucy persisted he’d caved in with a roll of the eyes. Anything for a quiet life.

  The container park was quiet, and thick mist rolled in from the North Sea, cloaking the city in a chill blanket. God, it was cold, and as damp and gloomy as hell. Her uniform felt damp, her bones felt damp, and she could feel the beginnings of a headache that had been dogging her since she’d come up here. Why did she have to be banished up north? Why not somewhere warmer down south, like Devon? It had to have been Magellan’s idea. Everyone knew she hated the cold.

  Footsteps muffled by fog, they approached two security guards standing next to a lone shipping container that looked as though it was awaiting collection. One was smoking a cigarette, the other rolling a pebble beneath his shoe. Both looked indescribably bored.

  ‘Hi guys,’ Howard greeted them.

  Both guards were in their mid-thirties and wore black trousers, black shoes and socks, a
blue company shirt, a blue company tie and sported three tin stars on their shoulder tabs that meant absolutely nothing except to try and make them look like policemen. Their customised patches announced the name of the security firm, ZF Services, with Integrity & Proficiency embroidered below. One name tag read: Ralph Duggan. The other, Bill Grant.

  ‘Some kids reported . . .’ Howard wiped chocolate from the corner of his mouth before reaching for his notebook and reading from it: ‘Strange noises coming from one of the containers. A green one. Marked RFC, they said.’

  Although Howard had shared this information with her earlier, Lucy’s mind suddenly flared with colour as it spun over the initials, RFC. Rainforest Concern, Rangers Football Club, Rockefeller Centre . . .

  ‘Yeah,’ Duggan said. ‘We checked it out. But we didn’t hear anything.’ He was still looking at Lucy. He did a man scan, sweeping his eyes from her sturdy black boots up her uniform to her breasts, then her mop of brown hair forced into submission beneath her cap. As usual, she didn’t blink an eye but stared back, expressionless. Men found it confusing if you didn’t react.

  ‘It’s a hoax,’ Duggan added.

  ‘What if it’s not?’ Lucy said.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Duggan snorted, ‘you said some kids rang you, what do you expect?’

  ‘Haven’t you been listening to the news?’ she said. ‘Or perhaps you’re not aware that a university student went missing in this city just three days ago.’

  ‘And don’t they know it. The little bastards are always winding us up.’

  ‘That may be so,’ Lucy responded, pleased with her self-control when she wanted to clip him behind the ear for being pig-headed. ‘But we still need to check it out.’

  He snorted. ‘You can’t believe she’s here or you’d have the entire force with you. What did they tell you they heard anyway?’