‘We’ll leave her alone for a few days,’ Joanna said. ‘I really wanted to talk to the other two nurses today’
‘That’s all right, then. They aren’t quite so sensitive as Yolande. Of course, she was in charge of the ward. So ultimately the blame does, I’m afraid, rest on her shoulders.’
For all her sympathy Joanna thought, she was as detached as a judge passing sentence. The nursing officer stood up. ‘Use my office. I’ll send for Nurse Richards and Mr O’Sullivan.’ She managed to inject a large amount of disapproval into the latter name and Joanna gave Mike a swift, curious glance.
Gaynor Richards was short and tubby, almost as wide as she was tall. The buttons of her nurse’s uniform gaped and strained over her plump body as she rushed in, breathless and anxious to please.
After the introductions Joanna opened the questioning. ‘Do you remember Mr Selkirk being admitted?’
She nodded. ‘The day staff actually admitted him,’ she said. ‘He came in in the middle of the morning. By the time we came on duty he’d calmed down a bit.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘He wasn’t very well. Muttered a lot. Seemed very worried.’ The nurse kept smiling at both of them for no apparent reason. It was beginning to irritate Joanna.
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Yes, I just told him everything would be all right,’ she said happily. A couple of nights in here, I told him, and you’ll be right as rain. Though,’ she added, ‘he was very unwell.’
‘Well,’ Joanna smiled encouragingly, ‘I expect that cheered him up.’
‘I think it did,’ she said, leaning forward. A button popped open and she grabbed the two edges of the dress and tugged them together desperately. ‘They like to be cheered up.’
‘Did he have any visitors?’
‘Oh no!’ She looked horrified. ‘He was far too ill to be having people traipsing through wanting to see him. He had to be kept quiet.’ She blinked at them. ‘Wives only. His wife was there for some of the evening.’ She hesitated, looked at Joanna then Mike and shut her mouth.
‘They seemed good friends?’ Joanna asked casually. Gaynor Richards blinked. ‘Being ill’s such a strain,’ she said. ‘On the relatives as well as the patient. It’s very difficult.’ She looked uneasy and they guessed that Sheila Selkirk and her husband had been arguing.
‘You spoke to Mrs Selkirk?’
‘I made her a cup of tea.’ She looked pleased with herself.
‘Did she say anything to you?’
‘She wanted to know about his condition.’
‘What did you tell her?’
Gaynor Richards blinked and forgot to smile. ‘We don’t give away confidential details about our patients.’ she said blandly. ‘The doctors speak to relatives.’
‘She spoke to the doctor?’
The nurse shook her head. ‘He wasn’t around. I told her she could talk to him the next day, But she said it didn’t matter.’ She screwed up her face. ‘I don’t think she understood how ill he was.’
Joanna sighed. ‘Perhaps you reassured her a bit too well.’ Gaynor Richards looked happy and unconcerned.
‘You spoke to Mr Selkirk?’
‘I took him a drink at nine,’ the nurse said, ‘just after his wife left. Then he asked if he could use the phone.’
‘And?’
‘I got it for him,’ she said. ‘But he didn’t have change. The hospital telephone is one of those pay phones that you can’t reverse charges on. No money and he wouldn’t be able to make any calls.’ She thought for a moment. ‘His wife had taken his clothes, you see. She probably forgot to leave him any money.’ Again she looked uncomfortable and they could picture Selkirk ranting about being left penniless.
‘So did he make a call or not?’
‘I don’t know,’ Gaynor said, unconscious of the two police officers’ frustration. ‘I got called to the far end of the ward. But I didn’t take the phone from him. I just left it there.’ She thought for a moment, then said brightly, ‘He might have made a call, mightn’t he?’
‘So you don’t know whether he made a call at all, let alone who to?’ Mike grunted.
The nurse shook her head. ‘Not really. Sorry’
‘Did he say anything else to you?’
Again she thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t think so.’ She leaned forward to share her confidence. ‘I think he just wanted to be quiet – to be left alone.’
‘And the last time you saw him?’
‘About half past ten,’ Gaynor said. ‘You see, I thought that if he was going to be making a phone call’ – she gave another one of her irritating, ingratiating smiles and tweaked her buttons together – ‘I thought – with him being a solicitor and all that – I thought he’d want a bit of privacy. So I shut the door.’ She gave each of them a triumphant smile. ‘I didn’t see him after that. And that was hours before he went.’
Joanna gave Mike a swift glance before looking back at the self-satisfied face of the nurse. ‘What time did he go?’ she asked casually.
Gaynor almost jumped out of her chair. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I really don’t. I just heard ...’
‘What did you hear?’ Mike’s voice was velvet-soft.
She stared at him. ‘They said about one.’
‘Who said?’
‘Staff Nurse.’
‘Yolande Prince?’
Gaynor nodded. And she pressed her lips together while her eyes were wide and staring.
They let her go out of pity.
As the door closed behind her Mike groaned. ‘Well, she was a fat lot of use,’ he said.
Joanna was staring at the closed door. ‘Is she really as dull as she seems?’ she asked thoughtfully. ‘All this cheering people up ... didn’t know whether he’d used the phone or not... told him he’d be all right when the man knew he’d had a heart attack ...’ She looked at Mike. And challenging her how she knew the time Selkirk was abducted. That sent her into a panic, didn’t it?’ She stopped. ‘The question is does she ring true? Is she stupid or is she clever?’
‘Stupid,’ Mike said firmly. ‘Believe me. That girl hasn’t any sense in her head.’
‘We’ll see.’ Joanna uncrossed her legs. ‘Mike,’ she said softly, her face puckered in a deep frown. ‘There’s something we haven’t really considered.’
He waited, catching the scent of newly washed hair. That must be for Levin, he thought.
‘How did our killer know where to find Selkirk?’ she said. ‘He was only admitted that day. But we have no stories of someone looking into all the rooms. No one.’ She stopped for the full implication of her words to sink in. ‘Our killer knew not only that Selkirk was in hospital but how to get in and which room he was in.’
Mike nodded slowly. ‘So our killer was in contact with his employer that day.’
‘Yes.’
She sat back. ‘Who knew Selkirk was in hospital?’
‘His wife and almost certainly his partner in crime, Wilde. He would have to know.’ He paused. ‘But Sheila wasn’t going to tell him,’ he said. ‘Bit of trouble there if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Maybe that’s why he was so desperate to use the phone.’
‘In the day, maybe,’ Mike said thoughtfully. ‘But our friend Gaynor was talking about the evening, just after his wife had gone home.’ He met her eyes. ‘Checking up on her?’
‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘And maybe her taking away his clothes and money was a clever idea so he wouldn’t be able to use the phone.’
‘We’ve forgotten someone else who knew Selkirk was in hospital,’ he said. ‘Grandpa Tony.’
Joanna nodded.
‘Now let’s meet nurse number three.’
Ian O’Sullivan proved to be a thin-faced man in his mid twenties, pale skinned with mischievous blue eyes.
‘Hello there,’ he said when Joanna introduced herself and Mike. ‘I wondered when you’d be getting around to me.’
Joanna raised
her eyebrows. ‘Well, we’re here now and want to know anything you can tell us about Mr Selkirk.’
‘I was the one who helped him settle in,’ O’Sullivan said proudly. ‘So I was probably the one who spoke the most to him. That wife of his,’ he continued, ‘wasn’t she just the frosty one.’
‘Was she?’ Mike asked innocently.
‘Glad she was that he was suffering I could see it in her eyes. Takin’ pleasure in it,’ he added maliciously.
‘But she left around,’ Joanna glanced down at her notes, ‘nine?’
‘He watched her go.’ O’Sullivan was enjoying telling his tale. ‘Watched her close the door behind her. And then he asked Fatty Richards if he could use the phone.’ O’Sullivan stopped and swallowed. ‘Bloody desperate he was to get at that phone.’
‘But Nurse Richards told us he had no money to use it.’
O’Sullivan looked pleased with himself. ‘I lent him some,’ he said. ‘I could tell he wasn’t short of a bob or two. I knew I’d get it back, with interest. I lent him five twenty-pence pieces. Although I don’t suppose I’ll get it back at all now.’
Mike’s breath was quickening. ‘Who did he call?’
The nurse leaned back and folded his arms. ‘Now how should I know?’ Then he winked at Joanna. “To be sure, I didn’t listen all the way through. All I heard was a couple of words. He said something was wild.’ He grinned. ‘You know – wild, man?’
Joanna frowned. ‘Wild?’
‘I would have heard more,’ he said, ‘if that bloody bitch of a staff nurse hadn’t got me cleaning up some shit.’ He gave Joanna a sly look. ‘And there’s another mystery that’s never been cleared up.’ He stopped and leered at Joanna. ‘I’ll bet she didn’t tell you anything about that poor bastard who fell out of the window. Last year.’
‘She did mention that she’d had some trouble last year –’
‘It was her was on duty that night,’ O’Sullivan said with feeling.
Joanna drummed her fingers impatiently on the desk. ‘I don’t really think this is relevant; she said sharply.
‘Oh, don’t you?’ O’Sullivan’s eyes were cruel. ‘I have an idea you’re probably wrong there. And the enquiry don’t know the half of it. But they needn’t think I’ll be the one to tell them.’ His eyes met Joanna’s and he gave a quick wink. ‘She must have moved the chair, you know.’
‘Sorry? Which chair?’ Joanna asked, confused now.
‘Frost’s,’ O’Sullivan said disdainfully. ‘Michael Frost’s.’
And for some reason they both listened.
‘The window that that bloody madman Frost fell out of was more than six feet from the floor,’ he said. ‘How did he get up there? Especially on the medication he was on. He would have been like a bloody zombie. He couldn’t have climbed six inches from the floor, let alone six feet. And I’m telling you this, there was no chair there – not by the window he was supposed to have jumped from. So how the hell did he get up there? Enquiries,’ he finished disgustedly. Askin’ all the wrong questions, they are.’
Joanna gave in. After a quick gesture at Mike she asked, ‘Who exactly is Frost?’
‘Was.’ O’Sullivan was excited now. ‘Or, to put it another bloody way, He Is No Longer With Us. He’s dead. She sat on the bed for a bloody hour, leavin’ me to do all the damned work. And that was that.’
They stared at him and he gave a smirk. ‘The cow didn’t tell you, did she?’
They shook their heads. ‘Staff Nurse Prince,’ he said rudely. ‘No. This Selkirk business is not the first bit of trouble she’s had. It was about a year or so ago she was on night duty. Michael Frost was a patient.’ He grinned. ‘Sorry, a depressed patient. She thought she could play the part of God and the Virgin Mary rolled into one. Only something went wrong. He dived out of the window. Dead.’ His blue eyes met Joanna’s confidently. ‘Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? Two patients, two violent deaths, one nurse.’
‘O’Sullivan,’ Joanna said. ‘We aren’t here to discuss what happened to Michael Frost. We’re investigating the abduction and murder of Jonathan Selkirk.’
‘Maybe they’re connected,’ the Irishman said, tapping the side of his nose in an age-old gesture. ‘And I don’t suppose that bitch of a Staff Nurse told you the half of it, did she?’
Mike stood up.
‘The family sent letters to the hospital. Nasty letters. You see, Frost had a sister. And she was very upset about it. Now, if you’ve got any sense,’ he said, ‘you’ll be looking into all that.’ He stood up and leaned towards her. His thin face was deeply scored with spite.
‘The trouble with witnesses like that,’ Joanna said when O’Sullivan had finally gone, ‘is that you never know how much is truth, how much is spite and how much pure bloody fiction.’
Mike agreed. ‘Are you going to look into this Michael Frost business?’
Joanna thought for a moment. ‘Well,’ she said finally. ‘If I’m to be taken off Jonathan Selkirk’s little hole in the head I suppose I might as well do a little research of my own into this “unfortunate happening at the hospital”.’ She looked at him. ‘But I don’t honestly think the two incidents are connected. I’m sure it’s coincidence that Yolande Prince was on duty during them both.’ She stopped. ‘I have no suspicions of her at all. And the moment the RCS have finished with their part of the case I’m going to find out who footed the bill for Selkirk’s picnic in Gallows Wood.’
Mike’s eyes warmed as he watched her. ‘Glad to see you’re not going to give up, Jo,’ he said.
She frowned. ‘Definitely not. But O’Sullivan did say one thing that interested me,’ she said. ‘He mentioned the name Wilde. The name of Selkirk’s partner.’
‘Perhaps we’d better pay him a visit.’
‘Not now.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Mike, drop me off at the cottage, will you? I’m going to be late.’
She was late. The smell of scorched food greeted her as she opened the front door.
She found Matthew in the kitchen. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘You might have rung, Joanna,’ he said peevishly and she knew he was angry.
‘I really am sorry.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve actually had a pig of a day’ ‘She opened the oven door and looked at the dried- up lasagne. ‘Mmmm,’ she said.
‘It was quite nice an hour ago, Joanna,’ he said severely. She put her good arm around his neck. ‘We could get a take-away,’ she suggested.
‘It isn’t so bad that we have to abandon it.’ He was laughing now. It was one of the many things she loved about Matthew. He was never in poor humour for long. He grinned.
‘I’ve been listening to the news,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t hear about any arrest yet.’
He spooned some of the lasagne on to plates and carried them through with a large bowl of salad as she told him her news.
‘So the Regional Crime Squad are poised to swoop,’ she concluded gloomily. One of the most intriguing cases ever to hit the Moorlands and the bloody RCS have to dip their paws in.’
He commiserated with her while they ate and when they had finished he cleared away and filled their glasses. Then he handed her a square box, prettily wrapped in white paper with shiny red love hearts and a huge red bow.
‘For you,’ he said. ‘To cheer you up.’
‘I can’t open it, Matthew,’ she said, stupidly excited like a child on Christmas morning. ‘Not with this thing on my arm.’
‘Let me.’ He ripped off the paper and she saw the box.
Matthew’s face was tense. ‘I knew as soon as you were out of plaster you’d be back on your bike. I just want you to be safe, Joanna, and your old one was damaged in the accident. If you hadn’t been wearing it ...’
‘All right, all right,’ she said hastily. ‘Don’t go into all the gory details. I know. I had a close shave. I’ll be more careful in future.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Matthew said soberly. ‘I’ve seen the way you tear around on y
our bike.’ There was a touch of grim humour in his eyes. ‘It’s the speed you enjoy – and the danger. Your accident was inevitable. It was simply a matter of when, and how badly you’d be hurt.’
‘Matthew.’
He put his arm around her and drew her close to him.
‘There’s no point telling daredevils like you to be careful.’ He tapped the shell of the helmet. ‘All I can do is buy you safety gear.’
She was silent. There was so much that he was avoiding saying, but it chastened her all the same. He wasn’t reminding her that he had left a wife, a home, a child for her and that in return she had given him nothing. She wasn’t even careful of her own safety, and her job invariably won priorities. But he had said nothing. It was only on occasions like this that she was reminded of it all. And the knowledge dragged guilt in its wake, like a heavy ball and chain. With Matthew came responsibilities and commitment. It could never be a free, pure love because its price had been too high. A sudden flash came to her, remembered from her childhood, of an elderly, maiden aunt pointing out a divorced man walking with his new wife, arm in arm, staring into each other’s eyes, their steps jaunty. ‘Happiness can never be bought with misery,’ her aunt had said grimly. ‘Think of the poor wife.’ Joanna’s round, child’s eyes had absorbed the couple’s apparent contentment and she had doubted what she had seen. When she recalled the scene later on that night she seemed to remember the couple’s faces were sad and their steps slow. Now she looked at Matthew with that exact trace of sadness and shivered.
She felt agitated and cornered. ‘Matthew,’ she said softly.
He was watching her with that steady, quizzical look that made his face appear thin. He was waiting for her to give him her time, her affection, her commitment.
‘Matthew,’ she said again, awkwardly.
He stroked her hair. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you,’ he said, and then in an abrupt change of subject he picked up the helmet. ‘Come here. Let’s try it for size.’
She put it on her head and Matthew tightened the strap beneath her chin. He kissed her. ‘It’ll give me some peace of mind,’ he said, ‘next time I hear you’ve surfaced in casualty.’
And None Shall Sleep Page 9
