Undercover at City Hospital

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘I agree with you,’ Hannah said surprisingly. ‘I’m devastated, of course, but I know you’re right. I trusted Jayne completely. I’d have trusted her with my kids, my husband. You’re right, she’s let us all down. But this isn’t about Jayne, Bella.’ Coming over, Hannah looked her in the eye and Bella felt her heart still as Hannah gave her that sympathetic, hesitant look Bella had used so many times herself when she was about to deliver bad news.

  ‘We’ve just had an alert from Ambulance Control. They’re bringing in a young man from a nursing home for palliative care, but apparently he’s taken a turn for the worse in the ambulance. His name’s Danny Burgess. His parents just called through from their car phone…’ The world seemed to stop. She could see Hannah’s mouth moving, even hear what she was saying, but her mind literally froze as she tried to take in what she was being told. ‘They’re on their way, but they said he was your fiancé, that maybe you were here and could be with him for them.’

  ‘For them?’ Anguished eyes lifted, horrible truth dawning as Hannah gently took her arm and sat her on the bench.

  ‘Danny might not make it till they get here.’

  The words thudded in one by one, each one imploding on the other till all she could hear was her pulse pounding in her temples. Acrid bile rose in her throat and Bella truly thought she was about to faint, but Hannah was holding her arms, holding her steady as she digested the news. ‘Is he in pain?’ Her voice sounded normal but her body was trembling. A million questions raced through her mind, but she was only able to voice one right now.

  ‘Not according to Ambulance Control,’ Hannah said softly as Bella sniffed loudly, trying to compose herself, trying to be brave for the worst moment of her life. Looking up, she halted Heath, who was coming over towards her, with a look, stopping him in his tracks, her eyes warning him to stay out of it.

  ‘Thank God,’ Bella replied, leaning on Hannah’s arm and walking shakily towards the door. ‘You wouldn’t want to be dying in agony in this place.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘OH, DANNY.’

  Climbing into the ambulance, Bella took his hand, not caring if she was in the way as the paramedics prepared to unload him, not even listening as they gave Heath the handover, just vaguely aware of Hannah’s hand on her shoulder as Danny was wheeled inside. She made a mental note to thank Hannah for staying back, for holding her up when she thought she might fall. Seeing him lying there so tall and gorgeous and somehow, despite it all, still proud, nothing else mattered any more. Jayne, Heath, Detective Miller all flew out of her mind. She just focused on the one person who really mattered now, the one person who deserved her undivided attention—for a little while longer at least.

  ‘Why aren’t we going to Resus?’ As they glided into a cubicle and the paramedics started to lift him over to the gurney, Bella could hear the hysterical note in her rising voice amid the calm order of the room.

  ‘He’s not for active treatment, Bella,’ Heath said, gently pulling her outside as Hannah assisted the paramedics. ‘We’re just to make him comfortable.’

  ‘No!’ Furious in denial, she shook her head. ‘Then why is he here? If he’s just to be made comfortable, why the hell did the nursing home call an ambulance and drag him out of bed?’

  ‘He needed suctioning,’ Heath broke in gently, ‘He needed full nursing care to make him comfortable, and the home don’t have the staff to provide it.’

  It didn’t make sense, none of it made sense. The last time she’d seen Danny he’d been sitting up, off his food perhaps, but sitting up none the less. But now…

  ‘He developed a chest infection last night,’ Heath explained, and she closed her eyes in regret, rueing the fact she hadn’t been home, riddled with guilt that the one time he’d needed her, the one time she’d let down her guard and started to live, Danny had started to die. And she hadn’t been there for him, hadn’t been in his corner, fighting, as horrible decisions had been made. Bella took Danny’s warm hand, holding it in hers, watching the rapid rise and fall of his chest, taking in the flushed face and parched lips. ‘The nursing home’s GP came out and started him on antibiotics, but the infection was overwhelming and he developed sepsis. He hasn’t responded to the antibiotics.’

  ‘But there are different antibiotics…’ Bella said, tears coming thick and fast now, desperate to be back in there beside him, yet knowing if she did she’d be letting him go, that it would all be over. ‘He needs to be in Resus. You need to do something, Heath. He’s not even thirty years old, for God’s sake!’

  ‘According to Danny’s notes and the letter from the nursing home, his parents agreed last night that he wasn’t for aggressive treatment, that in the event of a cardiac arrest he wasn’t to be resuscitated.’

  ‘No.’ Bella shook her head, simply refusing to accept it.

  ‘Joyce and Joe would never have agreed to that!’ Perplexed, Bella shook her head. ‘Never,’ she insisted, panic welling inside her, sure that somewhere along the line someone had got things wrong. ‘They still think he’s going to get better one day.’ She was shouting now, and it felt like before, felt like she was back to where it had all started, screaming for the staff to listen, to understand that Danny was really ill. ‘They think that we’ll get married one day—’

  ‘No, Bella, we don’t.’

  Joyce Burgess’s voice was firm as she made her way over, looking so much older than her fifty-five years, way too much pain etched on her face, the small ray of hope that had kept her going through this never-ending nightmare extinguished now, and it showed. Every line on her face deeper, tired eyes swollen from crying and yet there was an air of quiet dignity about her that reminded Bella of Danny as Joyce took her hand. ‘He’s had enough, Bella.’

  And she knew then it must be true. Joyce was giving in, Joyce the mother who had fought tooth and nail, had guarded her son so fiercely through these terrible times. She would never let go unless it really was over.

  ‘I need to be with him, Bella, and so do you.’

  And she did.

  But first there was something she needed to do. As Danny’s parents made their way into the cubicle Bella hesitated outside and looked up at Heath. Seeing the compassion overriding the anger in his expression, she screwed her eyes closed for a moment, leaving it to Heath to fill the horrible silence.

  ‘You have nothing to feel guilty—’

  ‘Don’t!’ Holding up a trembling hand, she halted him. ‘Please, don’t, Heath. I need to ask you something. If it doesn’t cause you any problems, would you mind…?’ Her voice petered out, but Heath finished her sentence for her.

  ‘You want me to hand Danny’s care over?’

  Bella nodded. ‘Please.’

  ‘I’ll let Martin Elmes know now.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with your medical skills—’

  ‘Bella,’ Heath broke in. ‘You don’t need to explain, I understand.’

  She was grateful for that at least. Grateful to Heath for keeping his distance. Danny deserved her undivided attention, deserved her absolute love for a little while longer, and deserved that last piece of dignity. Because, Bella realized as she walked inside and joined his parents, if it had been her lying there, if it had been the other way around, as much as she’d perhaps have understood, as much as she’d maybe have wanted Danny to move on, she wouldn’t have wanted his new lover looking after her.

  He deserved so much more.

  As Joyce held Danny’s hand, Bella brushed back his damp hair, tracing his eyebrows with her fingers, whispering gentle words of love as she did so.

  ‘Can I do anything for you?’ Hannah asked, her presence comforting but not intrusive, a privileged spectator, just there to support, no offence taken when no one looked up or answered.

  ‘I’m just going to give Danny a small injection.’ Moving the blanket slightly, Hannah went on, her voice low and reassuring. ‘It’s called atropine. It will dry up some of the secretions and make Danny’s breathing a bit m
ore comfortable.’ Swabbing his leg, Hannah replaced the blanket. ‘Now, would you like me to take out his NG tube?’ Still with her eyes on Danny, Bella gave a small nod.

  ‘Please. He always hated it.’ As Hannah went to put on gloves, Bella changed her mind, gently removing the tape from around his nose and performing the small task herself, wanting to do this for him, wanting to do something, anything to make this a little bit better for Danny. Gently taking out the wretched NG tube he hated so much, Bella held his hand and kissed his cheek over and over as his breathing slowed down, aware only peripherally of Joyce and Joe, and Hannah a solid support to all. Just taking every step of his final journey as far as she could with him, loving Danny as he deserved to be loved, wishing it could all somehow have been different, wishing quite simply that it didn’t have to be so.

  ‘It isn’t fair,’ Joe said when finally it was over, finally breaking down as he said goodbye to four years of hope.

  ‘No,’ Bella whispered, eyes curiously dry, numb with shock and exhaustion. ‘None of this is fair.’

  There it was.

  The sky just as blue as ever, tiny cotton-wool wisps of cloud burning away as the day warmed up, the air a touch stale outside Emergency, bins overflowing with cigarette butts and coffee cups, taxis pulling up at the rank and ambulances lined up waiting for their next call.

  Just the same as the last time she’d been there, only this time Danny was missing, missing from a world he had loved so much.

  ‘Can I give you a lift, honey?’

  Tired, tense, lighting a cigarette even as the sliding doors closed behind her, Hannah was there, just as she’d always been since Bella’s first day. Shooting a wink to an insecure newbie, holding the fort when the big guns had gone home and staying way over when she’d really been needed.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Bella gave a pale smile. ‘I’m just catching my breath for a few moments, then I’d better head down to the station.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be going home?’

  ‘Probably,’ Bella admitted. ‘I’ll just pop my head in, make sure they’ve got all the information they need from me.’

  ‘About Jayne…’ Hannah said, and her voice was so gentle, so kind, so worried Bella felt as if she might dissolve there and then.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Her words strangled in her throat. ‘I know you probably all hate me. I know you think—’

  ‘No.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘No, you don’t know what I think, Bella. Every time I come on shift I try to treat people the same way I’d want my own family to be treated. Try to smile when it’s horrible. My poor Ken’s got MS. He’s forty-five going on a hundred, and a more miserable, selfish man you couldn’t meet. Do this, get that, lift my leg, no, not that one. How I haven’t strangled him with my own bare hands I wonder myself sometimes. But I love him, Bella. I know that it’s all a show, know that it’s his way of staying in control when he’s lost everything else. Sometimes we end up here, more often than not at three in the morning, because his catheter’s blocked or his temperature’s high, and every time I hold my breath, every time I wait for someone to snap, to moan when he rings the bell for the fiftieth time or tells the doctor he’s way too young to know what he’s doing…’

  She was trying to be nice, trying and somehow failing to say the right thing and Bella couldn’t deal with it now. She screwed her eyes closed, willing Hannah to be quiet, to just go for a while and leave her alone.

  ‘I trust those guys and girls, trust them to know that as bad as it is for them to have Ken on their shift, I’ve got him day in day out at home. And do you know what, Bella? Not once to date have they let me down. Till today.’

  Tired eyes met Bella’s.

  ‘Jayne, for whatever reasons, was following a different agenda. You can’t do that in nursing.’

  ‘When I took this job,’ Bella gulped, ‘I told them that I wouldn’t compromise patient care, that whatever the cost to the case, while I was there—’

  ‘Because you’re a nurse,’ Hannah broke in. ‘Because that’s what you are. There’s a little piece inside you that a copper’s uniform will never take away…’ Her voice trailed off as she looked over Bella’s shoulder. She patted Bella on the arm and Bella knew, without looking, why. Knew without turning her head that Heath was beside her.

  ‘She’s talking about driving herself down to the station, Heath,’ Hannah said in a dry voice. ‘Can you talk some sense into her?’

  ‘Leave it to me.’ Heath smiled, but it was guarded. He nodded as Hannah drifted away, his hand reaching out for Bella then retracting as Bella pulled away, staring into the murky depths of her cold hot chocolate and trying to think of something to say but coming up with nothing.

  ‘You can’t drive,’ Heath said eventually. ‘Let me at least see you home.’

  ‘I need to go to the station first.’ She saw the doubt cloud his eyes, but Bella stood firm. ‘I really do need to.’

  ‘Then let me take you.’

  Too tired to argue, too wrapped up in her own emotions to even contemplate his, she let him lead her, stood as he opened the passenger door of the car, as docile as a sleepy child, sat as he clipped her in, tears filling her eyes and drying, a scream building in her throat then dissolving as she stared at the brown walls of Emergency, scarcely able to comprehend that Danny was in there, that, for him, it really was all over.

  She didn’t notice that they drove in silence. Only when Heath pulled up at the police station did Bella even realize they were there.

  ‘I’ll wait for you…’ Heath offered, but Bella shook her head.

  ‘Please, don’t. I’ve no idea how long I’ll be.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how long you are, I’m happy to—’

  ‘One of my colleagues will give me a lift home,’ Bella broke in and pulled open the passenger door, knowing he would call her back but beating him to it.

  ‘I know you hate me for lying, Heath, I know that perhaps it was wrong, but I’m not going to apologize for what I did.’ She watched as his fingers tightened around the steering-wheel, his jaw quilting as he clearly held back from saying what was on his mind.

  ‘Hannah gave Danny an injection before…’ She saw a tiny frown flicker between his eyes, knew he had no idea where this was leading. ‘And I knew, without thought or hesitation, that Hannah was acting in Danny’s interest. I don’t need to tell you what Danny, his parents and myself have been through. Today was the end of an agonizing journey and how it played out was entrusted to people like Hannah and yourself to make it not any better but certainly not any worse for us. Patients and their families don’t question what we’re doing to them. Oh, they might ask what a drug is called, or what it’s for, but they never question that we have anything other than their best interests at heart. That’s just as it should be, a natural assumption. Jayne’s maybe taken that away from your department. If this gets into the papers…’ She took a deep breath. ‘It was Jayne who let you down, Heath. Not me.’

  ‘You let me down, Bella.’ She could hear the strangled emotion in his voice. ‘We made love, you let me love a person I thought I knew.’

  ‘That was me.’ Anguished eyes turned to him. ‘And as much as I wanted to tell you, I couldn’t.’ She saw him shake his head, saw him open his mouth to argue, and her voice grew more insistent. ‘I couldn’t, Heath,’ she reiterated. ‘Sleeping with you had nothing to do with the case. In fact, it was possibly the most stupid thing I could have done, but it happened in spite of my work, in spite of everything that was happening in my life. My fiancé was dying and we were making love, you were a suspect in a case I was investigating. There were plenty of reasons not to get close to you, but it happened in spite of everything.’

  ‘Did you ever think it was me?’ It was as if he couldn’t even bear to look at her any more, staring fixedly ahead as he spoke.

  ‘No.’ Her voice was tiny. ‘Heath, I knew almost from the start that it was Jayne.’

  ‘Suppose you’d been wrong? Suppose you’d f
ound out that I was involved. What would you have done?’

  ‘Exactly what I did to Jayne.’

  Finally he looked at her, but it was like looking at a stranger. Hurt, pain, and anger were etched on every feature.

  ‘Just suppose that I had told you the truth, Heath. You’ve worked with Jayne for years. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t have warned her, tried to talk some sense into her before it was too late?’

  ‘What do you take me for?’ Heath argued.

  ‘A friend, a colleague, a leader of a close-knit team,’ Bella said softly. ‘You’ve known Jayne for years, you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t want to try and help her. I couldn’t risk it, Heath. You have to understand that. I’m trying to become a detective and that will mean there’s always going to be a part of me I can’t reveal, there’s always going to be things I cannot discuss.’ She watched his eyes shutter, watched him slowly, wearily shake his head.

  And maybe it was too much of an ask from a guy who had been let down before, and maybe today just wasn’t the day to be moving on. She stepped out of the car, stared at the firm set of his profile and knew he was as raw and as immovable as her.

  ‘Go home, Heath,’ she said softly, closing the door behind her. ‘Please.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘THANKS for coming in.’ Detective Miller wrapped a big arm around Bella’s shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze, and the sudden tender side of the man, brought fresh tears to her eyes. Her colleagues were the toughest of the lot and yet they supported each other, no questions asked, and could always be depended on to pull together in tough times. ‘The hospital called and told us what happened with Danny. How are you coping?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ Bella sniffed. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Detective Miller, but I don’t think I can face Jayne. I’m not sure I could hold it together long enough to interview her.’

  ‘That’s my department anyway.’ Detective Miller smiled. ‘You’re not a detective, remember?’