by Cari Hunter
“Bit of hush while I check this, please,” Meg said.
Squeezing the ventilation bag at a steady rate, she assessed the placement of the ET tube with her stethoscope. They could become dislodged during rapid transfers, but this one was right where it needed to be.
“Lovely.” She smiled at Kathy, the paramedic responsible for its insertion, who smiled back in relief. “Go ahead, hon. Everyone else, listen up.”
“Okay. Jimmy Taylor, forty-five years old. Found in a collapsed state by his wife at approximately six thirty. She was doing CPR when we arrived, but hadn’t been able to shift him off the bed. Initially in VF, shocked once, straight into asystole. He’s had”—Kathy checked the back of her glove, on which she’d scribbled her drugs—“four adrenaline. Due another about now. He’s a type two diabetic. Sugars are eight point six. High blood pressure and high cholesterol. Smokes thirty a day.”
“Cheers,” Meg said, wincing as the F1 from her previous shift made another mess of inserting a cannula. “Get him booked in as soon as, will you?”
“No worries. Wife should be here in a mo. She’s coming down with the Rapid Response para. Oh, and she said he’s allergic to strawberries.”
“Right, no strawberries. Probably the least of his worries.” Meg shook her head as Kathy laughed. “Go and put the kettle on.”
“Rhythm change.” A keen-eyed nurse was watching the monitor. “PEA.”
“Most likely due to the adrenaline.” Still pumping the bag with one hand, Meg peeled open Jimmy’s eyelids to find two blown pupils. “He’s already fixed and dilated. I don’t think we’re getting anything meaningful back from this.”
A murmur of assent rippled through the team. The F1 looked pale but resolute, under no illusions about the inevitable outcome of their efforts. Meg sighed. Even for one in such lousy general health, Jimmy had died far too young.
“Let’s give him the benefit, eh? We’ll have a look at his gases and go another couple of loops.” She glanced up at the red-faced nurse who was still doing compressions. “And can someone please take over from Liz before she pegs out as well?”
*
The doors to Resus edged open just as Meg dialled the oxygen down and disconnected the ET tube. She unplugged the monitor, and the alarm that had been sounding intermittently for the last half hour ceased.
Kathy poked her head through a gap in the curtains. “Mrs. Taylor’s in the Rellies’ Room.” She looked at Jimmy Taylor, splayed out and cooling on the bed. “Poor sod. They have three kids: ten, twelve, and fifteen.”
“Bloody hell,” Meg muttered. “Anyone come down with his wife?”
“No, but her mum’s on the way.”
Meg took off her gloves and plastic apron and flicked them into the nearest bin. “Cheers, Kathy. I want nothing but nice old grannies from you for the rest of the day.”
Kathy snorted. “I’ll see what I can do, Doc.”
Left alone behind the curtains, Meg brushed down her scrubs and ran a hand through her hair. She didn’t have a vain bone in her body, but she did want to appear professional. No matter how badly her own day had started, she was just about to make a complete stranger’s day infinitely worse.
“Dr. Fielding?”
Startled by the quiet voice, she looked up to see the F1 making an apologetic gesture.
“Sorry, I…” The F1 cleared her throat and tried again. “I was wondering if I could come with you when you speak to Mr. Taylor’s wife.” She met Meg’s gaze, despite her obvious trepidation. That was all Meg needed to reach her decision.
“Of course you can,” she said, and saw some of the tension ease from the F1’s posture. “Have you ever informed a relative of a death before?”
“No. Would I be okay just to observe?”
“Best way to learn.” Meg held the door for her. “Tell me your name again? I’ve got a mind like a sieve.”
“Emily. Emily Woodall. Yesterday was my first shift in A&E.”
“Bit of a baptism by fire today, then?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” The admission left her in a rush of breath.
Meg smiled, remembering her terrifying first few days on the job. “Well, at least you didn’t end up covered in vomit.”
Emily chuckled, but she sobered as they approached the Relatives’ Room. The nurse assigned to the role of family liaison opened the door at Meg’s knock and stepped aside to allow her to enter. Mellow light replaced the corridor’s harsh ceiling neon, and it took Meg’s eyes a moment to adjust. When they did, the familiar layout of the room took shape: the cupboard holding a kettle and china cups, and the low table with its vase of dried flowers carefully arranged beside a box of tissues. The chairs were pushed together to form a quasi-sofa, mimicking the design of a living room. As with most of the people who spent time sequestered there, Mrs. Taylor didn’t seem reassured by the home comforts. Her cup of coffee was still half-full, and two balled-up tissues rested on her lap. When she looked up at Meg, there wasn’t a flicker of hope in her eyes.
“Mrs. Taylor, my name is Dr. Fielding. I’ve been looking after your husband since he came into the hospital.” Meg took a step forward, broaching the gap. “May I sit down?”
Mrs. Taylor nodded, shifting her feet closer together even though there was ample space on the chairs. “He was always ‘Jimmy,’ never ‘Mr. Taylor,’” she said, unconsciously lapsing into past tense.
“‘Jimmy,’ right.” Meg sat at an angle, so she could look at Mrs. Taylor directly. “Jimmy’s heart wasn’t beating when the paramedics brought him here, and he wasn’t able to breathe for himself. Despite all of our efforts, we were unable to restart his heart.” She took care to speak clearly, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Mrs. Taylor was already weeping, her shoulders shaking as she tried to remain silent. Meg placed a hand on her arm. “He died, Mrs. Taylor. I’m very sorry.”
As if in slow motion, she watched the woman’s entire life crumble beneath the weight of those words: plans she and her husband might have made together, the financial security his job might have brought, holidays and Christmases they would never share, and then the realisation that she had three children who didn’t yet know their dad was dead.
“Oh God,” she whispered. “Oh God, the kids.” She buried her face in her hands, rocking and sobbing. “I want my mum.”
The liaison nurse gathered her close, pulling her away from Meg. Meg withdrew her hand but didn’t leave. Eventually, there would be questions Mrs. Taylor would need answering. Behind her, she heard Emily sniffle, and she surreptitiously passed a tissue. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the raw sounds of grief. Only two hours into her shift, she already felt exhausted. Sometimes, she wished she’d followed in her dad’s footsteps and become a plumber.
*
The route Sanne had chosen up Corvenden Edge was now more of a scramble than a path. That suited her fine. It gave her the opportunity to slow down, catch her breath, and take in the scenery around her. Beneath a bright blue sky, its few clouds mere high balls of fluff, the Peak District stretched for miles in every direction. The rounded shapes of ancient stones were distinct on the various summits, the occasional flash of white among them marking the locations of the more daring sheep.
Easily finding handholds, Sanne made swift progress up the final section. She climbed farther than she needed to and turned in a slow circle atop the highest boulder. To the west, the clough dipped away, the stream winding through its centre sparkling in the sunlight, its soft gurgle inaudible unless she faced it directly. To the east, the weathered rocks of Gillot Tor thrust up from the high plateau of Corvenden Moss. Ahead of her, the Pennine Way cut a line across the peat bogs covering the plateau. The path had been paved with huge stone slabs reclaimed from defunct mills, one of the few concessions made to hikers in that part of the Peaks. Once a walker left the Pennine Way, a map, a compass, and a sense of adventure were essential.
Sanne took a long drink from her water bladder and recapped the tube. Th
e paving would make short work of her next section, but only for a mile or so. After that, it would be a case of veering to the right, trying not to sink too deeply into the bogs, and hoping to connect with the other path, on the far side of Corvenden Moss. At some point, there would be a stile over a fence. All she had to do was find it. The prospect made her grin, and she hopped down off the rocks, keen to get going again.
Though dry and relatively flat, the millstones were unforgiving to run upon, and she was relieved to reach the way-marker signalling her turn. She added a small stone to the marker for luck, before casting an experienced eye over the undulating peat hags and groughs. The ground between the knolls looked firm, but she knew that was deceptive. On a previous run, her right leg had been sucked thigh-deep into a bog, and she had managed to scramble out only because her left was safely on solid ground. She set off more cautiously this time, jumping between thicker patches of vegetation less likely to collapse beneath her weight.
Occasionally she landed short, splashing mud up her ankles, but the recent sunny weather made the traverse less tricky than she had anticipated. With no low cloud to mar her view, she spotted the stile from some distance and adjusted her direction to aim toward it. Across the sheep fence, her route would swing south and climb again, leading up to her favourite part of the run, a stretch along Laddaw Ridge, before finally taking her back down to the reservoir where she had parked her car.
She was slogging up the steepest section of Laddaw Ridge when she heard the whistle. Piercing and panicked, there was no mistaking it for anything but a distress call. At first it sounded in a continuous wail, but then the person signalling seemed to remember the SOS code and blew with more purpose: three long blasts, a gap, another three blasts.
Sanne looked around, the exertion of the ascent and a sudden dread raising goose pimples on her arms. The breeze and the echoing hills made it hard to pinpoint the call’s source, but it was close by and somewhere ahead of her. She set off running again, stopping at intervals to listen and alter her course. Soon, though, she realised where the sound was originating, and she slowed to a walk.
“Bollocks,” she whispered, preparing herself for the worst. A fall or a suicide leap from the cliffs that edged this section of the ridge. It had to happen one of these days, and dog walkers or joggers were always the ones who found such victims. In all honesty, she was surprised it hadn’t happened to her sooner. She left the path and climbed onto the rocks, leaning out as far as she dared and catching a flash of movement below her.
“Hey!” she yelled, and was somewhat bemused to see two youngish lads at the cliff base begin to wave frantically and beckon her down. “Everything okay? Are you hurt?” Neither of them appeared injured, but something had obviously given them a fright. She didn’t know if they could hear her. Even straining to listen, she had trouble picking out their response.
“No—us,” one of them shouted back. He stepped to his right, pointing down to the grass at his feet, where Sanne saw a third figure, lying motionless. “Need—ambulance. Please—no signal.”
For a long moment, she just stared, shock addling her thoughts. She couldn’t discern much detail from where she was, but she could see enough to know that the woman hadn’t simply fallen or tried to take her own life. She yanked off her pack and found her mobile phone.
“Come on, come on, you fucking useless thing.” She clambered onto a different rock, watching the phone’s signal fluctuate and then hold. “Is she alive?” she shouted down, an unaccustomed tremor in her voice.
The boy’s response filtered up to her as she dialled 999.
“Yes. Just.”
Her call was answered on the first ring. She interrupted the operator to identify herself and give her police collar number.
“I need paramedics and police to Laddaw Ridge, off Corvenden, north of the reservoir at Rowlee. There’s a woman at the base of the rocks.”
“Is she injured?”
“Yes. I don’t think she’s conscious, and there’s blood all over her.”
“Are you with her, Detective?”
“No, I’m on the ridge above.” Sanne dug her fingernails into her palms, trying to be rational when all she wanted to do was get down there and help in some practical, hands-on way. “We’ll need Mountain Rescue and Helimed.” She glanced over the edge again, needing to be certain of what she had seen. The woman lying in the grass was still half-naked, and her hands were still tied. “Fucking hell,” she whispered. Then, louder, “Inform Detective Inspector Stanhope at EDSOP—shit, I mean East Derbyshire Special Ops. Let her know we have a probable kidnapping. She’ll want to get a team out here.”
The operator stammered a little, but repeated the name and the details. “ETA on Helimed is thirty minutes.”
“Right.” Sanne was already trying to visualise her path down through the rocks. “Tell them to look for a red survival bag. I’ll lay it out for them.”
“I’ll pass that on.”
Whatever else the woman might have said was lost as Sanne scrambled onto a lower slab at the edge of the cliff. She tucked the phone into the pocket of her shorts and re-shouldered her pack to free up her hands. Adrenaline and fear were making her limbs feel wobbly. Breathing through her nose to steady herself, she began to move with more purpose, turning to face the rocks and taking a first tentative step downward. She had never been a climber. She didn’t mind taking her chances for a good viewpoint, but that was as far as she went. Often enough, she had watched small groups of men and women suspended beneath the overhangs on Stanage Edge, their lives reliant on thin ropes and metal clips, and had never once envied them. Now, without safety lines or gear, she manoeuvred herself off ledges, into crevices, and through the tightest of gaps. She was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and the sharp gritstone soon started to rip into her exposed limbs. Ignoring the pain, she focused on her route and tried to block out the awful scene looming in her peripheral vision.
“Oh, shit!”
A loose stone toppled beneath her foot, and she slid, her hands flailing for a hold as she slipped between two boulders. Her left arm bore the brunt of her uncontrolled descent, losing a layer of skin from shoulder to elbow, before she landed heavily on a grassy outcropping. She doubled over, winded, a fresh bolt of pain making her vision swim.
“You need to come this way a bit. It’s not as steep.”
Her head shot up at the quiet instruction. About six feet below her, one of the boys was using a stick to indicate a simpler passage.
“Okay.” The word came out in a gasp. “I got it, thanks.”
He held out his hand to help her off the last rock, and she felt the sweat coating his palm and the fine shivers running through his body. His face was dirt-streaked, with wet smudges on both cheeks as if he had wiped tears away with his sleeve.
“She’s over here,” he said, setting off at a trot.
Sanne matched his pace without difficulty, and as they neared the woman, she caught hold of his arm to jerk him to a stop.
“Stay back. I’m a detective with the Derbyshire Police, and I need you and your mate to keep clear of her, okay?”
His eyes widened, but he nodded, his throat working as he tried to swallow. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen. The second lad must have heard her instruction. He began to tiptoe gingerly through the cotton grass and bracken toward them.
“We were camping. We didn’t do nothing to her. We just found her,” he said as he approached. He raised his hands as if to protest his innocence, but they were covered in blood, and he dropped them again to wipe them on his trousers, his efforts increasingly frantic. “She’s hurt her head. I was trying to stop it bleeding.” His voice broke and he started to cry. “I think she’s dying.”
“There’s a helicopter on the way for her.” Suspecting he needed distraction rather than comfort, Sanne upended her pack to retrieve her small first aid kit and her survival bag. “You got a knife?”
The boy sniffled but pulled a Swiss Army kni
fe from his pocket. When he offered it to her, she held out the bag instead.
“Cut it open as wide as it’ll go, and lay it out flat. Anchor it with stones if you need to. The pilot will be looking for it.”
She watched the lads begin their task. Then she started to walk slowly toward the woman, battening down the instinct to rush. As she approached, she noted the trampled vegetation, the rapidly abandoned camping gear, and the small puddle of vomit by the woman’s feet. Even at a cursory glance, Sanne was certain the boys were responsible for all of that. The woman was lying in a twisted heap at the base of the rocks and didn’t look as if she’d moved since landing there. Whether she had fallen or been thrown over the edge, Sanne had no way of knowing.
Kneeling beside her, Sanne placed two fingers against her throat, pressing with increasing force until she found the faint throb of a heartbeat.
“Jesus Christ,” she murmured, relief and revulsion hitting her simultaneously. The young woman was naked but for her bra and knickers, and the skin beneath Sanne’s fingers felt cold and clammy. Bright orange rope bound her wrists, and ligature marks stood out in bloody furrows around her ankles. Her features were difficult to ascertain. Her head had been shaved, haphazard chunks of hair clung to her scalp where the razor had skipped, and grotesque blue-black swellings closed both of her eyes. Bruises and lacerations covered the rest of her body, with new and old wounds crisscrossing each other, and her left leg was twisted at such a bizarre angle that it had to be fractured. Deeply unconscious, she showed no reaction to Sanne’s presence or touch.
Sanne floundered momentarily. She had never been solely responsible for a crime scene like this, and she was scared of fucking it up. There would be trace evidence all over the woman, evidence that might lead to her assailant being apprehended, so ideally she ought not to be moved or covered, and yet she was freezing and bleeding and completely exposed.
