by Cari Hunter
Eleanor’s voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Sanne?”
“Yes, boss?”
“You heard from your doctor friend today?”
Sanne nodded uneasily. She felt as if she had been caught cheating on an exam, conferring with someone who had insider knowledge. “She called me this morning,” she admitted.
“Did she tell you they might be waking our vic up later?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I want you there with me when they do.”
Sanne clamped her teeth shut before her jaw gave her away again. “Okay,” she said, once she was certain she had a modicum of control.
“I don’t go in for all this touchy-feely bullshit, but you spent a while talking to her on the moors.” Eleanor indicated that Sanne should walk with her. “So, there’s a chance she might have heard you and might respond to you when we try to interview her.”
“Pretty slim chance, boss.” Sanne didn’t want to talk Eleanor out of her decision, but her reasoning seemed out of character.
Eleanor lowered her voice. “That’s the official reason, at any rate. Unofficially, sitting in a hospital room with Sergeant Carlyle holds all the appeal of going for a root canal.”
Sanne laughed and then put a hand over her mouth. “Message received and understood, boss,” she whispered.
*
The hand Meg took hold of felt fragile, the bones delicate beneath its tissue-paper skin. She rested her fingers against the wrist’s visible pulse, counting out its irregularities and trying to gauge whether they were more pronounced than on her last visit. Down the corridor, someone wailed, then began to weep, then stopped to wail again, the sound setting Meg’s teeth on edge. She left her chair to pace to the small window, which looked out onto a patch of dry grass adjacent to the car park. Crates of milk were being delivered from a lorry, and a sparrow was vying with a goldfinch for the best nuts on the bird feeder.
“She had a settled night, and there have been no problems this morning.”
The nurse’s voice pulled Meg away from the uninspiring view. She had never seen the woman before, though that wasn’t unusual; staff turnover on the unit was an ongoing problem. She adjusted the bed’s pillows before she took her seat again, and the nurse smiled in approval at her apparent devotion.
“Did she manage her breakfast?” Meg asked. She fought the urge to return to the window and open it wide. The room was unpleasantly hot, and the lingering smell of a water infection pervaded its every corner.
“Most of it.” The nurse checked a fluid balance chart and closed the file with a snap. “She likes scrambled eggs.”
“Funny. She always used to hate them.” Meg ran a hand through her mum’s hair, making her mum beam at her with wet, pink gums. “She needs her teeth in. They keep leaving them out. There was supposed to be a note about it in her file.”
“Sorry, Miss…” The nurse checked the nameplate on the door and took a chance on Meg’s surname. “Fielding. I don’t usually work on this floor, but I’ll get someone in to sort that for you.”
“Not for me,” Meg said as the nurse left the room. “I’ve got teeth. See?” She smiled, baring hers.
Her mum chortled. “Teeth,” she said, and then looked forlorn, as if she had only just realised hers were missing.
“I’ll have a look for them, Mum. Stay there, okay?”
Meg left the bathroom door open so she could hear if her mum tried to get up. When Connie Fielding had been only sixty-two years old, she had started to grow uncharacteristically forgetful. Within eighteen months, her vascular dementia had advanced to a stage where she could no longer care for herself. She forgot to eat, even when the food was in front of her, and she became doubly incontinent. She would allow strangers into her home, and leave the door wide open when she ventured outside. She still wandered now, but the doors at each end of the Unit for the Elderly Mentally Ill required a code to unlock them, which meant that Meg no longer had to field calls from the people living in the house where her mum had grown up, letting her know that her mum was sitting on their garden swing again. The nursing home fees were a small fortune, but for the last two years her mum had been safe and clean and as happy as anyone could be who had lost all sense of herself.
“Right. Open wide.” The bottom teeth clacked against the top set as Meg fitted them into her mum’s mouth. “Much better.”
“Meg.” Her mum drew the word out, obviously grappling for the right information.
“Yes, Mum, it’s Meg.” Meg raised her mum’s hand and kissed the back of it, taking genuine pleasure in the tactility of their relationship. On a good day, her mum recognised her. On a bad day, she sat politely indifferent to Meg’s company and attention. For years, Meg had only spoken to her through her brother, and—thanks to his lifestyle choices—those conversations had been ill-tempered and sporadic at best.
The last time Meg had seen the sound-minded version of her mum, the hand she was currently holding had slapped her so hard she had gone to work with a swollen jaw. Nothing had really improved until the dementia had taken hold. Occasionally, the hours she spent with her mum felt like recompense for the time she had missed out on. At other times they made her feel devious, as if she were stealing comfort from an infant who couldn’t defend herself. Her mum remembered random things—a dress Meg had worn for a friend’s birthday party, the recipe for macaroons, the name of the teacher who had taught her to play the piano—but in the past three and a half years, she had never remembered the day that Meg had come out to her. Meg hoped she never would.
*
Standing closer to the cave’s entrance than on the previous night, Sanne was reminded of that awful thrill of being suspended at the top of a roller coaster, waiting for the drop. She had sweated through her Tyvek suit within minutes, and the way it clung to her body made her movements awkward and slow.
“Keep to the centre of the tunnel and don’t touch anything.” The forensics officer was too spent to put any inflection into his voice. He had probably been at the caves all night. He issued Sanne and Nelson hardhats with torches attached. “Twiddle this to adjust the size,” he told them, indicating a dial that tightened the interior mesh. He wandered away to consult with a colleague, and Sanne took the opportunity to correct the angle of Nelson’s torch.
“Try that,” she said. “Perfect.”
He looked as ridiculous in his outfit as she was sure she looked in hers, but he didn’t seem inclined to joke about it, and she certainly wasn’t in the mood to do so. Instead, she peered into the jagged opening. Beyond the scant reach of her torch, she couldn’t see a thing, and the cool air filtering toward her dried her lips and left them tasting of smoke. By her feet, forensic tags identified where the pieces of pallet had lain. The wood was still undergoing analysis in the lab, but she had heard through the grapevine that smears of blood had been found on two of the fire-damaged slats.
She stood up as the officer returned.
“All set?” he asked, already hurrying past them. “Passageway is uneven, so take it nice and steady. Cavers say there hasn’t been a collapse in this section for at least a month, so we should be okay.”
On that note of dubious optimism, he led them forward in a line. Sanne brought up the rear, trying to ignore the rasp of her breathing as it echoed through the tunnel. Above her, the stone glistened where water beaded and dripped, and there was little traction underfoot. She heard Nelson swear and then warn her about a puddle. In avoiding it, she slipped and bumped her leg on the wall. She shook her head as she righted herself. They had lights and a guide, yet they were struggling to make progress, so how the hell had the woman managed to find her way out?
Within a couple of minutes, the mounting odour of smoke and something unmistakeably putrid told Sanne they were close to their destination. She rounded a corner and found Nelson preparing to pass through a narrow gap in the side wall. He had waited for her to catch up to make sure she didn’t continue straight on.
/> “Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse,” he said, ducking low and squeezing himself into the opening.
She took his hand, as much for the comfort of his touch as his assistance, and allowed him to steer her through.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
The enclosed nature of the chamber limited the circulation of the air and concentrated the smell to an almost unbearable degree. Foul smoke and the fumes from an accelerant did little to mask the stench of loosened bowels, stale urine, and vomit. Sanne tasted bile at the back of her throat, but she waved away the proffered mask. Knowing she would grow accustomed to the smell, she was reluctant to exacerbate the sensation of suffocation by covering her face.
As the nausea slowly faded, she began to look around with more confidence. The cavern was a naturally occurring space approximately fifteen feet across, with a ceiling she could graze with her fingertips if she stood on tiptoe. Clusters of smooth stalagmites and stalactites had formed in the dampest sections, giving an incongruous fairy-grotto appearance to a place that had evidently been utilised for torture. The only way in was the gap through which they had just crawled. The temperature was uncomfortably low, and there was no source of natural light. Sanne’s primary school had once taken her class on a visit to the Castleton caverns as an end-of-term treat: deep underground, their tour guide had flicked a switch and extinguished all the lights, plunging them into absolute darkness. He had turned them on again within seconds, of course, but she still remembered the disturbing impression of staring into the void, and the way Meg had clutched her hand and shrieked. Without their torches and the Forensics generator that kept a series of small lamps burning, this chamber would be as dark as the Castleton mine. She didn’t want to think about someone being imprisoned for days here. She didn’t even want to stay half an hour.
“All of the forensic samples were gathered from this corner,” the officer said, pointing to the area closest to the entrance. “Our medical exam of the vic detected signs of lividity that suggested she spent most of her time lying on her left side. The distribution of faecal matter and vomit would support that.”
For a long moment, Sanne stared at the forensic markers. Following the officer’s example, she detached herself from her knowledge of the victim in order to visualise the scene.
“Huh…” Nelson began, and Sanne spotted the anomaly at the same moment.
“So, if she was over here, why was the seat of the fire right over there?” she asked, crossing to a sooty area of rock on the far side of the cavern. “He must have known it wouldn’t burn well. If he came back to cover his tracks, why risk leaving potential clues?”
“We don’t know that he has,” the officer said. “The only prints we’ve lifted have been partials belonging to the vic. There was no semen, and I’m guessing she was the only one forced to use this place as a toilet. We’ve found no trace of him at all. Maybe he just stored stuff in that corner that he didn’t want to get covered in shit.”
The beam from Nelson’s torch created a lively shadow display on the walls as he walked over to Sanne. “He comes back to continue where he left off and finds she’s already gone,” he said. “He has no idea where she’s run to, so he cuts his losses and focuses on hiding the evidence of his own involvement, because he knows that at some point she’s likely to be found.”
“That weird smell,” the officer said, “that’s bleach. He scrubbed some of the surfaces down before he resorted to torching them.”
“He’s not stupid, then,” Sanne said. “Somehow he’s managed to kidnap a woman and get her here without anyone seeing or hearing anything. Plus, he has basic forensic know-how.”
“Every bugger has, these days,” the officer muttered. “I went to a scene on Halshaw the other week, and some scrote who was barely out of nappies asked me why I wasn’t using luminol.”
“CSI effect,” Nelson said.
The officer scowled at him. “I fucking hate that show.”
Sanne squatted and touched her gloved hand to the fire-darkened rock. A filmy residue gathered on her fingertips: petrol, bleach, water, she couldn’t tell which, but the perpetrator clearly hadn’t left anything to chance. She took her notepad from her suit and sketched a rough outline of the chamber, estimating the dimensions and highlighting the two areas.
“He went to a lot of trouble, didn’t he?” the officer said, as she tucked away her pad. “The vicious bastard.”
Sanne exchanged a troubled glance with Nelson. Whatever the perp had been doing, the woman had ended it prematurely by managing to escape, but it was probably only a matter of time before he tried again with another victim, and men like him tended to learn from their mistakes.
Chapter Nine
The Quad was a well-loved haven for the staff of Sheffield Royal. A square of landscaped grass with a generous allocation of benches, it was tucked away behind the Outpatients block and accessible only by those lucky enough to have a swipe card. When the weather was fine, it was the perfect place to eat lunch, and staggered shifts with unpredictable break times meant that people were almost guaranteed to find a seat. At four thirty, with the hum of traffic already building on the main roads around the hospital, Meg had the Quad to herself. She chose a bench in a sunny spot and unwrapped the foil from her sandwich. The limp white bread looked wholly unappetising, but she crammed a handful of cheese crisps on top of the ham filling and took a bite regardless. Fitting the sandwich into her mouth without losing any of the crisps was such a tricky endeavour that she didn’t realise someone was standing beside her until she noticed a pair of pink Crocs.
“Oh, hey,” she said, and dabbed crumbs from her lips. “Did you want to sit down?” She shoved her bag onto the grass to make space.
Emily sat next to her. “Thanks. I’m not disturbing you, am I? We had a sixty-five-year-old go off in Resus, and everyone’s breaks got pushed back.”
Meg waved away her concerns. “Not at all. How’s the patient?”
“On her way to HDU.” Emily began to unpack a series of Tupperware boxes, and Meg watched, mesmerised, as she produced a napkin-wrapped knife and fork. As the lids came off the picnic, Meg squashed her sandwich between both hands, hoping to disguise the fact that its main ingredient was half a packet of crisps.
“She was a status asthmaticus,” Emily added, spearing a cherry tomato with her fork.
“Nasty business.” Over her sandwich, Meg took a surreptitious peek at the spread Emily had laid out. It smelled delicious, but the only thing she could identify was a tub of salad. Never having had much pride to swallow, she just went ahead and asked. “What the hell have you got there? Because it beats my ham-and-Quaver butty hands down.”
Emily laughed. “God, I love Quavers. I’ve not had them for years, though. My last partner was a bit of a health nut, and I got out of the habit of buying junk.” Meg offered her the crisp packet, and she dug her hand into it. “I have hummus, carrot sticks, and celery,” she continued, between crunches, “and three-bean salad with pitta.”
Meg pulled a sceptical face. Suddenly, her sandwich didn’t seem so bad. Emily must have noticed, because she scooped up a blob of mush on a carrot stick and held it out.
“It looks like baby food,” Meg said, but she took it anyway, just to be polite. It was palatable, despite its weird texture. “Hmm. Actually, that’s not bad.”
“Tin of chickpeas, lemon, garlic, spices, and a bit of olive oil. Throw it all in a blender, and Bob’s your uncle.”
“Of course, you made it yourself.” Meg wasn’t really surprised. She had been pleased with her own lunch-making efforts until then. It was a good day indeed when she had a filling other than jam. “I’m not much of a cook. I like trying, but San says I’m a danger to myself and others.”
Emily arranged the food so that Meg could help herself, and dipped a Quaver into the hummus. “Who’s San?”
“It’s Sanne, really, Sanne Jensen. She’s the detective from the shock room yesterday. The one at the back wi
th the evidence bags?”
“Oh, the cute one in the shorts?”
Meg choked on a piece of celery and felt her cheeks redden as she coughed. Apparently, there was more to Emily Woodall than her clipped BBC tones and prim fashion sense might suggest.
Emily grinned as she passed Meg a bottle of water. She seemed delighted to have wrong-footed her unflappable mentor. “Sanne Jensen…Is that Swedish? She didn’t look very Swedish.”
The familiar misconception made Meg smile. “I think it might be Danish or Dutch. Her parents are English through and through, though, and San’s never been out of this country.” There was a story behind the name, but it wasn’t hers to tell. She wasn’t even sure if Sanne’s siblings knew it, and it had taken Sanne a good few years before she shared it with Meg.
“I like it. It’s unusual,” Emily said. “It beats some of the idiotic things parents are calling their kids these days.”
Meg raised her water in a toast. “To Bailey-Kaden: may you grow up to outshine your moniker.”
They tapped their bottles together and settled back on the bench. Meg closed her eyes and relished the sun on her face.
“So, you and Sanne.” Emily spoke hesitantly, and Meg kept her eyes shut, knowing what would come next. There was a long pause, followed by the rapid-fire snaps of Emily replacing the tub lids. “No, never mind. It’s none of my business.”
“I don’t know what we are,” Meg said, and the sound of movement stopped. “I love her to bits, but”—she floundered for the rest of the thought, before deciding to keep things simple—“but we’re not together.” She wondered whether she should offer to set Emily up with an introduction or even a date, but a possessive little stirring of jealousy kept her quiet.
Emily chose to change the subject entirely. “Why are you here so early? I didn’t think you were on till six.”
“I’m not. Dr. Maxwell rang me. He’s going to stop the sedation on our mystery woman.”
