Life Sentence

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Not me. Your teams. And they’ve been as loyal as you could wish. But at least now some of them will get promotions, albeit temporary, until your future is settled. One way or another.’

  ‘I’ve got to do it, Mark.’ She realised the ambiguity. ‘Devon, I mean.’ And then realised it was only she who’d registered any ambiguity in the first place. So she was interested in Mark’s proposition.

  His face stern, he said, ‘You have to work out your notice. With luck, you’ll have sorted out the case by then.’ He played with the rough edges of the file. Suddenly, grinning like a schoolboy, he looked up. ‘Tell you what. Give yourself a fair chance. Pop into Personnel and put your departure date back a month or so.’

  As kind a dismissal as she could wish for then. But as she got to her feet, she asked, ‘How did you manage while Tina was so ill?’

  He blinked. Perhaps she’d been wrong to equate a wife with elderly parents. Or perhaps she was presuming too far. But at last he said, ‘I did a lot of tap and acro.’ He mimed frantic juggling. ‘And like you I found people more than ready to help out here. How many meetings did you go to in my place? How many interview panels?’

  She shook her head: that was nothing. She opened her mouth, then shut it.

  ‘Go on,’ he invited.

  She wrinkled her nose, the question was so crass. ‘You didn’t think of resigning to spend more time with her?’

  ‘I took a lot of unpaid leave, as you may have to do, but somewhere, deep down, I knew that however hard it was, after she’d gone, I’d need a job. This job. God Almighty, Fran. What would I do otherwise? Work part-time in the Cancer Research shop? I’d have died for that woman, but I have to live for me now.’

  Their eyes locked. In an instant, their uniforms disappeared.

  Was that why he’d asked her out for dinner? Not simply because he felt sorry for her?

  But it was his quasi-official voice that suggested, ‘Is Thursday still all right for dinner?’

  All she could manage was a nod.

  ‘It’s your mother. She’s been taken to hospital. You’ll have to come straight down. Now.’

  ‘Pa – I—’ I have a date with my boss in half an hour; it’s been arranged for days; I’m so looking forward to good food, good wine and—

  ‘I said, she’s in hospital. Your mother. You’ll have to come now.’

  ‘Pa—’

  ‘I can’t hear a word you’re saying.’

  Damn him, he’d switched off his hearing aid. She never knew whether it was intentional or accidental. It sure as hell prevented arguments. As did putting the phone down on the stream of questions she needed answers to.

  What was she shaking with? Anger at having the evening aborted? Or fear that what she’d been afraid would happen was at last coming to pass? That her mother was dying, which would leave her to work out what to do with her father? Or, deep down, that her mother wouldn’t die, that she’d had a stroke and would become a vegetable and she’d have to drop everything here and go to Devon immediately. Now. Before she was ready. Before she’d inured herself to the prospect of leaving behind everything important.

  What could be more important than your mother? Or your father, for that matter? Wasn’t it her duty to care for them both without complaint, just like hundreds and thousands of women all over the world did? She might be a career woman through and through but she was also their daughter.

  Just now the only imperative must be to get down there as quickly as possible. She must tell Mark. Phone or face-to-face? The latter would be more courteous.

  ‘But you’re going straight off? Just like that?’ Mark sounded concerned rather than angry. He got up, putting his hands on her shoulders to press her into a chair.

  ‘These days I keep an emergency bag in my car.’ It included a foil blanket, too, the sort serious walkers carried, in case her father locked her out as he sometimes did. With his hearing aid on the bedside table, all the knocking and ringing and shouting in the world wouldn’t raise him. ‘It’s always on the cards, isn’t it, one of them being taken really ill. And hospital sounds like really ill. If only Pa had said which one.’ Yes, he was much more forgetful these days. ‘It could be the cottage hospital, if it’s a minor problem, or, if it’s serious, acute care at Torbay or Exeter hospital.’

  ‘We’ll find out.’ Another kind smile. She found herself liking ‘we’. ‘What about work?’ That was his territory, after all, and he was entitled to ask. There was the small matter of her in-tray, not to mention how she’d cope on her return.

  ‘I’ll take a day’s annual leave,’ she assured him. ‘Two, if necessary.’

  ‘Holiday entitlement? You should ask Personnel for compassionate leave,’ he frowned.

  She nodded acknowledgement. Almost to herself she said, ‘There’s nothing here that can’t wait till next week. If there is, they can email or phone. It’s happened before.’

  ‘At least come and have a bite in the canteen. Half an hour. It’s not a matter of life or death.’ Grimacing, he reconsidered his words. ‘Oh, my God, I’m so sorry: it could be, couldn’t it? But you mustn’t try to drive all that way without eating. Come on. Please.’

  She hesitated. Should she be irritated or touched by this excess of concern? Heavens, she rebuked herself, the man knew first hand all the pressures on the healthy the sick could exert: he was just being kind. Did she wish it were more? Why, after thirty years of undemanding comradeship, were her hormones choosing this inopportune moment to hope it was?

  ‘You’ll be able to get some bottled water and a couple of decent snacks to eat en route.’ He smiled persuasively. ‘To spare yourself the delights of Burger King or whatever.’

  She found herself smiling back. After all, she told herself, she could just as well call Social Services and the surrounding hospitals from the canteen as from the car park. ‘Give me fifteen minutes to sort out my desk. I’ll meet you down there.’

  Mark had been busy. ‘Your mother’s in the Royal Devon and Exeter,’ he said, as he greeted her at the canteen door, fifteen minutes to the second later. ‘They won’t give me any details because I’m not family. But I also got the number of the duty social worker. She did speak to me.’ If he was in ACC mode people tended to jump when he told them to. Her only surprise was that he hadn’t persuaded the RD and E to do a Western roll. ‘She assures me that your father’s care worker will settle him for the night and switch his personal alarm on so all he has to do is press it if he’s taken ill too. Here – the hospital number’s programmed.’ But he must have seen how much her hand shook. He thumbed the pad and passed it across. ‘So you can have a sensible meal and take your time. Let the M25 clear a bit. And remember those speed cameras on the first stretch of the M3.’

  The hospital switchboard stayed resolutely engaged.

  At last she got through, only to find the ward line busy.

  ‘My betting is that she’s got another urinary tract infection,’ she said, seething with exasperation. ‘They make her doolally – or, in hospital speak, confused. For a short time, she’s as bad as if she’s had a stroke. But a couple of days on antibiotics and she’s back at home ruling the world again.’

  ‘So why the haste? Why not wait till tomorrow morning and see?’ He shook his head as if apologising for something.

  She wasn’t sure what it was.

  Why not wait? Unbidden, a fantasy presented itself in which the evening they’d projected culminated in his bed. Why not? Why not have the pleasure of waking up to the sound of breathing, to warmth? Because she wouldn’t have the willpower to sneak away at three for the drive to Devon? She made herself say, ‘Whatever happens to her, there’s my father. They’re like two playing cards, Mark. Neither can stand up on their own, but if one props the other – they can, just.’

  ‘Couldn’t a neighbour—?’

  She snorted with ironic laughter. ‘The only one they’re still on speaking terms is stone deaf. They’ve had terminal rows with everyone, from the f
olk next door to three of the four GPs in the practice. No one visits them who isn’t paid to.’

  ‘There’s no one else in the family?’

  ‘My sister. Hazel. They used to have huge rows with her too. But she fell in love with a Scottish clergyman, a widower with three children, and moved to a manse in Stornaway. Since she can’t get down at the drop of a hat, she’s been rehabilitated. They speak of her with a sigh as their special girl. Girl! She’s ten years older than I am. I was the afterthought, you see. The surprise. Or the nasty shock.’ She’d never thought of it like that before – the horror of finding yourself pregnant when you’d resolved not be. They’d never spoken of their joy at having a late baby so she presumed there was none.

  He looked at her steadily. Then, to her amazement, he got to his feet. ‘I’ll walk down to the car park with you, shall I?’

  It was in the car park that she saw him at seven-forty on the following Monday morning. She didn’t tell him she hadn’t been home first: there was no need to go, since she kept an emergency kit here, too, fresh clothes and a complete set of toiletries and make-up. Somehow she’d make it through the day on the few hours’ sleep she’d snatched before setting out at four in the morning. She could always resort to the last refuge of the exhausted – a Do Not Disturb notice on her door and ten minutes with her head down on her desk – across her lunchtime.

  ‘You’ve had a rough time then,’ he said. It was a statement rather than a question. He must have caught her with the sun running unforgiving fingers over her face.

  ‘Things have been easier. But the good news is that both my parents are back in their bungalow.’

  ‘Both? Was your father…?’

  ‘Don’t ask!’ But as they fell into step, she found herself saying, ‘I was right about Ma. It was an infection, and as soon as I reminded the medics they got her on to her usual antibiotics and she was lucid again within twenty-four hours.’ She managed to censor the details, much as she would have loved to pour everything into sympathetic ears. ‘But it was clear she couldn’t go straight back home, and Social Services baulked at the amount of care Pa’d need if I left him on his own, so I had a brainwave. I fixed them both respite care in a nursing home – I even secured a double room. Fine. The ambulance transferred Ma, and I managed to shoe-horn Pa into my car and deliver him. Friday, that was. On Saturday morning I mothballed the bungalow, went to check they were OK, and set off home. I’d got as far as the first Happy Eater when I had a phone call from the nursing home: Ma and Pa had decided that after all they didn’t like the place so they’d booked a taxi and got themselves home. So would I go back and sort them out.’ If only she could have rewound the words or at least said them in a less bitter voice.

  ‘So you were nearly halfway back here and you had to turn tail back to Devon?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And nurse them through the weekend?’

  ‘They slept a lot,’ she said, in exculpation. ‘I shopped and cooked – to replace all the food I’d thrown away,’ she added. Hell, as if he could be interested in such detail!

  For a moment he looked unsure of what to say. At last he managed a smile. ‘I haven’t had breakfast yet: would you care to join me?’ It sounded more like an invitation than an order, no rank involved.

  Through the haze of fatigue she groped for the right words. Girlish enthusiasm would be wrong; neither did she want surly acquiescence. In the end she choked back a yawn and nodded. No point in pretending she had energy for anything more. Except a spurt of optimism when he put his arm round her shoulders and gave what might have appeared to any watching officers an encouraging squeeze but to her felt like a promise of support. Comradely support, she told herself.

  That, even more than coffee and a full English breakfast, did much to revive her. A quick shower and she might feign positive alertness. Mark seemed inclined to linger over the meal, talking HQ gossip. The easeful comfort of it all. If only she could put her head down and sleep.

  But Mark, smiling, was urging her to her feet. ‘That case you said you’d take on: you’ll be wanting to see your new office and meet your colleagues, no doubt. I’ll walk down with you, shall I?’

  Chapter Five

  ‘Elise! Elise! This is really important! You must wake up. You must make a sign! You MUST. You’re not trying, are you? Damn you, try this!

  ‘My God, it’s left a mark. Right here on your cheek. You can actually see the mark of my hand. What if anyone sees it?

  ‘On the other hand, the ends might justify the means. If the new, minor pain wakes you, wouldn’t that be morally acceptable?

  ‘Have the doctors tried recently?

  ‘I’m sure that when you were first brought in, when you were in Intensive Care, they’d done all they could to bring you out of your coma. But now they’ve got other urgent cases to deal with, other matters of life and death. I suppose I shouldn’t blame them if they concentrated their efforts on them.

  ‘That doesn’t mean, though, not for one minute, that they should neglect you. The nursing staff – what few there are of them – certainly don’t: they do their very best. At least I’d like to believe they do. After all, you need round-the-clock care. I’m sure they would be first rate – if only they had enough time.

  ‘I have to do this, my dear. I have to. I don’t like doing it, but if no one else will, then it has to be me!

  ‘Oh, my God. I didn’t mean – I really didn’t mean… Such a vivid mark…

  ‘At least shaking you won’t leave a mark. And that might be just as effective.

  ‘Anything to get you out of this damned state.

  ‘No. Nothing. Nothing except a stain on my conscience as big as the stains on your cheeks.

  ‘Oh, Elise, my dear. I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘What do you think of it?’ Mark asked, standing on the threshold of her new office, just off the main CID one, as excitedly as if he’d given her some rash present. And in a way he had, Fran noted, amused and touched, despite wanting to do nothing more than sink into the fine new office chair in the fine new office with her name on the fine new door and go to sleep. Then she looked again at the nameplate: Detective Chief Superintendent Harman. That was quick! She laughed out loud. Mark must have moved mountains to get Personnel to change her designation so quickly.

  ‘Think! Wow, Mark, this is a dream office: carpet, this blond wood furniture!’ She explored her new kingdom. ‘Blinds that work. Lovely new computer. The furniture and equipment budget must have taken a real battering!’ she teased. Presumably this would become the new Chief Super’s office when she left – she’d feel guilty if he’d requisitioned all this especially for her. No, the room had probably needed renovating, and she’d leave so little mark on it her successor would assume all the work had been for him or her.

  He looked more bashful than apologetic. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t wangle full-time staff for you. With Martin that wouldn’t have been a problem, but we’ve got this new chief superintendent starting next week, remember…’

  She wouldn’t rub her face in an effort to recall the arrangements. But she could almost hear the grindings in her brain. Frank Martin, the old DCS, had been spirited away to the Home Office, that was it, leaving a vacancy that had remained unfilled for a month or so. And he was being replaced by – ‘Someone Henson? Ex-Met?’ she queried. For some reason she’d not been on the selection panel. Perhaps she should have been but had had to make one of her unscheduled dashes to Devon.

  ‘The same. You’ll have to negotiate with him for officers as and when you need them, I’m afraid. But remember, you always have my authority to make demands.’

  ‘Until I’ve thoroughly absorbed the contents of the file, I shan’t need anyone. After that, one bright DC should suffice. Mark, this is terrific: thank you.’

  He looked embarrassed. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to change his mind. ‘I hope you don’t mind the smell of paint.’


  ‘And new carpet. And – yes, good old-fashioned window polish. An olfactory feast.’

  They laughed. But he sobered quickly. ‘Look: I haven’t been able to cover all the meetings you were scheduled for this week – would you mind putting in an appearance? Just so we can update whoever takes your place? Both your places?’

  ‘Of course not. So long as I can doodle on my blotter and steal all the custard creams and be generally demob happy.’ She added more seriously, ‘I won’t let you down, Mark. I can guess who put his neck on the line for all this.’ She gestured.

  ‘I’m just sorry it took me so long to get all that pressure off you. Why didn’t you tell me how stretched you were, Fran?’ He dropped his voice so that as well as reproachful it might almost have been tender.

  How long had her standards been slipping so obviously? But she didn’t want to bring attention back to herself. ‘I bet it was you who got the bollocking for my mess up.’

  He didn’t deny it. Instead, awkward as a green boy, he asked, ‘How about another shot at dinner? What’s a good evening for you? Tomorrow?’

  What should have been a maidenly blush but turned into a full-scale flush reddened her cheeks. ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He hesitated. ‘Look, I’ve got a meeting in five minutes. I’ll book a table and call you with the details.’ Closing the door behind him, he escaped.

  Fran sat heavily in her new chair, staring at nothing. Why should a simple evening out be causing them both so much stress? Because it was the first time she’d been out for anything approaching a date since an abortive evening with – she could barely remember the man’s name! Clive Richardson, that was it. At the time, he’d seemed a very desirable bachelor, the first even to interest her since she’d lost Ian, the OU tutor with whom she’d hoped to share the rest of their lives, to his heart attack. Even now she knew she mustn’t think about Ian. It’d be better to turn her memory to Richardson. She’d met him, a businessman to the tips of his BMW Seven Series, at some fundraiser for the Police Benevolent Fund, and though neither might have expected to find any rapport with the other, they’d found themselves agreeing to meet for dinner. They’d been walking through the front door of the restaurant of his choice when her mother had phoned. Pa had had a heart attack.