Life Sentence

by Judith Cutler

  For a moment he thought that if he held out his arms she’d fall into them.

  But she smiled bravely. ‘All the more reason for a shower. The canteen at eight-fifteen?’

  Half an hour later they were in the canteen. It was good job there wasn’t some sort of test on this conversation either. There hadn’t been many silences, and certainly no awkward pauses. Words had drifted backwards and forwards, punctuated by smiles that were more openly shifting from comradely to affectionate. He’d found himself watching the way she spooned her muesli, liking the shape of her hands, even the way she held the spoon. At one point he absently stretched a finger to catch a trickle down her cheek from her shower-wet hair. In a lowlier officer that would have made him the laughing-stock of the canteen, subject to sniggers behind cupped hands. At least they were spared overt teasing: chief superintendents were almost certainly above coarse ribbing; ACCs definitely were. Unless the Chief chose to exert a little camaraderie.

  Fran must concentrate. She must. Otherwise she’d go into a daydream about Mark and crash or simply go into a dream and crash. So she kept the heater off and the window down.

  As minor roads went, the B2067 wasn’t inspiring, although it went through lush and well-wooded farming land. Technically it was the most direct route from Tenterden to Hythe, but, snaking round as if made by the proverbial English drunkard, it was much slower than the longer route using the M20 and the A28. Assuming that Tenterden was where you were heading, of course. Or, conversely, Hythe. There was no indication, on file at least, that Elise had business in either. Nor was there any evidence that she had been driving along the road where she’d been assaulted. So had she been attacked elsewhere and dropped where her assailant hoped no one would find her? If so, why hadn’t he carried her further from the road? Even from where Fran stood, she could see thickets and overgrown hedges: this was one corner of Kent where they hadn’t been obsessed by efficiency and mega-fields.

  Turning her back to the wind, she leafed through the notes she’d made on the information in the original file. There were the tracks of a large vehicle parked a hundred yards further down the road towards Hythe, but the driver had never come forward, and there’d been no reason to link Elise with a lorry. If Fran couldn’t imagine herself hitching a lift in an HGV, there was no reason to assume a woman of the same generation would, even if her car had thoroughly broken down. She’d stay with her car and use her mobile to call the AA or whatever: other middle-aged women tended to rely on motoring organisations to solve even basic problems like flat tyres.

  What if – like so many rural parts of the county – this was a mobile black spot? That was easily tested. No, she had no problem dialling her own home number.

  What if Elise hadn’t had a mobile?

  Come on: this was the twenty-first century. But you couldn’t check all the records of all the mobile phone companies, not until you had a full name to go on.

  What if you assumed – just for a moment – that she didn’t have one, what would she do? Surely, if a kindly – or otherwise – driver stopped, she’d lock herself in her car and simply ask them to phone for help. Wouldn’t she?

  All the same, Fran wrote, LORRY???

  She knew that her predecessors on the case had checked and double-checked all the women called Elise on the Hythe area’s electoral roll. There were very few, and all were present and correct. The same applied to Tenterden and even – yes, her colleagues had done their best – to Folkestone, New Romney and Ashford.

  The wind brought a sudden burst of rain. Poor Elise: this was a lonely enough spot to have lain dying, until some kind stranger had come along to try and save you. Alan Pitt. And all he’d done, according to the notes, was postpone the event. Had he even done that? Had she not died as he’d pumped her chest and breathed air from his own lungs into her? The kiss of life. Or, in this poor woman’s case, the kiss of an unconscious life.

  Fran huddled back into her car. No bolts from the blue to report to Mark. Should she call with a nil return? It was tempting, just to hear his voice. No. He was an ACC, for God’s sake, with a caseload to match his rank. All the same, she checked she’d left her mobile on before she retraced her steps to the A2070, and turned towards Ashford and the William Harvey Hospital.

  As she tapped her registration number into the pay and display machine, she recalled all the times she’d dramatically slewed a police vehicle into a reserved parking slot and dashed into an A and E to gather what she could from a victim of some sort of violence or another. RTAs; binge drinking; domestic abuse: whatever the event, they’d resulted in trauma not just for the person on the stretcher but for the officers dealing with the incident. She’d lost count of the times that in her early career she’d lobbied management at national level for emotional support for them. Now counselling was as routine as debriefing. Yes, crime-solving apart, she’d achieved something in her years in the service.

  The modern entrance, with its little shops, was nothing like the forbidding echoing entrances she recalled, and she missed the old-fashioned smell of disinfectant, reassuring patients and visitors alike that the fight against infection was being waged with all matron’s might.

  Fran knew better than to expect long regimented rows of hospital-cornered beds, either, though she was obscurely surprised that Elise should be cared for on an ordinary ward. Wouldn’t you expect privacy for her? If not for the dying woman herself, for the sake of those still hoping to recover? Flashing her ID, she introduced herself to the little gaggle at the nurses’ station – the new uniforms no longer clearly marked out sisters or staff nurses.

  ‘I’m looking for Elise, your PVS patient,’ she said.

  ‘Hang on a mo’.’ A weedy young man ran a finger down a chart. An agency nurse? At least the staff back in Exeter had known exactly where her mother was located. Perhaps it was because they’d expected some sort of positive outcome. ‘Way down there on your left. Far as you can go. Stop by the fire doors. She’s there.’ He gestured vaguely, and turned back to the others.

  Some eyes turned incuriously at Fran as she walked along the corridor, beds in bays on one side of her. Other patients were involved in animated conversations with their neighbours or with visitors. But as she stopped by the bed marked simply Elise. Nil by Mouth. Mr Taverner, she had a sense that she was arousing interest, perhaps because of her height and air of authority. Her outdoor clothes would tell anyone caring enough to work it out that she wasn’t another hospital-based neurologist. Nor, of course, was she accompanied by a team of students as likely to be as worried by their debts as by the consultant’s testing questions.

  Elise. It was a pretty enough name, and some part of Fran expected a sweet-faced doll-like figure to be lying like a child asleep. What she found was a gaunt spectre of a woman, topped by uneven tufts of streaky grey hair, deep scars and cheeks and mouth collapsed. The medical report had mentioned broken teeth. Clearly a set of dentures to fill the gaps would have been inappropriate. Fran’s tongue ran round her own mouth, checking on the crowns and bridgework that maintained her own oral elegance.

  Tubes went into and presumably came out of the tortured looking body. A conscious patient would have been bullied into physiotherapy to repair damage after surgery. Elise’s tendons and muscles were doing whatever they wanted, irrespective of their proper functions, it seemed, with a life of their own, unconnected with reality. They were anchored with splints.

  Aware of a presence beside her, Fran remarked sadly, ‘A broken puppet pulled by a drunken puppet master.’

  ‘With the drips and drains as badly connected strings,’ agreed a man about her own age. He might have been younger: he had compensated for balding by growing a beard Fran would have thought might be unhygienic. His shoulder tags should have told her his rank, which she presumed was senior. What she would have welcomed was a good old-fashioned, navy-blue uniformed ward sister. Instead she had Charge Nurse Mike Penn, according to his name-badge.

  ‘Are you here because you
’ve caught the man who did this to her?’

  Fran shook her head. ‘Not yet. But I will. I promise you I will.’

  ‘Promise this poor creature, not me. Assault. Rape. Leaves her for dead but doesn’t bother to make sure. Bastard. Catch him and string him up, Chief Superintendent Harman.’

  So the lad at the nurses’ station had been more alert than he’d looked. She could have done without the slightly ironic emphasis on Chief however.

  ‘Ms Harman will do,’ she said. ‘Locking up and throwing away the key is the best I can manage. And to do that I’d need the cooperation of twelve good jurors, not to mention a judge. Have you been nursing her long?’

  ‘Since she came on this ward.’ Penn seemed ready to bridle.

  Fran gave a placatory nod. ‘So it’s your responsibility to make sure she’s turned and fed and whatever.’

  ‘My responsibility. She’s turned to prevent sores, cleaned, powdered. All the palliative care we can offer.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ But Fran had lost interest. It was the very first person to have seen Elise that she wanted. Initial impressions – it was those that were vital. ‘Poor woman,’ she continued, as much for something to say as anything. ‘Trapped inside there. Totally at the mercy of strangers. No friends, no visitors—’

  ‘You’re wrong there. She does have a friend. A visitor. A middle-aged man. He comes by at least once a week. Sometimes more. Talks to her a bit. Kisses her forehead. Goes.’

  ‘Really!’ And why, for goodness’ sake, had no one deigned to tell her colleagues about him? ‘What does he say?’

  A shrug prompted her, but hardly encouraged her to continue, ‘Any idea who the man might be?’

  Penn shrugged again. ‘We can’t check up on all the visitors, Ms Harman. Few of my staff are here long enough to get to know their patients, let alone any chance visitors.’

  Much as she wanted to throttle him she’d try a gentler approach. But why was the man so firmly on the defensive? ‘Of course not. It must be quite a problem, running a busy ward like this with so many agency staff?’

  ‘It plays havoc with our budgets but they’re all good nurses.’

  She tried again, reminding herself it was easier to question someone on your side. ‘But – like my colleagues – so very young!’

  ‘The doctors too. And orchestral musicians.’

  That was a surprise. But before Fran could ask about it, Penn’s pager beeped and he set off at a brisk walk, Fran in tow. Neither, Fran noticed, said goodbye to the patient. A double step brought them level.

  ‘Is it possible to check Elise’s medical file again? I could go through all the official palaver—’

  ‘No need to do that. If you come to the nurses’ station I can give you her file – so long as you read it there, of course. She’s still an ongoing case so it hasn’t been archived.’

  The scribbles didn’t mean much to Fran. She might have done better to reread the transcript or even the summary in the police file. But she wanted to get a sense of any urgency in the initial treatment from the writing, the punctuation – even the spelling mistakes, if there were any. DOA seemed pretty bleak. But there were all sorts of details of drugs, each initialled. It was the names behind the initials she wanted.

  And the name of the solitary and affectionate visitor.

  Mike Penn was the obvious source of information, so Fran waited, trying to close her mind to other waits in other hospitals, till he reappeared. She blew a mental kiss in Mark’s direction: how long was it since she’d passed half a morning without worrying what might be happening in Devon? She’d always told underlings with problems that worrying never did any good and could well do harm.

  Mark had done better then tell. He’d filled her mind with other things. Not least with him, even if he hadn’t meant to. Was she just grateful for being cared for? No, the emotion felt stronger than gratitude. Lust? No, there were too many years of simple friendship and now days of kindness for that to be all.

  She rubbed her face: if only she weren’t so tired all the time. Two years ago, she’d have been winging her way to the next part of the investigation; now all she wanted was a cup of strong coffee. What might do her good was a hairdo – a colour, if she could persuade Suzanne to slot her into the last appointment of the day. Yawning, she summoned the number from the phone’s memory.

  ‘No mobiles in hospitals, Chief Superintendent, if you don’t mind.’

  Penn must simply be making a point. A glance into the ward showed at least five women texting or chattering away. To flare up or not to flare up? Fran compromised with an ironic smile and replaced the mobile in her bag.

  ‘But we might as well make use of modern technology,’ she said. ‘Would you or one of your colleagues page me the minute he appears?’

  ‘This is a busy hospital, not a dating agency.’

  Fran was puzzled. She’d thought they might become allies. If they weren’t, she wasn’t going to play games. ‘In that case, simply ask Elise’s visitor his name if he turns up.’

  ‘Against all our rules, Superintendent,’ he said flatly. No, there was an edge to it, as if he wanted to be challenged.

  She registered the demotion. So the man wanted war. He could have it. ‘This is a serious assault investigation, Mr Penn, likely to become a murder inquiry. I could simply post one of my officers here all day every day, but, like yours, my resources are limited. And I fancy six foot two of indisputable police flesh might cause a stir on the ward.’ As she got into gear, to her fury she started a flush. A burning, scarlet affair.

  Penn watched, with what looked like sour amusement. ‘The sooner you get some HRT inside you the better you’ll be.’

  How dare he! If her face was red, her voice was icy. ‘Here’s my mobile number. Next time he comes, I want to know.’ She flicked her card on to the desk. ‘Now, I need to identify some of these people.’ As, bridling, Penn hesitated, she added, ‘We both want justice for that poor creature. I want to interview the people who treated her on day one. Yes, they’ll already have talked to my colleagues till they were blue in the face. But I shall be a new set of ears to hear their responses to what may be a new set of questions. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?’ She managed the smile that had wheedled information out of people more intractable than Penn. Would it work now?

  Just about. Penn’s face was still sour and grudging as he leant, stiff-necked, to take a sideways glance. ‘JT: Jim Taverner’s the consultant neurologist in charge.’ He pointed with an index finger with a surprising nicotine stain. ‘Those are his registrar, his senior reg, a houseman. That’d be the A and E senior reg, Verity Kilvert – she’s still there now, as far as I know. You might catch Taverner in his Outpatients’ clinic or on his rounds.’

  Any of them might be less grudging than Penn, Fran reasoned. Had she done something to rub up Penn the wrong way? Or was he simply unpleasant by nature? There was no point in pondering it now – the answer would come if Penn called her when the unknown visitor appeared.

  Chapter Nine

  Fran was surprised to find A and E almost calm. To be sure, she’d spent most of her time there either at peak time when it was full of drunks or when there’d been a major incident. A labourer still muddy from a building site was sitting quietly with a blood-soaked rag round a finger. A toddler was neither sitting nor quiet, his dazed looking mother making no apparent effort to stop him strewing the tired magazines on the floor and noisily shaking each unoccupied chair. Fran retrieved a fistful of the magazines, slamming them down on the low table with sufficient force to rouse the labourer, who smiled ironically, but not the mother.

  ‘You could do with a cage for them,’ Fran suggested to the receptionist, her usual line – not quite a joke – drawing a smile. ‘Which is the sick one, the mother or the child?’

  ‘The child, though you’d never believe it, would you? And if he is ill, he should be at his GP’s. But you know how it is,’ she sighed. ‘How can I help you, Chief Superintendent? You’re
a bit elevated for a personal visit, aren’t you? We usually get lowly constables, maybe a sergeant on a good day.’

  Fran returned her grin. ‘I needed a day out of the office.’

  ‘So do we all.’ She winced as the toddler burst into furious howls. ‘But I’d go for a blow on the beach, if I had any choice. Along that new promenade at Hythe, maybe. And I’d treat myself to some goodies at Waitrose.’

  However much Fran preferred honesty in all her dealings, she preferred not to join in the game of confessions with the information that she’d have spent it in bed. With or without Mark.

  Cue for another flush.

  Before she could speak, the receptionist eyed her. ‘Black cahosh and red clover,’ she said. ‘And don’t forget your calcium. We see far too many fractured wrists and femurs here.’

  Fran nodded. ‘I’m here about a patient who passed through A and E. Do you still have a Dr Verity Kilvert working here?’

  Verity Kilvert, apart from looking almost as weary as Fran, clearly wanted to be elsewhere, perching on the extreme edge of a desk tucked behind a curtain in the corner of the treatment room and constantly checking her watch throughout Fran’s explanation of why she was there. She was terribly thin. Her wrist was so bony that the watch slopped from side to side. It would have driven Fran mad in ten minutes flat: why hadn’t the woman had the bracelet made smaller?

  ‘We do see a lot of patients here in A and E, Superintendent.’ She had the remnants of the upper-class drawl that Fran found as appealing as fingernails on a blackboard. Perhaps the thinness was a fashion statement, rather than as a result of overwork: beneath the white coat, her bone and sinew feet sported ballerina pumps Fran could price almost to the pound. Ferragamo. She’d always longed to wear them, but her feet, after years of uniform lace-ups, simply refused to find them comfortable. She shivered: how long before she succumbed to the comfortable flatties with elasticated gussets that had preceded her mother’s decline into permanent slippers?