Paperwork, paperwork. The downside of modern nursing. Jennifer sighed. One day she might actually clear her desk. She looked at her watch. 12.20. Forty minutes until her tea-break and her chat with Edward. She put her head down and ploughed on.
She was puzzling over a questionnaire from the local health trust when the computer gave the little ping that meant there was incoming mail. She ignored it. It wouldn’t be anything that couldn’t wait.
When the phone rang ten minutes later, she reached for it with her eyes still on the form.
Matt’s voice brought her head up with a jerk. Something wrong with the children? She breathed a sigh of relief when he said the kids were fine.
“What are you doing still up?” she asked.
“Got a bit carried away on the computer. Didn’t you get my email? I’ve managed to work out who they were, the men in the photo. Charles Ballantyne - distinguished career - Southampton hospital, big wheel in the BMA - you won’t care about all that. Thing is, he died last year. The other one, Robert Cleaver, went to Australia, returned about ten years ago, he’s an Emeritus Professor of Oncology, specializing in a rare form of cancer at—” Matt named a London teaching hospital.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone pass the open door. She caught a glimpse of a dark suit and a clerical collar. The footsteps went on down the corridor.
She opened Matt’s email.
He was still talking. “There’s a photo of him on the hospital website. If you want to see what he looks like now, click on the link.”
She did and a face stared out of the screen at her. It was uncanny how right Edward had been, except for—
Her instincts were telling her that something was wrong. The footsteps had stopped further down the corridor. Who was he visiting? Not Mrs O’Shea. She had died earlier that evening and her body was in the hospice mortuary waiting to be collected by the undertakers.
And he wasn’t visiting Edward. Edward was a Quaker.
Jennifer dropped the phone and sprang to her feet.
~ * ~
Edward’s eyes were heavy, but he forced himself to stay awake. He wanted to hang on until one o’clock so that he could ask Jennifer if an email had arrived with photos of the baby and Melanie. He wished he could tell Edith. Funny how much he missed her. That story of hers - he couldn’t quite understand how he had let himself get so carried away by it. Perhaps he had been groping for a reason for her death, unwilling to believe that she had simply disappeared, given him the slip, pulled off the vanishing act he was so shortly to pull off himself.
Just for a moment he had the feeling that she was somewhere close by. He seemed to catch a whiff of her perfume.
When the man in the clerical collar appeared in the doorway, Edward’s first thought was that he had come to the wrong room.
His second thought as the man closed the door behind him was that he had done a good job of updating the photo, but he couldn’t possibly have guessed about the beard.
His third was that he wouldn’t be seeing Laura after all, because among the things he had knocked off the bedside table was the emergency buzzer.
~ * ~
Jennifer punched the panic button to summon help.
Nurses aren’t supposed to run, and Jennifer was a big woman, but she flew down that corridor.
She reached the room in time to see the man standing by Edward’s bed.
Light glinted on a hypodermic.
Another moment and she flung her arms round him from the back. She squeezed. He struggled, but years of manhandling toddlers at home and lifting patients at work had given her arms like steel hawsers. He didn’t stand a chance.
The hypodermic went clattering to the floor.
Then Paul, the burliest of the hospice nurses and an ex-soldier, appeared in the doorway and it was all over.
~ * ~
“Just a black shirt and strip of plastic cut from a bottle of washing-up liquid,” Edward marvelled for at least the tenth time.
Jennifer nodded. “That was all it took. Dressed like that he could walk into any hospice - or any hospital ward - claim to be visiting a parishioner and no one would bat an eyelid.”
It was nearly the end of Jennifer’s shift on the following night and she hadn’t been able to resist popping in to talk it over one more time. It was as if she needed to go over and over it again to convince herself that it really had happened.
“Only sorry I won’t be here to follow the trial,” Edward said with an effort. “But it’s clear enough what happened.”
“His bad luck that Edith had the same rare cancer that he’d made his speciality, and consulted him privately.”
“Johnson’s such a common name - no wonder he didn’t make the connection.”
“But she did. I wonder if she really had anything on him. She certainly made him think she had.”
“And that she’d shared it with someone in the hospice.”
Edward closed his eyes. He claimed that the excitement had given him a new lease of life. Jennifer wasn’t so sure. The disease was progressing fast now. He was too weak to sit up and his face was very pale against the pillow. She wondered if he would be alive when she returned in the evening. She hoped so. She’d like to be there at the end and she wanted to meet Laura.
Her eyes strayed to the colour printout of a beaming young woman with hair plastered to her sweaty forehead. She was cradling a tiny baby with a face like a crumpled rosebud.
She patted Edward’s hand and was getting up to leave when she saw that he had opened his eyes. He was gazing past her into the corridor.
She turned her head and saw a handsome middle-aged woman approaching.
“Laura,” Edward murmured. “You’re here.”
“Dad! I hired a car at the airport.”
“This is Jennifer.”
The two women clasped hands as they passed in the doorway. Laura gave a smile of recognition that made her look very like her father.
Jennifer closed the door behind her and went to get a Do Not Disturb sign.
No one would be needed here for a while.
<
~ * ~
THE BETRAYED
Roger Busby
I
t’s impossible,” Dennis Jewel said, “even if you’d got a case of JD tucked under your arm there, I’d be telling you the same thing.”
Mark Fletcher placed the bottle of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 he had brought along as a sweetener on the desk between them. “Dennis,” he said, “what say you lock the door there, we pull a couple of glasses out of your bottom drawer, and we sip a little of this amber nectar and see if you don’t change your mind?”
“There’s no way I’m going to do that,” Jewel replied, “not while we’ve got an operation running. You think I can conjure blokes up out of the air or something? I’m not a bloody magician, Fletch.”
Fletcher sighed. He’d come to the Borough for a favour and he’d expected to have to haggle, but here was Jewel sitting on his backside just acting stubborn. “What operation trumps a murder?”
“Zatopek. You know, the lorry hijacking thing.”
“Zatopek?”
“Don’t you start.” Jewel took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and glanced wistfully at the image of a rotting lung on the packet. The only place he could light up these days was skulking in the station yard with the last of the diehards. “Some comedian up at the dream factory came up with that stupid name, something about it’s got to run the distance.”
“Christ,” Fletcher said. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
“Well, it don’t change a thing,” Jewel insisted, turning the cigarette packet over in his hand. “I’m committed a hundred per cent, and if they get wind up the road that I’m even thinking of loaning blokes to you on the old pals act, they’re going to have my balls. It’s as simple as that.”
Mark Fletcher regarded his friend for a moment as he ma
rshalled his thoughts for a new gambit. Jewel was a heavily built man, solid with beefy shoulders which bulged under his shirt. He had a head of tight grey curls and his face wore a permanently perplexed expression. They were the same rank, detective chief inspector, only Jewel was a guv’nor on the Borough-wide CID under the wing of the Metropolitan Police Major Crime Directorate, with his own complement of detectives. He took his orders from New Scotland Yard. Normally the Borough would be only too happy to oblige on tricky investigations which stretched the limited resources of the Divisional CID, but now that Fletcher wanted his help here was his old oppo bellyaching about some Zatopek nonsense.
“Look, Dennis, it’s not like I’m asking for the earth, just a couple of decent blokes would do. You know I wouldn’t come begging if I wasn’t really up against it. I’ve got the big bin murder running away with me and the guv’nor already shouting the odds on overtime.”
“Yeah, I see your problem, Fletch,” Jewel agreed. “Sounds like you’ve got dead meat there all right. Not many like that get cleared these days.”
“That’s what I like about you, Dennis, always the optimist.”
“Well, you’ve got to be a realist sometimes,” Jewel said. “Sounds like it’s stacked against you. If I was you, Fletch, I’d think seriously about coasting and leave those eager beavers up at dream factory to take the shit when it all hits the fan.”
“Come off it,” Fletcher said. “You never took a soft option in your life, and I’m the same. We’re just a pair of thick-skinned Ds at heart who happen to think clearing crime still matters, particularly a swine like this one. That’s what I pin my reputation on, not ducking and diving and playing politics. And don’t try to kid me you’re not the same.”
Jewel shrugged. “You don’t get any medals for pissing in the wind these days.”
“I’m talking about in here.” Fletcher tapped his chest. “Call it personal satisfaction or professional pride... call it what you like. And I’m buggered if I’m going to let some lunatic who’d stick a screwdriver into a kid like that until she looked like a colander, then dump her body in a recycling bin, get away with it. If I start backpedalling this one I wouldn’t sleep nights, and you know it.”
Jewel rolled his shoulders again. “All you’ll get yourself is an ulcer, my friend. Tell you what, run it by me and maybe something’ll come to mind. What’ve you got so far?”
“Well, first off, we’ve got the car spotted on the street camera, old Astra. Lots of blood in the boot that’s a DNA match to the vic and the back seats are missing, so that could be where it happened before she was dumped. Doc reckons she was dead best part of five days before the bin men found her, so matey’s got a head start.”
“How about the motor... any good?”
Fletcher pulled a face. “You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you? We got the owner right away and put him through the mincer. His story is he was away on holiday and left the car in the street outside his drum, and somebody must’ve nicked it because the first thing he knows is he comes home and there’s the law beating down his door.”
“Sounds like a good enough story to put him in the clear. How’s it stand up?”
“That’s the trouble,” Fletcher said. “It’s cast iron and watertight. He’s got about a thousand witnesses backing up his alibi and we can’t shake ‘em. Looks like he’s telling the truth or he’s got a lot of clout somewhere to rig a thing like that.”
“What’s he like?”
“Tasty, CRO with form as long as your arm,” Fletcher said. “Rape, indecent assault, drug dealer by trade. Complains against the police for a pastime. Hits you with harassment if you look sideways at him. A right charmer - was one of the brothers who used to run with the Ace of Spades crew. If his story wasn’t so rock solid he’d be right there in the frame. I’d have him strung up by his thumbs. But after the riots we’ve got to treat ‘em all with kid gloves. Came down on tablets of stone.”
“That’s the way it goes,” Jewel said. “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.”
“Ha-ha, don’t make me laugh. Burn down a furniture store, kick in a few shops, throw a few petrol bombs... and our lords and masters are having a ginger fit. How about associates? Maybe he’s got some running dogs of similar persuasion. Maybe he loaned some face his motor.”
“Well, if he did,” Fletcher replied, “he’s not about to be telling us. He’s as cunning as a barrel-load of monkeys so we’re not going to be able to pull any flankers with him or he’ll just lawyer up and there’ll be white forms coming down like a blizzard.”
“What else’ve you got?”
“What would you like?” Fletcher asked. “We’ve got hours and hours of street CCTV to wade through, a few possible witnesses to boot, and background on the girl to go through. But once it hit London Tonight the brass suddenly took an interest, leaping about trying to put on a big show of dedicated police work. Every bugger so busy hustling their image, I can see this job going right out of the window.”
“Don’t take it so personally,” Jewel said, “you’re going to lose your objectivity.”
“Advice like that I can do without,” Fletcher said. “Now are you going to stop playing with your fags and give me some help on this or not?”
“I’d like to.” Jewel softened a little, gazing reflectively at the image of the rotting lung. “Only I can’t see any way I could squeeze it without some joker upstairs noticing.”
“Bottom line, Dennis,” Fletcher said “Just one decent D would do me. All my blokes have been yanked off on this Weeting thing and I just need someone to watch my back.”
“That phone hacking nonsense is a total balls-ache all right.” Jewel turned the pack over in his hands as the craving for a nicotine hit increased. He’d tried the patches, gum and even hypnosis, but the addiction of a lifetime was stubborn. “One D, eh?”
“At a pinch, yes.”
“Tell you what, Fletch,” Jewel said, “I’ve got a transferee come in from Kent who hasn’t been assigned yet. Bloody good detective by all accounts.” A hint of a smile touched his lips. “I could maybe loan you Helen Ritchie.”
Fletcher felt the blow in the pit of his stomach coupled with a sudden lightness behind the eyes. “Oh, Christ, Dennis, that’s below the belt.”
“Best I can do.” Jewel was grinning openly now. “Take it or leave it. Do you want her or not?”
Fletcher groaned. “I’ve got no choice, have I?”
“Nope.”
Fletcher reached across the desk and retrieved the bottle of whiskey. “For a low trick like that, you don’t deserve my hospitality.”
“That’s all right,” Jewel said, amused at his friend’s discomfiture. “I switched to gin anyway... smoother on the old tubes.”
Fletcher stared at the bottle; felt like he needed a shot. “How is Helen anyway?” he said. “I haven’t seen her in years, not since she left the Met.”
“How’d you mean?” Jewel asked, still enjoying himself. “Job-wise or what?”
“You know what I mean, Dennis,” Fletcher said. “How the hell is she?”
“Well,” Jewel said, “I always got the feeling something must’ve soured Helen way back. Oh, she still looks terrific, but inside,” he tapped his temple, “hard as nails...who knows what goes on in there? I just get the impression that somewhere along the line some smooth-talking bastard slipped her something nasty and she’s never got over it. I heard she was a sweet kid back along, but you’d know better’n me, eh, Fletch? You were on the old Peckham robbery squad with her in those long-gone days, weren’t you?”
“Sure,” Fletcher said, still staring reflectively at the bottle, “back when we were young and impressionable and everybody was breaking their neck to prove what a great thief-taker they were.”
“Good times, eh?” Jewel said. “So who’d you think slipped Helen a crippler?”
“How would I know?” Fletcher said. “I was only on the squad six months
before I got posted to the Yard.”
“Oh, yeah, I recall,” Jewel said. “You were a flier in those days. We used to sit here in the weeds, chewing on our straws watching your career take off. First the Yard, then Bramshill and all that clever stuff...you were the blue-eyed boy back then, all right, Mark.”
“Didn’t last though, did it?”
“Oh, come on.” Jewel settled back in his chair. “Don’t tell me you’re getting bitter and twisted too?”
Fletcher crossed to the door and Jewel followed him with his eyes. “So how about Helen,” he called after him, “d’you want her or not?”
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