Spoken Bones

by N. C. Lewis

  The nurse turned to Fenella and spoke in an urgent tone. "That's the patient alert. We are short-staffed today. The reception room is on the left. Make a cup of tea. Someone will stop by in a moment to answer your questions. I must go."

  Fenella watched as the nurse ran along the hall and turned into a room.

  "Cup of coffee?" The question came from a familiar voice.

  Fenella turned.

  Dexter stood in the doorway, his face grim. He held out a paper cup. She took it but did not sip.

  "What happened?"

  Dexter rubbed his chin and said, "Heart attack. Outside the Quarterdrigg."

  "Oh my God," Fenella said. "Oh my God."

  A woman wearing a white coat ran by the open door. Her long brown hair flapped like the mane of a frightened horse.

  Dexter was talking. "Miss Albertha Crow found him slumped in his car. She works reception in the Quarterdrigg and is trained in first aid. She went outside for a smoke and saw him with his head against the steering wheel. Although she tugged the door open, she couldn’t pull him out because of her wheelchair. So, she grabbed his arm, took his pulse from the wrist. She felt something."

  "Thank God."

  "But she couldn't see him breathe. She raced back inside the Quarterdrigg to call for an ambulance. It arrived in seven minutes, Constable Phoebe in eight. I heard it over the police radio and got here just after he arrived."

  Fenella almost bit her tongue, but she had to ask. "He's alive?"

  Dexter nodded. "Thanks to the swift actions of Albertha."

  "Good," she said. "Very good."

  The red light stopped flashing. A moment later the screaming speakers quieted. Fenella inhaled deeply and let out her breath in short bursts, a relaxation technique she'd learned in her fusion yoga class. She reached for her phone.

  "I better call Sue."

  She did not want to frighten the woman. But what wife wouldn’t freak out when their husband is rushed to hospital?

  "I phoned earlier, Guv. She is on her way."

  Fenella nodded and closed her eyes. She could depend on Dexter, and Earp was in excellent hands. She twisted her neck from side to side and tried to relax. There was nothing more to say or do, so they sat in silence and sipped weak hospital coffee.

  It was a long, grim, wait.

  Just after twelve thirty in the afternoon, a woman in a white coat entered the reception room. Fenella recognised her. The person she'd seen running along the hall earlier. She stood, aware of Dexter at her side.

  "I'm the duty cardiologist. Are you Mrs Earp?"

  Fenella shook her head. "Inspector Sallow, and my fellow Detective Sergeant Dexter. We are work associates."

  The heart doctor's expression became solemn. "Mr Earp suffered a second heart-related event. We did everything we could, but he never regained consciousness and slipped away from us. I am sorry."

  Fenella remained very still. Only this morning she'd spoken to Earp on the phone. He hadn't complained of feeling unwell; the opposite, he was jovial.

  "I am so sorry for your loss," the heart doctor said again.

  The red light flashed as the ceiling speakers screamed.

  "Another crisis, I'm afraid," the doctor said as she hurried from the room.

  Fenella sat, stunned. Dexter did the same and put his face in his hands. The truth had barely sunk in when a soft electric hum carried from the hall. A small boy appeared in a wheelchair with a woman at his side.

  Fenella stood straight up. She recognised Sue and her son Nick.

  Sue stared at the detectives and her face drained. As though warding off the unspoken words, she raised hands to her ears. "No. Don't say it. It won't be true if you don't say it." Her eyes were wild with fear. "No. Please, God, no."

  "I'm sorry, luv," whispered Fenella wrapping her arms around Sue. "I'm so terribly sorry."

  "Don't worry, Mummy," Nick said in his small voice. "This is a hospital. That's where they fix things that are broken. Mrs Ledwidge, my teacher, said so. How long before Daddy is mended?"

  Sue began to sob. Her limp body trembled in Fenella's grip.

  "That's all right, luv," Fenella said. "Just let it out and cry." She held Sue tight, saying nothing, sharing her pain and tears.

  "Where's Daddy?" Nick began to cry. "Daddy said we would play night cricket and eat Chinese curry. Where's Daddy? I want to see my daddy."

  Dexter kneeled and whispered into the boy's ear. "Hey, Nick. Your daddy is very proud of you, he told me so himself. Told me you're going to be a detective like him. Told me you would look after your mummy if he wasn't around to help. He even told me about his plans to build a tree house in your Egremont Russet apple tree."

  Nick yelled, "Where is Daddy? I want my daddy."

  Chapter 47

  Fenella could see the full sweep of the hospital cafeteria despite the dim light in the booth where she sat sipping lukewarm tea. Her wristwatch said it was 2:15 p.m., but there was a healthy flow of late lunchtime patrons. Sue's sister and mother had arrived. She left the family to grieve and make the necessary arrangements. Then she told Dexter to take the rest of the day off. He refused and returned to the Pig Snout to keep an eye on the crime scene techs. Finally, she made the call to inform Superintendent Jeffery.

  Now she sat alone in the cafeteria surrounded by people as grief seeped into her bones. There was nothing she could do for Earp or Maureen Brian, or Claire Sutherland. Death had thrown its cloak around the day and squeezed so hard she felt her heart ripping apart.

  Maybe it was time to speak with the living.

  She reached into her handbag and toyed with her phone. She never called home when she was on duty. Ever.

  But today had been no ordinary day.

  Perhaps she should call Eduardo or Nan?

  Perhaps…

  She dialled home.

  Eduardo picked up on the first ring.

  "Come home," he said before she spoke. "Come home, honey, and get some rest."

  Fenella knew he didn’t listen to the news during his working hours. His focus was so complete that Nan often had to call him for lunch.

  "You've heard?"

  "About the murder of Claire Sutherland? Yes. Nan told me, and it is all over the social media sites." He paused, and Fenella heard Nan's voice in the background. "And about Detective Constable Earp too. It was just on the two o'clock radio news. Come home, luv. Nan is making cabbage and bacon soup."

  Nan only cooked cabbage and bacon soup when there was trouble.

  "On my way," Fenella replied.

  She felt a tinge of disappointment in herself. Going home to rest wasn't exactly a role model for action. There was desk work to be done, which would take up most of the afternoon. And there were lawyers’ briefs to read. She was due to appear in the magistrates’ court the following morning and had asked Dexter to go home, but he refused. Shouldn't she stay on the job too?

  "And Fenella, I love you," Eduardo said.

  "Oh, you daft sod."

  But she blew back a kiss before she hung up.

  Now she'd heard Eduardo's voice, she felt settled. She drained the remains of her lukewarm tea. Slowly, reluctantly, she stood and was about to leave when she noticed a man waiting in line at the food counter. It was the guitar slung across his shoulder that first caught her eye. And the black leather biker's jacket with the oversized crucifix on the back.

  Noel O'Sullivan, the American pastor.

  Was he at the hospital to visit a patient?

  Her detective instinct pinged. She eased back into her chair, toyed with the empty cup, and watched. Even from this distance, she could tell he was happy. From the tilt of his head, he might even be laughing. A young girl appeared with a tray on which balanced a large bowl of ice cream. Noel's arm snaked around her waist.

  There was something about her orange jacket. Fenella took in the short skirt and Doc Martens boots and leaned forward on the table as an alarm bell rang at the back of her mind. Had she met the girl on a school vis
it? Or at a youth club when she gave one of her talks to encourage young girls to consider the police force as a career?

  They walked to the checkout, where Noel pulled out a fat wallet and paid. Again, he gave the impression of laughing. This time the girl joined in.

  Fenella remembered her then.

  The teenage girl was in the crowd the day Audrey Robin found Maureen Brian's body on the beach. Fenella closed her eyes to remember. Yes, she stood amongst the crowd near the crime scene tent. They hadn't traced her.

  Fenella picked up her handbag and jerked to her feet. She wanted a word with that girl. Her name and her address would be a good start. Other questions would follow. Now she had the teenager in her sights, she would not let go.

  A hand tugged Fenella's arm. She wheeled around.

  "It's only me," Rodney Rawlings said, palms out. "Thought you'd like to help me out with a comment about the body on the dustbin bonfire."

  "Her name is Claire Sutherland," Fenella said. "And no, I've no comment other than that."

  "Come on Fenella, I got a job to do." His rodent face twisted into what Fenella supposed were doleful eyes. It just made him look shifty. "Can you help me out, please?"

  She considered for a moment. The news media played an essential role in criminal investigations, not least in the appeal for witnesses. And she and Rodney Rawlings went back a long way. He knew where her skeletons lay.

  "I've given you her name," she said. "Why don't you get cracking on that?"

  "Facts don't make good copy." There was something about the way his nose twitched that Fenella found distasteful. Like a rat sniffing out the cheese. "We can't sell newspapers with facts. It's all about the sizzle."

  "And the steak?"

  "I'm vegetarian." He sneezed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. A line of snot streaked across his upper lip. "Come on Fenella, just a nugget for old times' sake."

  "Why don't you speak with the press liaison officer?" Fenella stared at the line of snot as it meandered along his upper lip. If it were a poisonous snake, she'd take a shovel to it. Instead, she handed him a tissue. "She will answer your questions better than I can. I've got nothing for you."

  Rodney Rawlings stuffed the tissue in his pocket without wiping his nose and pulled out a digital recorder which he thrust under Fenella's chin. "When will the Port Saint Giles Slayer strike again?"

  "No comment."

  "Is it true you have a person of interest, a Mr Martin Findlay, who you let slip through your hands?"

  They were still trying to track down Martin Findlay. He had disappeared.

  "No comment."

  "Can you explain why you didn't bring him in on Friday evening?"

  Fenella stared hard at Rodney Rawlings. Where the hell did he get his information?

  "I cannot comment on the details," she said. "It is an ongoing police investigation."

  Her tone made it clear the conversation was over.

  Only, it wasn't over.

  "Give me some sizzle, luv," Rodney Rawlings snarled. "Is it true your dead detective was pissed out of his skull?"

  Fenella glared. "Get out of my sight, else I will have you arrested."

  She shoved by him, somehow clipping his jaw with her handbag. An accident, she would claim, if the rodent complained. She hurried towards the food counter, but the girl in the orange jacket was gone.

  Chapter 48

  Two hours after Nan and Eduardo were sound asleep, Fenella lay on her back staring at the ceiling. The magical cabbage and bacon soup hadn't quelled her stomach or calmed her mind—too much death for the broth to prevail. Silence closed in. The dreary moonlight cast a blood-orange glow. She thought of all that had happened since sunrise and feared what was to come.

  The taste of hot bile bubbled in her throat and her ears rung with the wail of the dead. Long after the funeral of Detective Constable Earp, she would remember Nick's tears. Long after they buried his father in the ground, she would hear the boy's lonely cries. She sucked in several breaths, holding them for seven slow ticks of the bedroom wall clock.

  It didn't help.

  An impulse caused her to leap from the bed and dash into the bathroom. In the moonlit dark and the cold and the still, she threw up Nan's cabbage and bacon soup. Next came the tea and the coffee and everything else—until her stomach was empty, throat raw. She washed out her mouth with blue antiseptic and crawled back to her bed and cried.

  Chapter 49

  Fenella spent the following morning on the hard benches of the magistrates’ court. With each case, she felt a sense of growing chagrin.

  Two acquittals.

  One case dismissed.

  The blame game began before the prosecution team stepped out of the courtroom. The lawyers, social workers, and Fenella clashed. Each pointed the finger at the other. Their quiet arguments grew to angry shouts until the judge threatened to throw them behind bars. They escaped with a stern warning and their mutual hostility intact. Fenella hoped the day wouldn't get any worse.

  It had begun to rain when she got into her car. Pools of dark water glistened in the dim light. Fenella called Lisa Levon.

  "Anything from the Maureen Brian crime scene?" she asked.

  "I'm so sorry to hear about Detective Constable Earp," Lisa said. Then she clicked into professional mode. "Too early for DNA. No fingerprints."

  "No news on Claire Sutherland either?"

  "It is in line. The labs will get to it."

  "And the Pig Snout?"

  "Let me see," Lisa said, followed by the clacking of a keyboard. "We've finished with it. There are several fingerprints which we are still going over, and a shoe print near the bar, male—not Dexter. Other than that, nothing yet."

  It all sounded vague to Fenella. "Help me out, Lisa."

  "We are doing our best. It takes time, and with the cutbacks…"

  "Understood." Fenella sighed. "You know where I am."

  When Fenella arrived back at the office, Jeffery's assistant waited.

  "The superintendent would like a word. Please follow me."

  At the solid oak door, the assistant knocked as timid as a mouse. Fenella didn't wait for a reply. Today she wouldn't take any crap: last night was rough, the magistrates court not much better, and the conversation with Lisa Levon soured her mood to an acidic swill. She strode into the carpeted office and took a seat at the desk.

  "You wanted to see me, ma'am?"

  "Nasty business," Jeffery said, looking up from a stack of papers. "I've sent my sympathies to Mrs Earp. Chief Constable Rae and I will attend the funeral service. What do you think of the Cumbria Police Band playing the Funeral March? A solemn send off for a much-loved officer."

  "I'm sure his family will value that, ma'am." Fenella waited. There was more.

  Jeffery tapped a manila folder, then pushed it across the desk.

  It was Earp's Medical Report. Fenella took her time as she read the clinical words. A blockage of the left major artery caused the heart attack. She read and reread the section on the level of alcohol in his blood. She knew about Dexter's battle with drink, but Earp? At last, she flipped the folder closed and shook her head.

  Jeffery was speaking. "No reason to mention his blood alcohol in our public account. Let's keep it to ourselves. Agreed?"

  Fenella wasn't sure that was possible. Not since Rodney Rawlings mentioned it at the hospital. Was it just a guess, or did he get the details from someone inside?

  "I'll do my best."

  "Your best, eh?" Jeffery's eyes narrowed. "Remember he was a detective on your team. Were you aware of his drinking problem?"

  Fenella sensed more behind the question. She knew a set-up when she saw one and didn't answer.

  Jeffery said, "A minor annoyance which I hope to keep out of the public eye. At least until after the funeral. The press will have other rabbits to chase by then. Earp is not why I invited you here."

  "Ma'am?"

  "These past few days have been tough. Pressure."

&
nbsp; "Part of the job, ma'am."

  "It is imperative we do everything in our power to catch the killer."

  "That's our job, ma'am."

  Jeffery smiled, but Fenella saw through the wolfish grin. "You need a break."

  "What are you saying, ma'am?"

  "The public are asking questions. They want results."

  "An inquiry unfolds at its own pace."

  "The public and our political masters want more. I want more."

  "There are no magic formulas." Fenella wanted to shout as she had at the lawyers and social workers in the courtroom. Her voice rose. "No shortcuts. Only careful police work, and that takes time, ma'am."

  "We need answers, Detective Sallow."

  Jeffery's impatience annoyed Fenella. True, it had been slow going. They had only begun to dig when the second body showed up. Anyway, the fiasco at the magistrates’ court reminded her they needed to take their time. Get all their ducks in a row. And that was a detective's first rule of thumb.

  Fenella said, "We need time to follow up."

  Jeffery jerked to her feet. "We don't have time. What we need is progress."

  "We are working our leads. The techs have crawled over the Pig Snout. Same for the crime scene of Claire Sutherland. The pathologist's report will be on my desk soon, along with lab results. As for Maureen Brian—"

  "Yes, yes, I know all that." Jeffery waved her hand and sat. "But we need—"

  "We have found one of Maureen Brian's missing photographs." Fenella was on a roll, wouldn't give up without a fight. "It might give the motive for her death."

  "And the other three?"

  "No news on their location."

  Jeffery picked up a pen and tapped the manila folder. "Why don't you take a break. Go on a long vacation."

  "In the middle of an inquiry?"

  "We don't want another Earp." Jeffery smiled, but it was all wolf.

  It was all clear now. Jeffery wanted a quick win. To get that, she'd push her aside. Assign another detective. Fenella would not go without a fight. Her temper hovered on the edge of an uncontrolled blast, and her breath felt hot in her nostrils.