THE LIFE LEFT: A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

by L. W. WEDGWOOD

  “Do you recognize the boy?” asked Bell.

  “You know I do,” she said.

  “Can you state for the record who he is?” said Bell as he paused the video showing Abn in mid-step.

  “He’s my son,” she said.

  “Not your biological son, I’m guessing,” said Bell.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He is Muslim, isn’t he?”

  Anger boiled to the surface as she answered in a more abrupt manner than she would have liked. “He is my son!” she said.

  Detective Bell looked like he was going to pursue the matter further. But after a long pause, he returned his hand to the computer keyboard and pushed a button. “Do you see your son walking the hallway at precisely 1700 hours here in the video, two days ago?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, as she watched Abn walk for a few seconds before vanishing from the corner of the camera’s view.

  “At precisely 1707, Mr. Anton Ross was found dead in his wheelchair,” said Bell.

  She shook her head in wonder. “I don’t understand. What does any of that have to do with my son?”

  “Your son was the last person to see Mr. Ross before he died,” said Bell.

  “I don’t see anything in your video that proves that,” she said.

  “In the direction Abn was walking, he had no choice but the pass Mr. Ross in the hallway on his way to the exit. He was the last person to see him. That is a fact,” said Bell.

  “Okay then. So? So what if he did see him?”

  “We are only trying to get a better understanding of your son’s part in all of this,” said Bell.

  “His part in all of this. Jesus! His part in all of what? He was visiting his dying father. He was on his way home for dinner. That was his part.”

  “The fact remains, your son was the last person to see Mr. Ross before he died.”

  “If I remember correctly, Mr. Ross was dying. When I saw him last, he appeared to be struggling for every breath he took. So, if he died, I presume it was because his time had come. Being denied oxygen has a way of provoking that outcome. And I don’t see why you’re trying to involve my son in his death.”

  “That’s just it. Being denied oxygen is exactly what we’re investigating,” said Bell.

  She shook her head in wonder. “He had lung cancer.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Um… because of the big, ugly, handwritten sign on the back of his wheelchair that said as much.”

  “Hmm, Okay. But he was also on a powerful mix of oxygen and life-prolonging medication. The doctors have informed us that he should have lived for months longer. And his wife has also insisted on this detail,” said Bell.

  “He has a wife?”

  “Of course.”

  “It sounds to me as if you should be blaming the doctors for this, not my son.”

  “The doctors weren’t there when Mr. Ross’s oxygen supply was cut off. Your son was,” said Bell.

  “His oxygen supply was cut off?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I still don’t see the connection. I still don’t see why you’re speaking to me about this. There is no view of my son anywhere near that chair in your video.”

  “Nevertheless, he was there.”

  “So, let me get this straight. Are you accusing my son of cutting off Mr. Ross’s oxygen?”

  “When they discovered Mr. Ross’s death, they found a wheel from his wheelchair had been rolled across a tube leading to his oxygen tank. Essentially, this suffocated him to death. We are just trying to establish if it’s possible that your son moved the chair.”

  “Why would he move the chair?”

  “Any number of reasons. The chair may have been positioned too far out into the hallway for easy passage. Or Abn may have just moved the chair so that Mr. Ross could get a better view of the hallway TV.”

  “If you’re looking for a villain, then you’d best go after whoever changed his oxygen tank last.”

  “We’ve done that,” said Bell.

  “Good, then you have your culprit, and Mr. Ross can rest in peace knowing that justice has been served.”

  “We’d still like to interview your son.”

  “I’m not comfortable with that. I just don’t see why it’s necessary.”

  “You can have your lawyer present if you like, but we need to be thorough with our investigation.”

  She could hear the finality in the detective’s tone. Something in his manner told her that he would push his agenda, no matter what. She had two choices. She could protect Abn at all costs and lawyer up. Or she could sit in on the interview and make sure the session wasn’t abused. Her youth had scarred her with more than one bad experience involving the law. She knew how they worked. She didn’t like it, but she came to the snap decision to let them interview Abn under the condition that she was present.

  The conversation with the detectives lasted a few more minutes as they set the time to meet for the following day. They agreed to interview Abn at the hospice. It took her some convincing to make this happen, but she insisted that she didn’t want Abn anywhere near a police station. She felt that deep beneath Abn’s tough exterior was a fragile being who’d been through a life of Hell. In the three years she’d mothered him, she’d seen him bloom from a dark, restrictive core into a flourishing young man. She needed to make certain that path maintained its present course. Police stations would not help this outcome.

  * * * * *

  Abn found Ron in terrible condition. The evening sun streaming into the room did little to brighten the deathly state of Ron’s complexion. But their conversation soon proved more promising. Despite his appearance, Ron exuded energy and life in his words.

  As they talked, Abn tried to imagine that Ron was no longer sick. Instead they were together, on one of the many hiking trips they’d taken when he’d first immigrated to New Zealand. He imagined Ron would not die. Instead, he would live and remain the father he’d had never had.

  The illusion of Abn’s imaginings held throughout his visit. He felt surprisingly positive as he bid Ron farewell and left the room. And as he neared the reception area, his spirits lifted further when he saw Jane standing next to the counter, smiling.

  “Mum,” he said. “You did not have to come and pick me up. You know it does not take me long to ride home from here.”

  “I know. I wouldn’t have come. But these two detectives here would like to have a few words with you and I wanted to be here when they did,” she said, with a wave to two suited men at her left.

  Abn felt the world fall from beneath his feet. An ambush was the last thing he’d been expecting. But here it was and he had no choice but to deal with it. “They want to have a few words with me? What do you mean? Have I done something wrong?” he asked.

  “You’ve done nothing wrong, Abn. And if for any reason you don’t wish to speak to the detectives, tell me now and I promise you that you won’t have to.”

  “I can speak with them. I do not know what they want, but I will be happy to speak to them,” Abn agreed, all the while feeling anything but agreeable. He didn’t like policemen. Whenever he’d had dealings with the law before, it had never gone well.

  “I’m Detective Warren Bell and this is my partner, James Boar,” Bell said.

  “Boar… Like the pig?” Abn asked, still struggling to get his head around the odd western names.

  “I suppose so,” Bell answered with a grimace.

  “Abn! Manners,” Jane said with a scolding tone.

  But when Abn looked at Jane, he could see amusement mixed with the anger in her eyes. “Pardon me,” he said, all the while not understanding why such great offence had been taken to his observation.

  “If you’d be so kind as to follow us, we can talk in the security office,” Bell said.

  Abn followed Detective Bell while Detective Boar walked behind him. So far, Boar had been silent and as they climbed the stairs this silence unnerved
Abn. He had a surging suspicion that he was being led into a trap. He decided that saying as little as possible was his only defense until he had a clearer idea of what was going on.

  As they entered the security office, he noticed that Boar stationed himself near the door. As Detective Bell tapped away at a computer, Abn glanced back at Boar. He stood there with his arms folded, looking anything but boarish. In fact, Abn decided, he more closely resembled a giant weasel.

  “Abn, if you’d be so kind, would you take a look at this video?” Bell said.

  Convinced that making a run for it would now be impossible, Abn submitted to the Detective’s request and looked at the computer screen. Even the comforting hand of Jane on his shoulder failed to ease the tension in the air. And as the video rolled, his anxiety escalated. He imagined that everyone in the room could see right through him; could see his guilt in physical form, as if it were some giant fireball-like beacon.

  The five seconds of video footage seemed to take an eternity to unroll as he watched himself walk the hallway of the hospice. He had missed a crucial detail. There had been a camera and he hadn’t seen it. How had this happened? He’d reacted in a moment of emotion, and now he would pay for it.

  He felt convinced that he was about to watch himself moving the wheelchair over the emphysema patient’s oxygen tube. But then the video ended. There was no second cut; no second camera. The several seconds of silence following the video confirmed this. The fireball-beacon of his guilt dulled in intensity. He willed the terror of his emotion away to nothing during this transition.

  “I do not understand,” he said. “Why did you bring me here to watch a video of myself walking the hospice hallway?”

  “What you don’t see in the video is what happened within a very short time of you walking that hallway,” Bell said.

  “And what is that?” Abn asked.

  “Seated in the hallway, not but three feet from the limit of the video camera’s view was Mr. Anton Ross. You may remember him. He was being treated for lung cancer,” Bell said.

  “You mean he was dying of lung cancer?”

  “We prefer to stick to the medical authorities’ status. Mr. Ross was classed as a treated patient.”

  “I understand,” Abn said, but not really understanding at all. In his world, you called something what it was. You didn’t call it what you wanted it to be. You didn’t call it what so called politically correct people called it. In the world he’d grown up in, hiding from the truth was a fast-track to destruction.

  “Do you understand?” Bell asked.

  “I do not understand what Mr. Ross has to do with me, if that is what you mean, no,” Abn said.

  “Mr. Ross died only minutes from when you were seen walking the hallway near him. You were the last person to see him alive.”

  “So, the treatment did not work?” Abn said while trying to ignore the disciplinary warning squeeze of Jane’s fingers on his shoulder.

  Bell’s poker-face remained in place as he answered, “On the contrary, his treatment was working. He was supposed to have lived months longer than he did. His wife had been counting on it. But something happened to cut that time short.”

  “What happened?” Abn asked, now feeling more confident by the second.

  Abn now realized that he wasn’t about to be accused of murder. He knew now that he hadn’t been caught on camera at all. Detective Bell was simply trying to rattle him in an effort to expose any hidden guilt. But what the detective didn’t know was that he wasn’t easily rattled. A lifetime of living around traumatic situations had hardened him against that luxury of emotion. He was used to being questioned at the business end of an AK-47, not the poker-face of a western detective.

  “What happened was Mr. Ross’s oxygen was cut off. What we are trying to determine is whether Mr. Ross was a victim of an accident or something else, something more sinister. Someone rolled his wheelchair across his oxygen supply. So, my simple question to you is this. Did you move Mr. Ross’s wheelchair that day?”

  Abn didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “You didn’t touch his wheelchair at all?”

  “No!”

  “Are you absolutely sure? You could have bumped it by accident as you passed.”

  “I did not bump it by accident. I would have noticed. I would remember.”

  “The chair didn’t move on its own,” Bell said, frustration now evident in his tone.

  “Maybe Mr. Ross moved it himself,” Abn said.

  “At the time, Mr. Ross was heavily dosed with a sedative. There is no way he could have moved his chair on his own. It was moved by someone else and you were the last person near it. Now, is there anything more you can tell us, Abn?” Bell asked.

  “I think that’s about enough,” Jane said. “Abn has cooperated in every sense of the word. You’ve no right to push him like this.”

  Detective Bell raised his palms in his defense. “I apologize if I have come across as being pushy. But Abn, one last question, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do not mind,” Abn said.

  “You don’t have to say anything more to him,” Jane said.

  “Really, I do not mind.”

  “You’re sure?” Jane asked.

  “Of course, I have nothing to hide.”

  “Are you sure that no one else was in the hallway when you left that day? Did you see anyone near Mr. Ross’s wheelchair?” Bell asked.

  “I could not be certain.”

  “So, you’re certain that you didn’t touch the wheelchair, but you couldn’t be certain that someone else was near it?” Bell asked.

  “That’s it! That’s enough! He’s answered all of your questions. We’re leaving,” Jane said.

  Abn felt like protesting. He wasn’t afraid of the detectives. Their line of questioning seemed almost comical to him. In a way, he found their process fascinating. He constantly found himself comparing the interview to what he might have experienced in Iraq. He recalled one time when he was about eight, one of the nurses in the hospital had been accused of stealing medical supplies. The way the authorities had questioned her there was by walking her son into the middle of the hospital floor and putting a gun to his head. When she had refused to admit her guilt, they had shot her son in the head before going to get her daughter. The nurse had confessed shortly thereafter. Two bullets later, the matter had been put to rest.

  If this was the way the justice system worked in New Zealand, then Abn felt convinced he would have no problem. Only an idiot would pay for their crimes here. And besides, he hadn’t committed any crime. Anton Ross hadn’t been murdered; he had simply gotten off the bus one stop short of his destination.

  They left the detectives in the security office and made their way through the hospital on their own. But as they were nearing Ron’s room, Abn noticed someone trying to get his attention.

  “Pst… Pst… Bro!” hissed a voice.

  Abn turned from where he stood in the hallway to find the speaker filling the doorway of the room next to Ron’s. He took in what he saw at a glance. With some people it was like that. A glance was all that was needed. The man filled the doorway in every sense of the word. In fact, if the inventor of the door had known about men like this, then he would have made it twice the size to begin with. More fearsome still were the face tattoos plastered over the man’s cheeks, nose and forehead, from which black, piercing eyes stared with limitless intensity. A red leather vest stretched over his shoulders; the leather embossed with dozens of badges. But one badge stood out most of all; the one that said Mongrel Mob.

  “Are you coming?” Jane said from Ron’s doorway.

  “I will just be a minute. I have to go to the toilet,” Abn said, flashing a look in her direction.

  “Okay. But don’t be long, because we have to go and pick up Ed at four o’clock.”

  “Okay,” he said as he watched her disappear into Ron’s room.

  “Pst… Bro! I saw what you did,” said the man monster in the doorway
.

  Abn’s heart skipped a beat as he turned back to face the man. “Excuse me?”

  “I saw what you did, Bro,” said the man. “Come in here. Let’s talk.”

  A nurse walked by as the man said this. Abn’s heart skipped another beat. Partly for fear of what the nurse had heard, partly because for what the man had said and partly because he would rather walk into a room filled with vipers. “What are you talking about?” he said.

  “You want me to talk to you or to them?” said the man with a nod down the hallway.

  Abn glanced in the direction of the nod to find the two detectives exiting a door. His hesitation evaporated in the same second. He stepped into the room as the man monster stood aside.

  The room appeared much the same as Ron’s; austere in every sense of the word, with a couple of floral paintings adorning the walls in a failed attempt to brighten the place up. Only the patient in this bed differed. This patient looked no older than Abn. But Abn could see many more tubes protruded from this boy than they did from Ron.

  “Good choice, Bro,” said the man.

  “What is this all about?” Abn asked.

  A smirk twisted the man’s gruesome features as he answered. “You know what it’s about. You killed that lunger, Bro.”

  “I what? Who?”

  “The lunger, Bro. I saw you push that wheelchair over his oxygen tube.”

  “You saw what?”

  “Don’t talk crap, Bro. I saw you.”

  “Abn!” called a voice.

  “That is my mother calling me. I do not know what you are talking about. I have to go,” Abn said.

  “Take this,” said the man as he shoved a piece of paper into Abn’s hand. “Come see me at that address or I’ll talk to them detectives.”

  Abn’s hand closed around the piece of paper, involuntarily. He heard Jane call his name again. He didn’t answer the man as he left. He just left.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jane tossed and turned in her bed, trying to resist glancing at the clock. She knew that it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since she’d last checked the time.