YOU'RE DEAD: Three Gripping Murder Mystery Suspense Novels

by Diane M Dickson

  Chapter 18

  They sat in a corner of a little bistro, near the window where they could watch the world go by, and see the start of gentle rain. The atmosphere and decoration were contrived and twee but they didn’t mind that at all. The food was good, salads and garlic bread, they had wine and things felt good, on the surface and only for the time being, but she would take that.

  Fiona tore at a piece of bread, crumbling it onto the plate. She wiped her fingers and turned in her seat, her eyes sparkling with emotion; she cleared her throat. “I can’t thank you enough for the last few days Sharon, I couldn’t have faced going back on my own.”

  “Would you stop now with all the gratitude? You would have done the same for me,” a shadow passed across her face, “heaven forbid though that I should need it. You really have been through it haven’t you? One positive that has come out of it is that you told me about the awful time you’ve had. I don’t know how you stayed sane after that.”

  “I was beginning to think that I hadn’t to be honest. One thing that is still puzzling me though is why it has all stopped now. I am so sure that it all happened and yet here we are and there’s been nothing at all for days. Do you think it could really be all over?”

  “I hope so love I really do but listen if there’s any more weirdness I want you to tell me straight away, don’t try and deal with it on your own, I’m here for you. While we’re on the subject, what I said still stands, I believe you when you say those things happened. I can’t even begin to explain it but I do believe you. Hey come on, don’t start blubbing.” She handed over a tissue and then glanced at her watch. Oh look, I’d better get going anyway; Simon’ll be getting a stand in if I don’t watch out. Are you going to be okay now, really? You know there’s always a bed for you with us, if you need it.”

  “No, I’ve got to get on with things, give Simon a hug from me and tell him thanks for letting me borrow you.”

  “Will do. I’ll see you in work tomorrow okay?”

  Later, cleaning and tidying in the kitchen, Fiona found herself enjoying the time on her own more than she had dared hope. Yes it had been great having Sharon there but this was her space, her home, and in spite of everything it was still special. She would make a cup of coffee and try to relax with her book. She would put some music on and be kind to herself. A final swipe with the dishcloth along the worktop and she took herself into the bright lounge and flopped onto the couch. The unseasonal rain precluded an afternoon on the patio but the room was comfy and she sighed with satisfaction, leaning back into the cushions.

  The book was enthralling but the late nights talking things through with Sharon needed to be paid for and her lids grew heavy; slipping from her grasp the book flopped onto her lap. As sleep enveloped her all that could be heard was the drip of rain from the gutters and the swoosh of car tyres in the road outside.

  Gradually she came to her senses, the light in the room had dimmed and peering at her watch she was astounded to see that she had slept for two hours. Stretching and swinging her legs round she stood, picked up the empty cup and took it into the kitchen. Refreshed and relaxed she was totally unprepared for the sight that waited for her on the kitchen table.

  “Oh God, oh no it can’t be.” Gulping, she crept forward willing it to disappear but there on the table in the beam of light from a watery sun lay a rose, a red rose with a ribbon around the stem. She stretched out a shaking finger and pushed it gently, it didn’t crumble and disintegrate the way that the others had; it slid across the shiny wood and wobbled a little against the table top. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, goose-flesh ran up and down her arms, she shuddered. There was someone behind her, she was convinced. She knew it. Slowly she turned, forcing her eyes to remain open; if there was something there then she would damn well face it. It was fleeting, it was momentary and it was terrifying but she knew it was real. Through the open door she could see the patio and the figure standing there, dark and gone in a moment but there absolutely. A bulky figure dressed in dark clothes; it wasn’t possible in the brief glimpse to have more than an impression but she would swear that it was a man and that his face was covered.

  She screeched and cowered back against the table in shock and then it was over. Instinct carried her forward, running to the expanse of glass she grabbed at the handle and slid back the door and stepped out onto the damp slabs of the patio. As she did the gate swung on its hinges, the lock clicking as the wood swung home. Her bare feet carried her down the little steps and swished across the grass. She reached the tall gate, dragged it open, bravado took her through; this wasn’t going to scare her, not any more. This was real, the gate closing had proved it and anything real she could damn well deal with. She ran into the road to find it deserted; no cars and no walkers in the summer shower. She spun back and forth but whoever it had been had gone and gone quickly, but that back gate swinging shut had saved her sanity. She knew in that instant and for certain that this wasn’t some apparition from beyond the grave, a ghost wouldn’t open the gate, well would it?

  Storming back into the kitchen, angry now and determined she took up the flower and tore it into pieces and threw it into the pedal bin. Her strength of mind was back, she was in control, she wouldn’t be driven from here and she wouldn’t have her hard-earned life destroyed, after all that she had gone through. She would deal with this, she would face it.

  It had taken that one moment only to eradicate the weeks of fear and worry. Now the thing was real, it was earthly and everyday, and as such she could get a grip on it. She thanked whatever force had woken her just then, just at the right moment, the force that had saved her sanity and given her direction.

  Chapter 19

  Fiona turned off the bathroom light. The drawn curtains in the bedroom muted the beams of the streetlamps. Moving slowly around the room she passed deliberately in front of the window several times. She turned off the centre light and switched on the bedside lamp. Downstairs the house was in semi-darkness, only the small light in the hall shone as always into the dimness. After half an hour she clicked off the bedside lamp. Dropping to her knees she crawled out onto the landing. Staying low she made her way down the wooden stairs and in a crouching scutter moved across the lounge. A pile of cushions and a blanket were waiting in the corner of the room; she settled herself and covering her legs muttered to herself. “Right, let’s have it now. Come on, I’m ready for you.”

  Long hours passed but she didn’t fret and worry, if nothing happened tonight she would wait tomorrow and the day after and as long as it took. Occasionally her hand felt in the dark for the reassuring shape of the torch and the heavy hammer under the blanket and close at hand. Red Bull and a flask of coffee spiked at her nerves and buzzed in her blood.

  Two in the morning, the quiet time, the night watches. Her heart leaped as a dark shape moved on top of the fence. Growing in the faint light the figure took shape and leapt to the patio. Tense now, strung out like a piano wire she held her breath as it moved out of her line of sight towards the kitchen door. The electric meter was by that entrance and she heard the small click as the cupboard door was opened. The light in the hall extinguished; the electricity had been turned off. She waited for the howl of the alarm. They had assured her when they installed it that anyone messing with the power supply would cause it to trip. Well so much for that, not a sound. She heard another click and the quiet swish of the front door across the hall carpet. She calmed her breathing and reached for the torch and her weapon of choice, the hammer.

  Quiet steps across the hallway and into the kitchen, stealthy movement, but she had moved herself by now. Creeping to the doorway and hiding in the dark shadows she watched the tall figure. He was lit by the small light through the kitchen window and with utmost care he removed a long box from his backpack. She was staggered by the intense care he used to open the box and then gently, tenderly, he tipped out the long flower. No sign of the colour in the dimness, so this was another of the dried and desicc
ated blooms. In spite of herself she was stunned at the amount of effort this person was taking, but enough, time to act.

  In one fluid movement she stepped from the shadows and turned on the intense beam of the Maglight. He spun and the torch beam struck him fully in the eyes causing him to drop the box and lift his hands in front of his face. Now he had lost his night vision she struck. Bounding across the space, surprise on her side and with the hammer raised high she lashed out, catching him on the side of the skull. He flopped to the floor with a groan. A thin ribbon of blood trickled down the side of his face. He was still breathing but not fully conscious. She dragged the roll of gaffer tape from her pocket and before he had time to regain any of his senses she wrapped it round and round, up and down his body, his legs. Pinning his arms to his torso and making extra effort round his ankles until she was sure there was no way that he could move. He groaned.

  She shone the torch into his face, another groan as the glare spiked through his returning consciousness. Studying his face she picked at the memories in the back of her mind. There was something familiar about him. She hadn’t known what to expect but this vaguely recognisable late middle-aged man was a bit of a surprise. Crouching before him she moved his head, though the wound was still bleeding she could see that he was already beginning to regain his full senses and was struggling in confusion against the bindings.

  “Keep still, you can’t get free and if you don’t keep still I’ll hit you again.”

  A vague recognition dawned, this was the guy from the house at the back, she had met him once or twice but he had seemed odd, disinclined to look her in the face he had bowed his head and mumbled and now she saw why.

  “I know you don’t I? I bloody well know you, you bastard.” He peered at her blearily, obviously having trouble focusing.

  “Hmmph,” he licked his lips. “Bitch, you don’t even recognise me.” The voice triggered something in her brain.

  “The hospital, you’re from the hospital in Riyadh. Security.” He nodded briefly but grimaced as pain shot through his rattled brain.

  “How did you get in? I have an alarm, oh I see, security, you work in security. But I still don’t understand.”

  His words were slurred but his glance when he focused on her was full of venom.

  “Stupid bitch, didn’t change the number did you? Nobody ever does. I knew you wouldn’t, stupid bitch.”

  “Why, why have you been doing this?”

  “Why? Because I know what you did.” She gasped. She had been so sure that nobody knew all this time.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean, thought you’d got clean away with it didn’t you? Evil cow. I saw you, I watched you, that poor bugger you burnt him up like a load of rubbish. You bloody snooty nurses, think you can do anything and get away with it, well not this time. I saw you.”

  She shook with horror but kept control of her voice enough. “If you saw me why didn’t you say anything? You could have landed me in the most almighty mess, and why the rose?”

  “I had left them in your room, they had arrived at the security lodge and I had taken them to your room. I just thought that it would take you back there, every time you saw one you would remember and I dried them out in the oven because that’s what you did to that poor sod. As for going to the authorities, well what good would that do me? There would be a fuss, an outcry on the news and everyone would say, ‘oh no a nice British nurse, she can’t possibly have done that,’ and you would have walked clean away. Probably been shipped back in splendour with an escort from the foreign office, and that poor bugger he’d still have been dead wouldn’t he? Anyway I was waiting for a visa, I couldn’t risk getting caught up with an enquiry, I had to come back, I had no choice. You know as well as I do that personal problems cut no ice over there and I had to come back, there was no choice for me, not then.”

  “How much did you see?”

  “I saw you pushing the poor sod through the corridors, what was it? A mistake? Give him the wrong injection did you, the wrong drugs? Just tidying up your cock ups were you?”

  “No, you don’t know do you?”

  “What I do know is that you medical people, you get away with murder all the bloody time. My mother, she was given the wrong medicine, she died. All brushed under the carpet it was, hushed up. I saw you doing it again, covering your arse, hiding your mistakes, bloody nurses.”

  “He raped me.” The bald statement hung between them, it was quiet except for the soft sounds of the house settling further into the night. “He stalked me and when I tried to talk to him about it he raped me. I didn’t give him any medicine. Yes I was covering up what I’d done and I regret it – but he had left me no choice.”

  He stared up at her disbelief and confusion chased across his face. “He raped you?”

  She nodded but her gaze never wavered, she looked him straight in the eye.

  “When?”

  “Then, that night. I stabbed him in self-defence, I have lived with it ever since and I would give anything for it not to have happened but I truly believed, and still do, that he was going to kill me.”

  He watched her now in silence for long moments. “Christ what have I done?” He lowered his head, tried to raise his hands and started to thrash and wriggle in panic. After a while he looked back at her, some strange bravado in his eyes. “I, well I didn’t know. I thought, I assumed you were just another bent medic covering your own back.”

  She shook her head.

  He lost the battle now with his conscience, thought of the prowling and scheming he had done, the fear that he had caused and most of all the unfairness of it. He had been a super hero hadn’t he? An avenging angel? Well no, it seemed not. “Oh God. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, how could I?”

  “So, what are you going to do now?” She had lowered herself to a kitchen chair, her nerves were settling, she still gripped the hammer tightly but felt sure there was no longer a need for it. His head flopped forward, he began to mutter, “I’m sorry, shit I didn’t know, how could I? I had just found out about my mum. Somebody gave her the wrong dose of insulin and she died. I was so upset. I was waiting to come home for her funeral, waiting for my visa.”

  Fiona didn’t speak but her heart was softening, the pure hatred she had felt for this man dissipating. “I couldn’t sleep and I was out walking around the back of the hospital, and I saw you. Do you see? I thought it was the same thing. I thought you were covering up a mistake. I couldn’t let you get away with it, not like they got away with killing my mum. Yes they’ve now been ‘disciplined’ but what’s that when my mum’s still dead. Disciplined! It was bloody murder by carelessness and I saw you and I thought oh no not again. I didn’t know, about the other thing.”

  “No, how could you? I’m sorry about your mum but you know it wasn’t the same, not at all. What are we going to do though, what are we going to do now?”

  “I suppose you could report me, hand me over. I ruined your patio stuff, I broke in, I deliberately rented that house, got a job with a security firm so I could watch you, I suppose that’s stalking. Oh do what you like, I don’t care anymore.”

  “How did you know where I was? That surely wasn’t just coincidence, you having that house. No, it’s not possible.”

  “I keep in touch, with my mates out in Saudi, they thought I had a crush on you,” he let out a short bark of a laugh and shook his head. “I asked about you, just to keep you in my sights. I don’t know what I thought I’d do but I was so angry, I knew that I would have to do something. Anyway, they told me you were leaving, you know what the gossip machine is like over there, it wasn’t hard to find out you were coming back to your old hospital. This is my job, this is what I do, watching people, tracing their lives. I rented that house when I knew you were talking to the builders on this site. I couldn’t believe my luck when you chose this one, right over my fence. I have watched you since day one. I can’t explain how I feel now, I’m sorry, and I’m as
hamed and …” It was all too much, he couldn’t continue and Fiona couldn’t watch him any longer, trussed and incapacitated on her floor. She started to cut off the tape, freeing his hands so that he could wipe his eyes and she handed him a tissue to blow his nose. Eventually he sat on the dining chair before her, his head lowered, dejection rounding his shoulders.

  “Have you given up your job, over there – is that over for you as well?”

  “My job, no I took a year out to sort things for my mum but the job’s still there if I want it. I intended to go back, there isn’t anything here for me anyway. Mum was the last of my family and I have good mates at the hospital, the life there suits me.”

  Fiona took a breath.

  “If I hand you over to the police you’ll have to tell them that you left Saudi without reporting what you saw. You’ll lose your job over there for certain. Then what you’ve been doing to me, okay it’s going to be looked at along with everything else but you were breaking the law and at the end of the day it’s just your word against mine. There’s no body, nothing left now to prove what I did. There’s no extradition treaty between here and there and you can rest assured that I will never go back, nowhere near that part of the world again.”

  He stared at her, she could see him considering, weighing the truth of what she said.