“What were they dismissed for in their former employment?”
“That’s the thing,” said Harry. “No one will tell us that.”
Chapter 14
As Fay left the retirement estate, she remembered that Morwen was making roast chicken for lunch.
All of Morwen’s meals were delicious, but her roast chicken was one of Fay’s favorites. She had a way of preparing the potatoes so that they were crisp and golden on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside. Unfortunately, Fay had to concede that she was too full of chicken a la king and mashed potatoes to manage anything else for lunch. She sent a text to Morwen letting her know that she had already eaten and accompanied it with three lines of crying face emojis. Morwen messaged back saying that she would keep some for Fay to have for dinner.
Fay couldn’t help feeling grumpy about having her lunch spoiled, but at least dinner would be good. Besides, it had been worth it. She had gathered some very useful information.
The fact that the two nurses who had been on duty when the patients died were under suspicion for something they had done in their former jobs was very interesting. So too was knowing that the most expensive cottages on the estate had become vacant at the same time and were now available for a higher price. And then there was the matter of the company cutting funding to the frail-care unit, while apparently having plenty of money to spend on the golf course.
It was all rather intriguing and seemed to point towards Argyle Holdings. That would be her next port of call.
A quick Google search told Fay that their offices were on the High Street just above the flower shop.
The sunshine of that morning had given way to clouds and drizzle. Fay hadn’t got into the British habit of taking an umbrella with her everywhere she went no matter what the weather looked like. She still had a New Yorker’s faith that sunshine in the morning would mean sunshine all day long.
Now she could either walk back to Penrose House to pick up an umbrella or take her chances on a soggy walk down to the village. She decided to risk the rain. It was barely drizzling, after all. This was more like walking through mist than an actual downpour.
The High Street of Bluebell Village was pretty to look at in all weathers. In sunshine, the light grey stone of the buildings appeared cheerful and summery. In snowy weather, the whole village turned into a Hallmark card. A cap of snow formed on the dome of the town hall, making it look like it was wearing a hat.
Even on a grey, drizzly afternoon like today, the local stone glowed palely as though lit from within. It reminded Fay once again how lucky she was to live in this place. The village was always clean and neat too. It regularly won local ‘tidiest village’ competitions.
Which made it even stranger to see garbage scattered up and down the High Street in front of the flower shop.
Fay bent to pick up some of the items that were in her path. She noticed other villagers doing the same thing. Several people tutted and shook their heads at the unusual sight of litter in the road.
Fay looked at the items she had picked up. Empty packets of flower food, a tube of hand disinfectant, and some cellophane wrapping. The garbage must have come from the flower shop. She tipped the items she had picked up into a nearby skip and dusted off her hands.
Then she walked into Bluebell Island’s Bluebells. She and the owner were friends. It was highly out of character for Laurie Tennith to have litter from her shop lying outside in the street.
The flower shop was heaving with people all wanting to be attended to at the same time, so Fay hung back and waited for a quiet moment.
At this time of year, Laurie’s stock consisted mostly of varieties of traditional English roses. Fay found she could even identify some of them now, thanks to Pen, the groundsman at Penrose House. He grew several varieties of roses in the garden and often tried to educate city slicker Fay in the names of the different types.
She recognized at a glance Old Blush, Penelope, Ballerina Rosa Mundi, and the rambling rose, Blush Rambler. Even the names seemed to come from a different century. The rest were a mystery to her.
It took fifteen minutes before Laurie had attended to everyone and the shop finally emptied out.
“Fay!” she said, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. “Good to see you. What a crazy day it’s been.”
Fay smiled. “Hi, Laurie. I hate to add to your troubles, but did you know that there is garbage from the flower shop strewn all over the street outside? It’s attracting some dirty looks from passersby.”
Laurie sighed and closed her eyes. “You’re the second person to tell me that. I called the village council and they promised to send someone to clean it up. I wanted to go out and pick up as much as I could myself, but it’s been insane in here today. Everyone wants flowers for the weekend. This is the first moment all day I haven’t had a customer in the shop.”
“But how did it happen? Where does all that garbage come from?”
“I have no idea. Someone must have knocked over my wheelie bin. You know the green ones that we’re supposed to use for recycling?”
Fay nodded. She had the same system up at Penrose House. “Sure.”
“Those bins are supposed to be tamper-proof. But somehow mine got knocked over and the contents scattered all over the street. That was absolutely the last thing I needed this morning.”
“Weird. I’ve had guests back their cars into my bins by mistake, and even that didn’t tip them over.”
“I suppose it was some kids playing the fool. We always get a little vandalism during the tourist season. Are you on your way to the farmers market?”
“Not today.” Fay pointed to the ceiling. “I’m actually heading upstairs to see your neighbors.”
“Argyle Holdings? You don’t have any dealings with them, I hope?”
“I don’t, but I’m interested in why you would say that. Are they in some kind of trouble?”
Laurie pulled a face. “Nothing like that. They’re making money hand over fist, as far as I can tell. It’s just that their business practices aren’t the most ethical in the world.”
“Is that a rumor, or something more?”
“It’s more than a rumor. I’ve had first-hand experience of it. About a month ago, one of their managers told me that we could all get a reduction in our rent if we - the tenants on this block - pretended to give the landlord notice at the same time. He said he would immediately offer us a better deal to stay.”
“Did you do it?” asked Fay.
“I did not. I turned him down flat. I don’t like playing games of brinkmanship – not when it comes to my job.”
“Okay. Well, I can see how that might not be strictly honest, but I’ve heard of worse business practices. A lot of companies are ruthless when it comes to saving a buck.”
“But that’s not all. I don’t think saving money on the rent was ever their real target. I think the target was me. They wanted to get me out of here so they could take over my premises. Remember that little laundry that used to be above me?”
“Sure. I noticed the other day that they were gone.”
“They gave their notice to the landlord, supposedly to negotiate a better rental. The landlord accepted their notice and they had to be gone by the end of the month. Argyle Holdings moved into their premises a week later. If I had agreed to their so-called strategy, I would now be out on the street looking for a home for my flowers.”
“Wow.” Fay’s eyes were wide. “Those are some nasty tactics. I should probably watch my back when I go upstairs.”
Laurie laughed. “Bang hard on the floor if you need rescuing.”
The head office of Argyle Holdings gave the impression that the company was solid and prosperous. No expense had been spared in outfitting the place. The teak reception desk and thick-pile carpet would not look out of place in a midtown law firm in Manhattan.
Fay told the receptionist that she represented the family of one of the people who had passed away at Sunset Acres and wa
s immediately shown through to the manager. He introduced himself as Ashcroft Argyle.
“Please call me Ash. How can I help you, Miss Penrose?”
“The Binnie family are not entirely satisfied with the explanation they’ve been given about why their mother died. They’ve heard that the two nurses who were on nightshift when Sophy Binnie passed away were fired from their previous jobs for undisclosed reasons. We would like to know what those reasons were.”
Ashcroft’s professional smile faded as she spoke. “The nurses in question are entitled to their privacy, Miss Penrose. Please take my word for it that the reasons they left their previous employment do not affect their job performance in any way.”
Fay wasn’t surprised by this response. “Here’s the thing, Mr. Argyle. I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s reputation, but you must see that this is relevant information. We’re talking about the only two people who were trained medical professionals in the frail-care unit at the time of Mrs. Binnie’s death. And they both have some sort of an infraction on their records. The family has a right to know what those infractions were and to decide for themselves if they’re relevant.”
“The General Medical Council made a ruling that these two nurses did not have to disclose the reasons for their previous terminations at their current place of work. That should tell you how minor they were.”
“The information has already leaked,” said Fay. “I heard about it from residents at Sunset Acres. They don’t know the details, but they’re speculating wildly. And the Binnies are angry enough to go to the media with this. Unless you want to be accused of a cover-up, you should release this information in a controlled way.”
Ashcroft looked worried. Fay could almost have brought herself to feel sorry for him if not for what he had tried to do to Laurie.
The people she felt sorrier for were the two nurses. If the complaints against them really were minor, it wasn’t fair for them to be objects of suspicion now. This could end their careers if it blew up in the media. That was all the more reason to be open about it now, while the news could still be controlled.
“Can you at least tell me that the infractions they were dismissed for were not criminal?”
Ashcroft sighed and shook his head. “I wish I could tell you that, Miss Penrose, but it wouldn’t be true.”
“So, they were accused of crimes?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“What sort of crimes?” Fay wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“Murder,” he said. “They were accused of murder.”
Chapter 15
Fay stared at him.
“Murder? The minor infraction they were dismissed for that isn’t even worth mentioning was murder? We clearly have different definitions of the word ‘minor’.”
Ash Argyle squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he gestured for Fay to sit opposite him. He seemed to have made a decision. “Let me explain, Miss Penrose. A few years ago, Rowan Court was working as a nurse at a large NHS hospital in Liverpool and taking care of his ailing mother at the same time. She lived with him and was terminally ill. She had been sick for a very long time and was in a great deal of pain.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Her doctors knew that she wanted to end her life, so they were very careful with her medication. They would only give her small amounts of opiates for pain at a time. She spent months begging her son to supply her with enough strong pain medication for an overdose. He refused. Then one day, when her suffering was too terrible to watch, he procured some pills and left them at her bedside. She overdosed the next day while he was out at work. A social worker who was doing weekly home visits found her and found the empty pill bottle. Rowan Court was arrested for murder.”
“That seems harsh,” said Fay. “He was in a very difficult position.”
“Exactly. But assisting someone to commit suicide is still illegal in this country.”
“But it’s not as though he even helped her to take the pills. He just left them there.”
“That’s why he got off lightly. He immediately admitted what he had done. His mother’s doctor gave the prosecutors a sworn statement that she had been begging him for opiates for nearly a year too. In the end, the Crown prosecutor declined to prosecute. Rowan was never convicted of any crime.”
“But the hospital he was working at terminated his employment?”
“In a way. He was allowed to resign with full benefits. The General Medical Council kept him on the roll, and he was not obliged to disclose what had happened to his next employer. As it happens, he chose to tell us, but we didn’t tell the staff at the frail-care unit. It would have been a breach of his privacy. I have no idea how it leaked to the residents.”
Fay could feel nothing but compassion for the young man. She could only imagine how difficult it must have been to watch a beloved parent suffering. It must have been incredibly hard to hold out against her constant begging for him to acquire pills for her. Fay couldn’t find it in her heart to blame him for what he had done.
“What about the other nurse?” she asked. “Meredith Disick. Was it a similar situation?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. Meredith was also working at a large NHS hospital, but in Yorkshire. She worked in the head and neck unit under a famous German neurosurgeon. One day, a young man with a head injury was admitted to the ward. The doctor prescribed something to reduce the swelling in his brain. He wrote the prescription down and gave it to Meredith. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen how German people write the numeral one?”
“Well, I know they cross their sevens,” said Fay. “But I didn’t know they wrote their ones differently.”
“Where you or I would just draw a straight line for the numeral one, a German person – especially someone from the older generation – draws a diagonal upstroke first, followed by a hard, vertical downstroke for the one.”
“Sure. I know what you mean.”
“The neurosurgeon wanted to prescribe one milligram of medication for the young man and to emphasize it he underlined it. Unfortunately, the underlining joined the upstroke and downstroke of the one.”
Fay tried to picture it. “Oh, I get it. So, now his number one looked like a four.”
“Exactly. Poor Meredith Disick administered four milligrams of the medication to the young man instead of one. In some cases of brain trauma, four milligrams might have been the correct dose, but because this young man also had a cracked skull, it turned out to be fatal. He died that night. He was eighteen years old. Meredith was arrested for murder.”
“But it wasn’t her fault. She misread the prescription.”
“The neurosurgeon claimed that no German nurse would ever have read his prescription as a four instead of a one, but to any English person it looked like a four. Luckily, the hospital still had the original prescription so everyone could see where the confusion arose, and once again the Crown prosecutor declined to prosecute.”
“It would have been crazy unfair to blame her for that. If anything, it was the doctor’s fault for not realizing what his handwriting would look like to an English nurse.”
“As it turned out, neither of them was prosecuted. They both lost their jobs at the hospital because a young man was dead, after all. But they were allowed to continue working elsewhere. When you think of the terrible handwriting some doctors have, it’s surprising these things don’t happen more often.”
Once again, Fay couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but deep compassion for Meredith Disick. It was a horrible thing to have happened - and would probably haunt her for the rest of her life - but you couldn’t blame her for it.
“I hope that answers your questions about the two nurses,” said Ashcroft. “We believe in giving people second chances here at Argyle Holdings. And both nurses are very good at their jobs.”
Fay suspected that they were both also cheaper to employ than other nurses with the same levels of training and experience. Argyle Holdin
gs was probably getting a bargain in them. But there was nothing illegal about that.
“I’ve heard that you’ve been cutting costs at Sunset Acres,” she said. “Some residents have complained that there’s always enough money for the golf club, but not for the frail-care unit.”
Ashcroft cleared his throat. “I can’t deny that we have stopped approving requests for extra funding for the frail-care unit. But there’s a good reason for that.”
“And what would that be? Most of the residents believe that their health care should be the priority.”
“The truth is that someone has been embezzling funds from the frail-care unit. We’re not approving any new expenditure until we know who it is. It is probably someone quite senior.”
Suddenly, things began to make sense. “You mean someone like Matron Sale?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. All I can confirm is that there is a freeze on expenditure in that unit while we investigate.”
Workers from the village council were cleaning up the street outside the flower shop as Fay emerged from the building.
The residents of Bluebell Village could relax. Their little town’s reputation as the tidiest village in the west country was safe once more.
It was only three-thirty, but Fay was already hungry. That was what came from eating lunch so early. She contemplated going back up to the Cat’s Paw and joining the residents for tea at four o’clock. She knew exactly what they would be having because she had made them herself – a colorful assortment of petits-fours. But she didn’t feel like the steep walk home on an empty stomach. Besides, she wasn’t in the mood for petits-fours.
Fay knew exactly what she felt like, and the best part was that she could tell herself she was combining it with professional research.
She crossed the road and headed towards the Cracked Spine – an antiquarian and second-hand bookshop with a coffee shop and B&B attached. The Cracked Spine served the best scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream that you could get on the island. It wasn’t just the scones or the jam that were superior. Fay knew that the ones she served at the Cat’s Paw were every bit as good.
The Cat That Was Bigger Than You Page 9