Her Last Breath: The new crime thriller from the international bestseller (Sullivan and Mullins)

by Alison Belsham

  Kath Brady turned towards him as he came into the room, but Tash didn’t even seem to see him. She was lying propped on a heap of pillows, slumped with her head resting on one side. An oxygen tube snaked up into her nostrils and there was a drip taped to her left forearm. Wires led out from the neckline of her hospital gown to a heart monitor, every beat of her heart bumping along its black screen. Seeing her like that reminded Alex of a video he’d seen about lab rats and animal experimentation. She didn’t look right and his stomach contracted with a rush of fear. He longed to pull all the equipment off her, but he knew she needed it.

  Her eyes were closed and each breath sounded like hard work.

  ‘Oh God, why do you keep turning up?’ said Kath Brady, on seeing Alex standing in the doorway. ‘Please just leave.’

  The make-up under her eyes was smudged and she sounded exhausted. Alex felt sorry for what she was going through, but there was no way he was leaving.

  ‘I’ve a right to be here,’ said Alex. ‘I’m her friend.’

  Richard Brady stood at the end of the bed.

  ‘Can I have a word?’ he said. He made a sideways movement with his head, towards the door. ‘Outside.’

  ‘If you want to say something to me, you can say it here.’

  ‘I don’t want to disturb Natasha,’ said Richard Brady quietly.

  ‘Then don’t.’ Alex widened his stance and drew himself up to his full height. He knew it was aggressive but he wasn’t going to allow himself to be pushed around by a man in a suit and his racist wife.

  ‘Look, Alex,’ said Brady, propelling him towards the door with a hand on his shoulder. ‘I know you mean well and I know you think you’re her friend. But your presence here isn’t helping. It’s upsetting my wife, and she needs all her resources to care for Tash.’

  Alex caught hold of the doorframe and shifted his weight back onto his heels.

  ‘I think my presence is helpful to Tash. What treatment has she had?’

  ‘It’s not really any of your business.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her? Why isn’t she getting better?’

  Brady let go of him and went out of the room. Realising it was the only way he’d get any information, Alex followed him.

  ‘The doctor thinks she’s got an infection and she’s been given an antibiotic to tackle it. They’re monitoring her heart – they think the shock of the attack has given her an arrhythmia.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘An irregular heartbeat. She’s really quite ill, Alex.’

  Alex felt the sweat on his body turn cold.

  ‘So, a reassuring friend might bring her some comfort.’

  As Richard Brady considered this, the room door opened and Kath Brady appeared. Alex took a breath and waited for the onslaught but it didn’t happen. Although the bitch could barely bring herself to look at him when she spoke.

  ‘She’s asking for you, Alex. I think she just opened her eyes and saw you as you went out.’

  ‘Good,’ said Alex, and without waiting for either of Tash’s parents to say anything else, he shoved past them back into the room.

  This time Tash looked at him, but if anything, it made Alex feel even worse. Her eyes were barely open, grey pools in a sallow complexion – she looked far more ill than she had done the previous evening.

  ‘Tash!’

  ‘Alex?’

  He came closer to the bed and took hold of the hand that didn’t have the drip attached. Both hands were swathed in bandages and she winced as he touched her.

  ‘How are you, babe?’ He felt a desperate urge to pull her into his arms for a hug, despite all the wires and tubes. He just wanted her to be her usual self – funny and sexy. Seeing this version of her scared him.

  She grimaced. Her lips were dry and cracked. ‘Awful. My chest’s tight, I feel sick. Everything hurts.’ The exertion of talking made her breathe more rapidly and the travelling green light on the heart monitor bounced faster and higher for a moment. She was panting.

  Alex stroked her forehead. ‘You’re going to be fine, Tash. You’re in the right place.’

  ‘I’m scared,’ said Tash.

  ‘Don’t be.’ He hoped he sounded convincing.

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened in the club,’ she said.

  ‘It’s all okay.’ He paused and watched the monitor, mesmerised. It seemed to be moving more slowly now.

  ‘Love you, Tash.’ He’d never said that to a girl before, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

  ‘Kiss me?’

  The Bradys were still out in the corridor, so Alex bent carefully over the bed and kissed Tash softly on the mouth. The dry skin of her lips was rough, and her breath was sour. But she clung to him, so he pulled her up against his chest and kissed her properly.

  She took her mouth from his. ‘Can you feel my heartbeat? It keeps flicking about – it feels weird.’ Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  Alex slipped a hand inside her hospital gown to feel the left side of her chest. He could feel her heart pounding, but it wasn’t quite regular. His own heart rate increased. What was wrong with her?

  ‘Shhhh, you’ll be fine.’

  She smiled at him and leaned in to kiss him again.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  Kath Brady had come in. Damn! He snatched his hand out of her gown, then gently lowered Tash back onto the pillows. He turned to face her mother, jaw set defiantly.

  Not that Kath Brady wanted to hear any sort of explanation.

  ‘Richard! Richard!’

  A nurse came into the room to investigate the commotion.

  ‘Please call the police,’ said Kath Brady. ‘This man was assaulting my daughter.’

  The nurse dithered, confused by the situation.

  ‘No, he wasn’t,’ said Tash, her voice wispy and reed-thin.

  Alex echoed her. ‘I wasn’t attacking your daughter, Mrs Brady.’

  Kath snorted. ‘I saw what I saw. You were mauling her. You had a hand inside her gown. You were interfering with her heart monitor.’

  With a supreme effort, Tash pulled herself up into a sitting position. She was shaking her head.

  ‘No, Mum, you’re wrong. Alex is my boyfriend. I asked him to kiss me.’

  Kath Brady’s upper lip curled with disgust and Alex could guess what she was thinking. She couldn’t bear the idea that her precious daughter might be dating a black man. Might have had sex with a black man. He wanted to shout in her face. God forbid, he wanted to hit her. But for Tash’s sake, he had to curb the impulse to walk out of the room. She needed him here now more than ever.

  The nurse scurried away, obviously not wanting to be drawn into a family argument.

  ‘How long has this been going on?’ said Kath. Her voice was icy, her eyes narrowed.

  ‘What?’ Richard Brady appeared in the doorway.

  ‘This,’ said Kath, waving an arm at the pair of them. ‘She says he’s her boyfriend.’

  Richard Brady didn’t look as shocked as his wife had, but his expression was in no way friendly.

  ‘Six months,’ said Tash. She was labouring for breath and the light on the heart monitor moved sluggishly as it traced her heartbeat.

  Alex pointed at the screen. ‘She needs help. Get the doctor.’

  ‘Get him out of here,’ hissed Kath, close to her husband’s ear. ‘He’s making her worse.’

  ‘Shhhhhh,’ said Richard Brady.

  ‘Don’t shush me,’ said Kath, her voice rising from a whisper. ‘If she hadn’t been seeing him, this probably would never have happened. He must have had something to do with it.’

  Alex looked at Tash. She was unconscious. Bile surged up his throat and he fought against rising panic. Tash needed assistance and her parents were too busy fighting to realise it. He ran from t
he room. There was a nurse heading away from him up the corridor.

  ‘Help. We need a doctor in here. Now!’

  The woman hurried into Tash’s room, took one look at the monitor and slapped the crash call button by the side of the bed. Outside, Alex heard a claxon sounding, then running feet. Kath Brady gasped loudly. Alex couldn’t see any signs that Tash was breathing. Her chest wasn’t moving.

  ‘Get out! Get out now!’

  A voice hailed from the doorway and another nurse rushed in, followed by three doctors.

  ‘Clear the room! Get out!’ shouted the first doctor through the door.

  The first nurse put an arm around Kath Brady’s shoulders and hustled her out.

  ‘You too,’ said the second nurse, addressing Alex.

  He slowly backed away from the bed.

  ‘I need to be here for her.’

  The doctor who seemed to be in charge pulled Tash’s sheet away from her chest and roughly shifted her down the bed so she was lying flat. ‘Nurse, get me atropine – she’s bradycardic.’

  One of the nurses put a mask over Tash’s face and began squeezing the bag attached to it. The doctor quickly prepared an injection.

  Alex stood paralysed, suddenly aware that the beeping of the monitor had become a single, flat tone.

  Without ceremony, the doctor positioned the needle in the centre of Tash’s chest and rammed the syringe home. As soon as the needle was out, one of the other doctors leaned over her to administer chest compressions. The nurse carried on squeezing the oxygen bag, watching the monitor. After a moment the bleep started up again, but it was all over the place with no steady rhythm.

  ‘Ventricular fibrillation,’ snapped the doctor. ‘Defib.’

  A nurse attached sticky electrodes to Tash’s chest, then attached wires to them. She nodded at the doctor.

  ‘Clear!’

  The nurses stood back as the doctor shocked her, and Tash jerked on the bed.

  Oh, fuck . . .

  Though the doctors and the nurses worked calmly, Alex could see their eyes widen with fear. They shocked her again but it was no good. The bleeps stuttered and then stopped altogether, after which the piercing tone of the monitor went on and on.

  It meant only one thing.

  Tash was dead.

  ii

  19 July 1986

  It’s your ninth birthday, Aimée, but this one wasn’t very special at all, was it? There is no party this year because of Mummy’s illness. It’s not fair. She’s got a poisonous lump growing inside her and she needs to go to hospital a lot. You know it’s cancer, even though she and Daddy are very careful not to say the word in front of you. You know it’s cancer because your friend Carla told you. Then she asked you if Mummy was going to die.

  You asked Daddy and he said, ‘Of course not.’ But these days you can tell when Daddy’s lying, can’t you?

  Would you care if she died? She’s never here anyway.

  Your summer holidays are going to be dull, dull, dull. No birthday party is just the start of it. No party, no friends round, no noise in the house when Mummy’s home and sleeping in her room. Jay, who can’t keep quiet for a minute, let alone for a whole day, is grumpy all the time. He goes off to play in the woods on his own. But Daddy won’t let you go. He says you need to stay here to help keep Mummy calm. He says she loves to hear you reading out loud. That’s not true. She covers her eyes with her hand whenever you read to her. She wishes you would go outside to play. Quietly.

  Even on rainy days when Jay can’t play outside, he won’t spend time with you. He calls your games silly. But he’s silly. He stinks of smoke all the time and he thinks he’s so grown-up for swearing. Once you caught him drinking from a bottle of Daddy’s whisky. He twisted your arm behind your back until you promised not to tell.

  Always on your own. Apart from the time you spend with Daddy.

  Jay is very jealous of this, so you make sure he knows all about it. But secretly, you’d rather be with Jay. He’s tons more fun than Daddy when he’s not grumpy – last summer you built tree forts and played football and read comics. He taught you how to swear and how to fight. You’re scared of nothing when Jay’s around. But this summer he hasn’t time for you.

  Today’s your birthday and nothing’s different. Jay’s gone off somewhere and Mummy is too sick for a special birthday breakfast.

  Daddy wondered if you wanted riding lessons for your birthday present, but you didn’t. You couldn’t think of anything you did want. From him.

  He won’t let you call him Dad. That’s what your friends call their fathers.

  You have a temper tantrum and get sent to your room. He says he’ll deal with you later.

  He watches you sleeping.

  You know this, don’t you, Aimée, because you’re not always sleeping when he comes in.

  Quite often you’re lying in your bed awake. Then you pretend to be asleep. You can hear when he’s coming up the stairs, and when he tiptoes along the hall outside your room. Very, very slowly, he pushes down the door handle. You watch the handle on the inside of the door moving, as if a ghost is trying to open your door. But it’s not a ghost. It’s Daddy. He turns the handle slowly because he thinks this makes it quieter. He doesn’t want to wake you up. But you’re already awake. Sometimes, even if you’re sleeping, the creak of the door handle wakes you up.

  You pretend you’re sleeping.

  You can hear him breathing as he stands in the doorway. He’s watching to see if you’re awake. It’s dark and you can smell his cologne, and the mothball smell that clings to his suit. His shoes creak when he walks across the room.

  He stands right by your bed and stares at you while you sleep.

  He’s there for what seems like for ever and you wish he’d go away. Sometimes you fall asleep while he’s there and once, you sneezed. He snuck back into the dark shadows in the corner of the room.

  Tonight, he reaches out a hand and strokes your cheek. He pulls the covers away a little bit.

  You don’t know if it’s creepy or kind of sweet.

  You think maybe it’s a little bit creepy?

  Oh, Aimeé, it is. More than a little bit.

  9

  Sunday, 13 August 2017

  Francis

  Francis called the team together in the incident room at midday.

  As he got his papers in order, Rory Mackay arrived panting with the exertion of climbing the stairs to the second floor. He ripped off his jacket and yanked his tie down from his collar. Dark patches of sweat stained his white shirt under the arms and dotted his chest. Francis felt the back of his own shirt sticking to his skin where it had rested against the leather of his car seat.

  ‘Bloody heatwave,’ said Rory. ‘Roll on September.’

  Angie met them at the door of the incident room. Behind her, at his untidy desk, Kyle Hollins pretended to be working, while surreptitiously listening in on the conversation.

  ‘Tash Brady’s still in hospital,’ Angie said. ‘According to Tanika Parry she’s not recovering as they would have expected.’

  ‘In what way?’ said Francis.

  ‘They think she might have some kind of infection – she’s been having dizzy spells and her blood pressure’s too low.’

  Rory shrugged. ‘Not surprising. Don’t imagine for a moment the guy sterilised whatever he used to make those wounds.’

  ‘They’re worried about sepsis,’ said Angie, with a bleak expression.

  ‘Right, progress so far?’ said Francis. His expectations were low – until they had more information from Tash Brady, they couldn’t know what they were dealing with.

  Angie Burton nodded her head. ‘Tony and Kyle visited The Haunt nightclub to look at their CCTV footage. Turns out Tash Brady and Alex Mullins had some kind of fight shortly before she left the club. The film shows hi
m talking with another girl. Tash comes over and has a go, slaps him round the face. She storms off and doesn’t reappear. That’s the reason why she left the club on her own.’

  ‘What about Mullins?’ said Rory.

  ‘He follows her out, but then there’s a few minutes’ gap before we pick him up on CCTV along the front.’

  ‘Right, we need to talk to Alex about that,’ said Francis. ‘And any other witnesses you can identify who saw what happened? And you’ll need to see if you can talk to Tash again, Angie.’

  ‘Kyle and I are going to go to the club tonight with pictures of Tash and Alex,’ said Angie. ‘We’ll see if we can find anyone who was there and knows anything about what happened. And I’ll go back to the County now to see Tash.’

  ‘What about Tash, after she left? Got anything there?’

  ‘Tony’s checked the promenade CCTV. There was a man walking along the promenade a little time after Tash went along it, but his features aren’t clear. Alex went that way too, when he left the club – that’s not the right direction for him to be heading home.’

  ‘Did either of them go past the bandstand?’ said Rory.

  Angie wrinkled her nose. ‘No. Both disappear before they get that far along. But there are gaps between the cameras, so we don’t know where they went. I’ve asked Kyle to follow up on it.’

  ‘No weapon of any kind at the bandstand?’ said Francis.

  ‘The SOCOs found nothing at the scene,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘The guy must have taken it away with him.’

  ‘The doctor couldn’t say what made those wounds in her hands and feet,’ said Rory. ‘But whatever it was, you’re not gonna leave it lying around, are you?’

  Angie pulled a face. ‘Sick bastard. What about the cut in her side?’

  ‘Straightforward knife wound, apparently,’ said Rory.

  ‘It’s not the how we need to worry about,’ said Francis. ‘It’s the why. She wasn’t robbed and, according to the rape kit results, she wasn’t sexually assaulted. Once we work out the motive, we might know who to look at. Kyle, Google that Latin verse for me.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’