Still Bleeding (A Jack Nightingale Short Story)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Tell them you’ve got a kid that’s dying from leukaemia. You heard that their daughter can help.’

  Jenny’s nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘Are you serious? You want me to lie to them?’

  ‘Jenny, honey, they’re hardly likely to talk to you if you tell them your client is the Vatican.’

  ‘I’m not comfortable about inventing a fictional sick child,’ she said.

  Nightingale sighed. ‘Okay, tell them you work for a charity and that you have kids who need help.’

  ‘So now I’m inventing multiple fictional sick kids. Explain to me how that’s better?’

  ‘It’s less personal,’ said Nightingale. ‘Look, tell them anything you want, just see if you can get in and have a chat with Tracey. I’d do it myself but I know they’ll be more likely to talk to a pretty face.’

  ‘Yeah, flattery’ll do the trick every time,’ said Jenny. ‘I tell you, Jack, this is part of our job that I really don’t like; lying to people.’

  ‘If you can think of a way of telling the truth and getting the info we want, you go right ahead,’ said Nightingale.

  * * *

  They pulled up outside the Spradbery house just after mid-day. It was a semi-detached house on a council estate, the paint on the doors and windows cracked and peeling. Moss was growing between the paving stones that led up to the front door. There was a white van in the driveway of the Spradbery house and a five-year-old blue Nissan next door. There was a rusting metal swing set and a BMX bike leaning against the garage door of the neighbouring house.

  Jenny climbed out of the Audi. Three hoodie-wearing teenagers standing outside an off-licence were smoking and staring at the car. ‘Make sure you stay put,’ she said.

  Nightingale chuckled. ‘You’re such a snob.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with snobbery, I just don’t want to find my car on blocks when I get back.’

  ‘They’re just kids,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Stay in the car,’ said Jenny. Nightingale watched as she walked up to the front door. He took out his cigarettes and lighter but then remembered that she didn’t like him smoking in the Audi. He put them away as the front door opened. A middle-aged woman in a flowered apron spoke to Jenny for several minutes and then closed the front door. Jenny came back to the car and bent down to talk to him through the open window. ‘They’re not there.’

  ‘Who did you speak to?’

  ‘Mrs Spradbery’s sister. Tracey’s aunt. She’s in there to feed their dogs and give the place a clean.’

  ‘Did she say where they’ve gone?’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘All she said was that the Spradberys have taken Tracey with them to keep her away from the press. They were ringing their doorbell every hour of the day and night.’

  ‘Did she confirm the stigmata?’

  ‘She said it’s true. But she said the family don’t want to talk to anybody.’

  ‘Any idea when they’ll be back?’

  Jenny shook her head.

  ‘Tracey has to go to school, right?’

  ‘I asked her that. Apparently they pulled Tracey out of school when the bleeding started. They’re home-schooling her. What do we do?’

  ‘We talk to the neighbours.’

  ‘That’ll be the royal “we” I suppose.’

  ‘Nah, I’ll come with you this time,’ he said. ‘Ben Spradbery’s family don’t seem to mind talking about what’s happened.’

  Jenny looked around but the kids had gone from outside the off-licence.

  ‘Your car’ll be fine,’ said Nightingale. He got out of the Audi and Jenny locked the doors.

  ‘If my windows get smashed then you pay, right?’

  ‘Cross my heart,’ said Nightingale. ‘But you worry too much.’

  They walked by the Nissan and Nightingale rang the doorbell. There was no response and he tried again. ‘Maybe they’re not in,’ said Jenny.

  ‘The car suggests otherwise,’ said Nightingale. He headed around the side of the house.

  ‘Jack, where do you think you’re going?’ hissed Jenny.

  ‘Let’s check the back door.’

  ‘I’m not up for breaking and entering,’ she said. ‘That’s not in my employment contract.’

  ‘No one said anything about breaking,’ he said. ‘Let’s just take a look.’

  The rear garden wasn’t much bigger than the one at the front, but was considerably more overgrown. There was a garden shed at the bottom of the garden and a washing line from which fluttered a sheet and a quilt cover.

  ‘Jack, we shouldn’t be doing this,’ said Jenny behind him.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ said Nightingale. He reached for the handle of the kitchen door. He flinched as it moved just before his fingers touched it. The door opened and a woman holding a plastic basket of washing screamed. Nightingale jumped back and fell against Jenny as the woman dropped her basket of laundry. The woman staggered back into the kitchen and screamed again.

  Nightingale recognised her from the newspaper article. It was Mrs Miller, Ben’s mother. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ said Nightingale. ‘We’re just here to talk to you.’

  Mrs Miller stood staring at Nightingale, her chest rising and falling as she gasped for breath. ‘You scared the life out of me,’ she said. She was in her forties, a heavy-set woman with permed hair. She was wearing a shapeless dress with yachts and lighthouses on it.

  ‘Mutual,’ said Nightingale. ‘Sorry. I did ring the bell.’

  ‘I was in the laundry room,’ she said, still panting. Sweat was beading above her upper lip, emphasising a slight moustache there. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Jack Nightingale,’ he said. ‘This is my friend Jenny. Can we talk to you about Ben?’

  ‘You’re not journalists are you? We don’t talk to journalists any more?’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘I have a nephew who has leukaemia,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘What type?’

  ‘Type?’ repeated Nightingale.

  ‘AML,’ said Jenny, quickly. ‘Acute myelogenous leukemia.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘Let me hang these up and I’ll make us some tea.’

  She carried the laundry basket across the lawn to the washing line.

  Nightingale opened his mouth to speak but Jenny silenced him with a wave of her hand. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m not proud of myself for lying like that.’

  ‘We don’t have a choice,’ said Nightingale. ‘You heard her. Someone’s told her not to talk to journalists.’

  Mrs Miller came back and ushered them into her kitchen. The lino was threadbare and the gas cooker looked as if it was fifty years old. She told them to sit down at the kitchen table while she made tea. It was covered with a white plastic cloth and there were half empty bottles of Heinz ketchup and HP brown sauce standing in the centre.

  ‘How is Ben?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘As right as rain,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘Dr McKenzie says he’s never seen anything like it.’

  ‘Dr McKenzie?’

  ‘Our GP. He’s taken care of Ben since he was a baby. Lovely man. He’s Tracey’s GP too. He says it’s a miracle, what happened to Ben.’

  ‘It sounds like it,’ said Nightingale. ‘But he was treating Ben, right? Giving him medication and stuff?’

  ‘He was, and he was helping us deal with the hospital,’ she said. ‘But Ben was getting worse. He’d lost all his hair, bless. Then…’ She shrugged. ‘It was a miracle. It really was. There’s no other word for it.’

  ‘Can you tell me what happened, Mrs Miller?’ said Nightingale. ‘I only know what I read in the newspaper.’

  Mrs Miller turned away from the kettle and folded her arms. ‘It sounds crazy when I tell the story,’ she said, ‘A lot of kids wouldn’t play with Ben when he was sick. They thought they could catch it from him. Ignorant parents didn’t help either. But Dave and Carla were different, they were more than happy to let Ben play at their house. He u
sed to spend hours over there. Tracey would go through her schoolwork with him, helping him make up for the lessons he’d missed. She’s an angel.’

  The kettle switched off and she poured hot water into three mugs and popped in teabags. ‘Then about two months ago, the thing happened.’ She prodded the teabags with a teaspoon.

  ‘The thing?’ said Jenny.

  ‘The stigmata. Ben came back and said that Tracey was bleeding. I thought maybe she’d hurt herself when they were playing so I went around. She had these wounds on her hands and her feet and another in her side.’ She patted her own side. ‘There was blood but not a lot. And Tracey said they didn’t hurt.’ She fished the teabags out of the mugs, dropped them into a bin and took a carton of milk out of the fridge. ‘Dave and Carla were frantic, of course. They rushed Tracey to A&E and they bandaged the wounds and gave her antibiotics but other than that they didn’t seem to know what to do. The doctor said she’d never seen anything like it. I think Carla was worried that they might call in social services.’

  She put the mugs down on the kitchen table with the carton of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes. ‘Help yourself,’ she said, sitting down. She used her fingers to drop four sugar lumps into her tea and then slowly stirred it with a white plastic spoon. ‘The next day, Ben went around to play. I said he should leave her be for a while but he didn’t have anyone else to play with so he just kept on nagging. Well, that evening when Ben came back he was all excited and saying that Tracey had seen an angel.’

  ‘An angel?’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I think she meant the Virgin Mary but the family isn’t religious and I think Tracey was just confused. Ben said that the angel had cured him.’

  ‘He said that?’

  Mrs Miller nodded. ‘He said that the angel had told Tracey that the cancer had gone. We thought it was ridiculous, of course. Maybe they’d been watching a DVD that had given them ideas or something. We told Ben not to be so stupid and to go to bed. But from that day on he started to get better. It was as if the leukaemia had gone into remission, Dr McKenzie said. Then it was gone. Like he’d never been sick. Dr McKenzie said he’d never seen anything like it.’

  ‘You said Dr McKenzie also treated Tracey?’ said Nightingale.

  ‘He went around to their house every day after the surgery closed to change her dressings,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘But the bleeding didn’t stop. That’s when a journalist found out about Ben and came around to write an article. The paper printed the story and then all sorts of journalists started coming around. TV, radio, the papers. They were knocking on our door at all hours. After a couple of days Dave came around and said they were moving. He wasn’t sure how long they’d be away but he said they had to protect Tracey.’

  ‘What did he mean by protect?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘He just said it was really important that they took her away. The next day they’d gone. Ben was distraught. But on the positive side, he’s back in school now and doing really well.’

  They heard the front door crash open and slam, and then rapid footsteps in the hallway. Mrs Miller looked up at a clock on the cooker. ‘That’ll be him now,’ she said.

  A schoolboy hurtled into the kitchen and tossed a backpack on the floor. ‘What’s for tea, mum?’ he asked. Nightingale recognised the boy from the newspaper article. He was tall for his age and had a crop of freckles across his nose and cheeks.

  ‘Fish fingers. But you need to get your homework done first.’

  ‘Hi Ben, I’m Jack,’ said Nightingale. ‘This is Jenny.’

  ‘Are you reporters? You look like reporters?’ He looked at his mother. ‘Tracey says we mustn’t talk to the papers, you know that.’

  ‘We’re not reporters, Ben,’ said Nightingale. ‘I have a nephew who’s sick like you.’

  ‘I’m not sick any more,’ said the boy. ‘I’m cured. Tracey cured me.’

  ‘I know, that’s great news,’ said Nightingale. ‘Tracey helped you get well, right?’

  The boy nodded. ‘The lady made me better. She talks to Tracey.’

  ‘Did you talk to the lady?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘Only Tracey can see her. Tracey’s special, you see.’

  ‘Upstairs with you now,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘I want all your homework done before you touch your PlayStation.

  ‘Yes, mum,’ said Ben. He headed for the door.

  ‘Ben, before you go,’ said Nightingale. ‘Did Tracey touch you or do anything to make you better?’

  Ben stopped and nodded. ‘She put her hands on my head and said a prayer. The Lord’s prayer. Our father who art in heaven. You know it?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘Sure. And that was all? After that you were okay?’

  ‘It was a miracle, Dr McKenzie said. He says he hopes that Tracey will be better soon, too.’

  ‘Is Dr McKenzie still treating Tracey?’

  The boy nodded enthusiastically. ‘He takes letters to her from me and he brings letters from her.’

  ‘Do you know where she is?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Ben, homework, now,’ said Mrs Miller firmly. Ben ran out of the kitchen. ‘Dave and Carla don’t want anyone to know where Tracey is,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to respect their wishes.’

  ‘Do you have a phone number for them?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘I do, but they were quite clear that I shouldn’t give it to anyone. Anyone at all.’

  ‘We understand,’ said Jenny. She took a pen and a notepad out of her handbag and scribbled a phone number on it. ‘Could you mention it to Dave and Carla, tell them that we’d like their help, and get them to give us a call.’

  Mrs Miller took the piece of paper. ‘I will, but I’m pretty sure they won’t contact you. I probably gave them two dozen numbers just like yours after they left and I know they didn’t follow any of them up.’

  ‘You’d think they’d want to help others the way that they helped Ben,’ said Nightingale.’

  ‘They were really worried about something,’ said Mrs Miller.

  ‘What exactly?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘They didn’t say. But I think they were worried about somebody wanting to hurt Tracey.’

  ‘Who, do you know?’

  Mrs Miller shook her head. ‘It was just a feeling.’ She looked at the clock again. ‘I’m sorry but my husband’s going to back soon so I need to get his dinner ready.

  Nightingale finished his tea and stood up. ‘Thanks for your time, anyway.’

  ‘And we’re really pleased for Ben,’ said Jenny, standing up. ‘It’s great to see him looking so well.’

  Mrs Miller nodded. “I hope your nephew gets better,’ she said. ‘I really do.’

  * * *

  ‘I hate lying to people,’ said Jenny as they walked back to the car. She was relieved to see that her wheels and windows were still intact. ‘Now she’s fretting over an imaginary nephew with leukaemia.’

  ‘She’ll have forgotten it already,’ said Nightingale. ‘And let’s be honest here. We told her that we have a nephew dying of leukaemia and she just shrugged and said she couldn’t help.’

  Jenny pressed the fob to open the Audi’s doors. ‘That’s not fair, Jack. She said she’d pass on the message but she didn’t think the Spradberys would help. It’s not her fault.’

  ‘I’m just saying, there’s nothing wrong with bending the truth a bit to get the information we need.’

  ‘That was a barefaced lie, not bending the truth,’ said Jenny. She climbed into the car and Nightingale got into the passenger seat. ‘Now what?’ she said.

  ‘We need to find out where Dr McKenzie works,’ he said. ‘Can you do a bit of Googling on your iPhone?’

  Jenny took out her phone. It took her less than two minutes to find the address of Dr McKenzie’s surgery. It was a short drive away, and a few minutes later Jenny was parking across the road from the surgery, a detached bungalow that had once been a family home . The garden had been paved over to make a car pa
rk and there was a large sign saying ‘DOCTORS ONLY, ALL OTHER CARS WILL BE CLAMPED.’

  ‘I’ll do this one,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘That’s good because I think I’ve passed my quota of untruths today,’ said Jenny.

  Nightingale climbed out of the car and lit a cigarette. Jenny wound down the window and looked up at him. ‘Seriously? You’re going to go in there smoking?’

  ‘No, I need a cigarette. I’ll smoke it then go in.’

  ‘You should try patches,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t get them to light,’ he said. He took a drag on the cigarette and walked across the road to the surgery. Through a window Nightingale could see half a dozen people, mainly pensioners, sitting on wooden chairs and beyond them a reception area. He took a final pull on his cigarette and then flicked it towards a drain before pushing open the door. He walked across a tiled floor to the reception. Two middle-aged women were sitting at desks staring at computer terminals while another woman was on the phone, explaining why it wasn’t possible for the caller to have an appointment the following day, or the day after.

  Nightingale stood and waited. The two women stared at the computer screens and he got the impression they were deliberately avoiding eye contact. To his right was a corridor that presumably led to the consulting rooms. There was a digital sign above the corridor that gave the name of the last patient and the number of the room they were to go to. Nightingale figured it saved the reception staff from having to talk to the patients.

  ‘Because all our appointments are full,’ explained the woman on the phone. ‘The day after tomorrow is the best I can do.’ There was a brief pause then the woman spoke again. ‘Well I’m sorry you feel that way,’ she said. ‘You can always try A&E.’

  To the left of the reception area there were framed photographs on the wall of the four doctors who worked for the practice. Dr Ron McKenzie was on the far right. He was in his fifties with grey hair, round spectacles and a kindly smile. According to the brief notes under the photograph he had been with the practice for ten years and specialised in young patients.

  ‘By all means write to your MP,’ said the woman on the phone. ‘That’s your right, of course it is.’ She banged down phone. ‘Just as it’s my right to hang up on you. Silly woman.’ She looked at Nightingale over the top of her spectacles. ‘How can I help you?’ she asked, in a tone that suggested she had zero interest in helping him in any way.