Kelly had found out the hard way that it truly was exhausting being a single mum. Her husband, Brian, had left the previous year for no particular reason other than they’d fallen out of love. There was no row, no screaming matches, he’d just turned round one morning and said, ‘Well, this isn’t working out, is it?’ and left.
Brian had moved into a flat just a few miles away, but it may as well have been on the moon for all the help he’d been with the kids. He hadn’t been a total bastard about it – when it came to the divorce settlement he had signed over his half of the house without dispute. Brian was aiming for a clean break and Kelly understood that, but what she couldn’t grasp was his total indifference towards his own children. He was a perfectly loving father on the weekends he did take them, but he never asked to see them. It was always at Kelly’s instigation.
Kelly wasn’t even angry, or sad. Truth was, she felt nothing at all. Her closest friend, Joanna, believed Kelly needed cheering up. She would arrive with a bottle of wine and warm hugs on the nights Kelly wasn’t working. Although Kelly appreciated the sentiment, she found it all a bit tiresome. But, at thirty-nine years old and as a single working mother of two, everything seemed tiresome now. She was convinced that had been the downfall of her marriage. They had both simply run out of steam. Kelly didn’t even have the strength to try to salvage it. She just let it go.
But that was then, and this was now, and she still had bills to pay. Her job was to nurse terminally ill patients through their final days, at home, instead of in the sterile surroundings of some generic hospital ward. Kelly had lost count of how many people she had seen die. One night she witnessed a record five deaths – a record for her unit – earning her the unkind nickname of ‘Nurse Dredd’.
She had a job most people couldn’t comprehend, but Kelly didn’t have a problem with death as it was never her focus: she always concentrated on her patients’ lives. She loved getting to know them. Talking to these fading human beings about their families, before they were slowly erased. Seeing photos of where they’d been and what they’d done during their years on the planet. They were usually surrounded by love and warmth, and Kelly’s job was to make their passing as comfortable and as pain-free as possible.
Those were good deaths.
Then there were the other kind. Mums and dads her own age, cut down in their prime by an illness they didn’t deserve. Fit young men with lung cancer, who hadn’t smoked a cigarette in their lives. A woman on her last legs with chronic heart failure, from some virus that ruins the organ you need most. Almost always supported by a partner with a haunted look and bewildered young children who were about to lose a parent.
Those were the hardest, because empathy can be a bitch. Kelly was often asked by her non-nursing pals how she coped. She coped simply because she had to. She was never in any way cold and she never, ever forgot a single patient she cared for. But, back at home, her mum would sleep over with the kids and get them ready for school in the morning. It was the only way Kelly could keep going to work since Brian left.
And Kelly guiltily acknowledged that work was actually the easiest part of her life. She enjoyed the randomness of the call sheet, which determined who she would be nursing through the night. There was the usual sadness, when a line had been drawn through yet another patient, but in the business of dying there are always plenty of customers.
That morning, as usual, sheer exhaustion kicked in as she slipped under her duvet, the previous night’s shift being put to bed with her.
3: Back off
April and Connor walked into their office shortly after 10am. In movies and TV shows the editorial floors of newspapers are always shown as hives of activity, with phones ringing and journalists hammering away at keyboards. That was true of the golden era of print. Nowadays the newsroom of the Daily Chronicle resembled a morgue. Constant job-cutting meant that reporters were down to a skeleton staff. The building didn’t get busy until early afternoons when the sub-editors, who edited and made the words fit the boxes on the page, began their shifts.
‘Look at that,’ Connor said, pointing at the ceiling, ‘half the lights aren’t even on because no one has walked past the motion sensors.’
The low energy lighting flickered into life, illuminating the way for April and Connor as they walked to their converted broom cupboard office. Connor tossed a copy of the day’s paper onto his desk in disgust. ‘Princess bloody Diana. We were all happy to pour buckets of shit over her while she was alive, but now she’s taken on sainthood status. And where do they get all this crap from anyway? Any ex-cop or failed journalist wanting to make a quick buck releases another Diana conspiracy book and we faithfully report their drivel.’
‘Funny how people always think we’re at the cutting edge and how our job is so action-packed and exciting. How little they know,’ April said, chuckling as she went through the daily rigmarole of trying to get her PC to boot up and the numerous attempts to get her password right.
Then it was down to the most important part of the day – stories.
Connor despaired at the attitude of many reporters who would wait around to be given something to work on, believing that they were there solely to report the news. That may have been fine once upon a time, but these days news was what you made it. April felt the same, but in more simple terms; she liked to keep herself busy as it made the days fly by till she could be home again, snoring in her chair with her cat, Cheeka, curled up on her lap.
‘Right, sod it. I’m going to call Lord Geoffrey, see what he’s got to say about appearing on Beast Shamer,’ Connor said.
‘Do you have his number?’
‘I think so, from years ago. Got him to do some first-person bollocks on changes to the Scottish judicial system or something. He’s from one of the islands, although you’d never know it. Became quite the quintessential Englishman when he ended up in the House of Lords.’
‘I hate when they do that. Cover up who they really are.’
‘Get you with your peroxide blonde hair. Aren’t you really a redhead?’
April regretted ever telling her colleague that. He often used it against her, but she had truly hated the carrot-top she’d been born with and spent most of her years disguising it.
Connor found the number for Lord Delphina on an old Microsoft Word file, one of the many incarnations of his contacts book that had originally started out as a Filofax before being transferred onto two generations of Psion organisers, which had become obsolete. Connor then had to copy and paste his thousands of numbers, emails and postal addresses onto a Word file, before painstakingly typing almost all the 5,000 entries one by one into his BlackBerry, which was eventually replaced by his current iPhone. Those he hadn’t deemed worthy of migrating stayed on his Word file, which he was using now.
April still had the same bulging, fade to grey, tattered old diary she had faithfully lugged around for thirty-odd years and in which she’d used every colour of pen to scribble the names and numbers of everyone she had ever interviewed. Remarkably she could locate even the most mouldy of contacts almost as quickly as Connor could from his smartphone.
‘Got it. It’s the old bastard’s home number too. Excellent,’ Connor purred after locating Delphina’s contact details. He popped a tiny Olympus microphone into his ear so that it could record the telephone conversation on his Panasonic digital recorder. He pressed the record button as the phone connected. It was picked up on the second ring by a woman.
‘Lord Delphina’s residence.’
‘Hello, it’s Connor Presley from the Daily Chronicle in Glasgow. Is the Lord available?’
‘Can I have your number and email address?’ the woman asked, politely enough.
‘Sure, but can I speak to him now?’ Connor pressed.
‘Your number and email address, please?’ she repeated, somewhat more forcibly this time.
Connor gave both before the
lady thanked him and hung up. ‘Weird. She didn’t even ask me what I wanted him for. I wonder if I’ll hear back.’
He didn’t have long to wonder: an email arrived from the prominent London law firm McIlvanney and Mallicks. It stated:
Dear Mr Presley
We act for Lord Justice Delphina, OBE. His Lordship has instructed us to contact all members of the press with regards to Internet rumours of historic sexual abuse.
His Lordship is currently undertaking a series of medical tests. He will not be making any comment on these unsubstantiated and unfounded allegations.
You are to cease and desist from any contact with Lord Delphina. As this is also a medical matter, we have copied your editor and your legal department into this email too as all information contained in this correspondence is confidential and not for publication.
Yours sincerely
Henry McIlvanney
‘Fuck me,’ Connor said, shaking his head, ‘talk about heavy-handed. And you wonder why the mainstream media never report even the existence of these rumours? These bastards would happily shut us all down.’
Connor stared at the email for a long time. He wasn’t in the mood to kowtow to a lord, or anyone else for that matter.
4: Mad Malky
‘Got a new one for you tonight, Kelly. A Mr Malcolm Monahan. Bone cancer. Forty-nine. Ex-forces, apparently,’ said Kelly’s boss, Sister McIntosh, reading from her computer screen.
‘Bone cancer? What’s the primary source?’ Kelly asked. It was a legitimate question as cancer usually, but not always, spread to bones from the likes of the prostate or lungs.
Sister McIntosh scanned down her notes. ‘Nope, doesn’t say. Although, it doesn’t say much. He was being treated by the army before being dumped on us. Must’ve wanted to come home to die in peace.’
‘Any family?’
‘Sorry. Name, age and condition. That’s your lot. Patients are like a box of chocolates, you know.’
‘Alright, Sister Gump, I’ll be on my way,’ Kelly said, smiling as she collected her things to leave for yet another night of sitting.
• • •
Monahan’s flat was on the top floor of a four-storey, red-stone tenement block on Glasgow’s Southside. Kelly lifted her heavy black nurse’s bag from the boot of her car and moaned, ‘Why is it always the top floor?’
She lugged her case up the flight of stairs, passing the various lingering cooking smells that determined the nationality of each flat’s inhabitants – from deep-fat, fried chips to mouth-watering Indian spices. Kelly reached the top landing and stared at one door, which looked like the entrance to a student flat, with scribbled surnames written on temporary Post-its stuck to the framework. The door opposite was a steel affair, no doubt with reinforced locks. There was no name on the door, but it did have an expensive-looking entry system, complete with a camera lens that would undoubtedly be linked to a monitor inside.
‘Ex-forces, my backside – bloody drug dealer more like,’ Kelly sighed. She spoke from experience, having visited enough mini-fortresses, which were the trademarks of gangsters and drug pushers.
Kelly pressed the buzzer and was greeted with a very formal ‘Who is it?’ She stated her business, but was then asked a curious question: ‘Are you alone?’ Kelly stepped aside so that the camera lens could see the landing behind, and chortled, ‘Yup, just little old me on my ownio.’
The door buzzed open and Kelly let herself in. A voice from faraway beckoned, ‘In here, please.’
Kelly followed the sound to a bedroom. What she saw next stopped her in her tracks. It looked like a private medical wing, with a fully adjustable hospital bed, various monitors and a morphine syringe driver.
‘Wow’, she said with genuine amazement, ‘Looks like you’ve robbed a medical suppliers.’
Monahan raised a smile below his military-style clipped moustache. ‘I’d say the best piece of equipment just walked in the room.’
‘Now, now, Mr Monahan, keep that sort of patter for the officer’s mess. We don’t want to get off on the wrong foot. I’m Nurse Carter.’ Kelly only ever went by her surname when patients were being inappropriate.
‘You wouldn’t catch me in the officer’s mess with those inbred, chinless wonders. And I’m sorry, Nurse Carter. Wrong foot, indeed. I would blame the painkillers, but I’ve always chanced my arm,’ Monahan replied.
He got the hint of a smile for his honesty, while Kelly took off her jacket and placed it over the back of a chair. She studied her patient momentarily. He was gaunt, underweight and with a jaundiced look and yellowing of the eyes, which suggested that his cancer had spread to his liver. She found Monahan’s notes at the end of the bed and checked for confirmation, but there was no mention of any liver problems.
‘Must say, I have never come across a set-up like this before in a patient’s house,’ she said, her eyes scanning through the pages of information. ‘I’d guess I’m not the first medical professional to have been in here. So who was doing your care prior to the good old NHS night-sitting service?’
‘My former employers,’ Monahan replied without giving too much away. ‘But dying can be an expensive business, so we’ve had a parting of the ways. I’m guessing they’ll take all this stuff back when I’m gone. They shouldn’t have too long to wait.’
‘And who’s been responsible for your syringe driver?’ she said, pointing at the apparatus which dispensed the regular doses of morphine with a push-button ‘top up’ booster switch.
‘Me. Don’t worry, it’s not the first time I’ve had to use one. But it was running out and it’s easier to buy heroin than medical-grade morphine so I had to ask for help. Otherwise I’d have been quite happy to see myself out the door.’
‘Out the door?’ Kelly asked, incredulous at his nonchalance. ‘Just die here alone?’
‘Yeah, why not?’ Monahan shrugged. ‘We all die, right? I’d be quite happy to drift off in a morphine-induced haze.’
‘Sadly, death doesn’t always work out the way we planned,’ Kelly replied.
‘It does for me,’ Monahan said through a faint grin. But his eyes weren’t smiling.
‘And yet you needed to call us,’ Kelly said in a matronly manner that was alien to her as she was always a lot warmer than this with her charges. But she couldn’t seem to help herself; this patient’s coldness was beginning to irritate her.
‘I guess you were plan B,’ Monahan said, looking at Kelly as if studying her.
She changed the subject. ‘Do you have a primary source for the bone cancer? Prostate problems or something?’
‘Not that I know of. Was having a little issue with the waterworks, but my medicals all came up clear, and, believe me, they were very thorough. Anyway, doesn’t matter now – same end result.’
‘Any family? Friends? Support at all? Someone to do the shopping?’
Monahan just shook his head. ‘Nope, lost contact a long time ago and my appetite disappeared a few weeks ago. Got plenty of protein shakes and all the water I need in the taps. That should be enough to see me through.’
‘Can you still walk? Get up for the loo?’
‘Walking is a bit tricky. I was using that,’ he said, indicating towards a commode in the corner, ‘but since I changed to a liquid-only diet, I’m just passing fluids. So I catheterise myself.’
‘Well, you’re certainly the first patient I’ve had who has been able to set up a syringe driver and catheterise themselves. There’s hardly any need for me to be here,’ she joked.
‘Except for the morphine. I can’t write a prescription for that. Believe me, I would if I could.’
‘Where did you receive your medical training?’ Kelly asked, unable to help her nosiness.
‘In the field. It’s pretty basic stuff, to be honest, but it has proved to be effective enough.’
‘I will need to get a
doctor called out to prescribe the morphine.’
‘Who’s the quack?’ Monahan said suspiciously.
Kelly had never been asked that before. ‘Just whoever’s on duty. Might be Doctor Shabazi.’
‘Ah, a towelhead.’
‘Ah, a racist,’ Kelly quickly replied.
‘I’m not a racist. That’s just what we called them. I know plenty of towelheads. One saved my life once.’
‘Well, he’s not Arabic, he’s Persian. We really need to work on your out-of-date vocabulary.’ Kelly was getting downright annoyed by this obstreperous new patient. However, she was intrigued at the same time, though loathed to admit it.
‘Yeah, because I’ve got all the time in the world, haven’t I?’ he replied sarcastically. ‘I think I’ll just stay politically incorrect, if that’s okay with you?’
Kelly said no more and instead got her mobile out to call GEMS – the Glasgow Emergency Medical Service – for the on-duty doctor. She could feel Monahan studying her body.
‘No wedding ring, I see, but you still have an indent where you wore one. You could take it off before your shift, I guess, but somehow I don’t think so. I’m going for recently separated.’
Kelly glared at him. She was pissed off now. ‘Well done, Sherlock. You’re full of hidden talents, aren’t you?’ Kelly finished making her call and while they waited for the doctor, she went about her business, charting the patient’s heart rate, temperature and blood pressure.
Half an hour later the door buzzer went, and Monahan turned the flat-screen monitor by his bed towards Kelly.
‘Is this your towel... I mean, your quack?’ he said mischievously.
‘Yes, that’s Doctor Shabazi. I’d appreciate it if you were polite to him.’
Monahan grinned. ‘You may have mistaken my directness for a lack of manners, but I’m always polite.’
Doctor Shabazi was as surprised as Nurse Carter when he walked into Monahan’s bedroom. He raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s like an Aladdin’s cave in here.’
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