by Liz Lawler
As soon as the door shut, Emily dialled the extension number to Allen Ward that she already knew off by heart. She sighed with relief when she recognised the voice, and remembered the name of the receptionist. ‘Paula. I haven’t got long. I need to speak to Meredith.’
Hearing the urgency in her voice, Paula quickly replied, ‘Hang on a sec; she’s just wheeling a patient back from theatre. I’ll grab her.’
She heard footsteps, then, ‘Hey, you bailout, thought we were out on the town tonight? Talk about finding an excuse to ditch me.’
Emily smiled, feeling less alone. ‘We will when I get out of here.’
‘So, what’s up?’
‘Meredith, just listen and don’t interrupt. Last night I viewed the CCTV footage of the ward. I was looking for something else but came across something that is quite shocking. The anaphylaxis yesterday was caused by his wife.’
‘What?’
She heard the shock in Meredith’s voice. ‘Meredith, trust me. I saw her come out of the room. She was clearly up to something. She has to have given him something. No one else did. You need to see it for yourself and then do something. She may try it again.’
Meredith was silent and Emily had to prompt her. ‘Meredith, you’ll watch it, won’t you? You don’t have to take my word for it. You can see it for yourself if you ask Gary the security guard if you can view it.’
She heard a deep intake of breath and then, ‘Yes, alright. I will. God, Emily, there’s never a dull moment with you, is there?’
She smiled again. ‘There is. Only not right now. Take care Meredith, I’ve got to go.’
She pulled her shoulders back, relatively unscathed and reassured that she had done what she could to protect Neil Jeffries, then she left the office, before realising too late that she should have asked Meredith to look at the recording of Katka. She should have gone to her from the beginning. The onus was not on her to protect the place. She was a locum, there only temporarily, and seemed like the type of person who was unafraid to ask questions.
Hiding her disappointment for the lost opportunity, she raised her chin higher for the benefit of the two men standing waiting for her in the corridor. It was still point one to her. She had come across as a polite and considerate human being who still cared for her fellow man while she was locked up. Let them watch her. They would find nothing unbalanced about her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dalloway and Barrows sat in front of the monitor and Meredith stood behind them looking over their shoulders, pulling a face at Nina Barrows’ back as the woman moaned again at how awful it was to have the police in the hospital last night. The ward sister looked exhausted and cranky. Her night shift had ended two hours ago and she should have gone home by now, but insisted on staying to see what Nurse Jacobs had found. Gary Burge looked none too chirpy either as he stood leaning against a wall. He had been called in as he was best qualified to take them through the CCTV recordings. He’d grumbled a couple of times, telling them that he’d be starting his shift that night later than normal because of coming in now. He’d need a bit of shut-eye to make up for the lost hours.
They ignored him, other than to ask him to bring up the file for yesterday. The room was uncomfortably warm with all four of them in it, and the scent of Burge’s aftershave was cloying. The first images of Mrs Jeffries and then Shelly coming out of the patient’s room were now playing on the screen. All three of them watched in silence. The only sound was a small gasp, a few minutes later, from Barrows.
Dalloway paused it on the shot where Emily disappeared inside the room and Mrs Jeffries was standing out in the corridor. He cleared his throat. ‘So what do you both think?’
Emily was spot on, thought Meredith. ‘Emily’s right. She saw what we’re looking at and was convinced that Mrs Jeffries was up to something.’
‘She wasn’t looking at this last night,’ Gary interrupted from behind. ‘She was looking at the thirtieth of June.’
Meredith threw him an impatient glance. ‘She was looking at this. How else do you think we know about it?’
Barrows waved her hand at the screen. ‘It’s hard to say. You can’t actually see anything. We don’t know what happened inside the room.’
Dalloway gave a nod of agreement. ‘Her behaviour looks suspicious, but it could be suggested that Shelly had been the one giving him something. She was attending him.’
‘Shelly?’ Barrows’ face curdled. ‘The girl’s a menace, but I hardly think she’d do that.’
‘Why do you call her a menace?’ Meredith asked. ‘And I don’t think Mr Dalloway was suggesting something deliberate.’
Barrows threw a look at Dalloway before she answered. ‘She can’t take simple instructions, for one. Considering she’s new and only here on a bank basis, she’s far too sure of herself. She’s impertinent as well. I want her gone from here.’
Dalloway inhaled noisily, glancing at her with an irritable look on his face. ‘Can we keep to the issue at hand? What are we going to do? Call the police or monitor the situation ourselves? We don’t know yet what caused the reaction. It could be something quite innocent.’
‘I doubt it.’ Meredith said, surprised. ‘Mrs Jeffries’ behaviour looked extremely odd. But you’re right, and he has no record of being allergic to anything.’
‘He may be allergic to something we’re unaware of,’ said Barrows, helpfully. ‘They don’t always tell us. Often they just name the medicines or things like nuts or latex allergies.’
‘My mum’s allergic to celery,’ Gary piped up.
Barrows’ head swivelled as if on a stick. Her eyes pinned him to the wall. ‘Do you mind? You’re only in here because we needed you to set this up.’
He raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Sorry. Don’t mind me. I’m only the man you dragged out of bed to come and help you.’
‘What was Miss Jacobs doing in this office anyway?’ Barrows asked, clearly irked.
He folded his arms sullenly. ‘She wanted me to help her find a patient who had stolen something from her. She said she had been a patient herself and needed proof before she could do anything about it.’
‘And did you find this proof?’
‘I left her to it. I had my rounds to do.’
‘This is getting us nowhere,’ Dalloway said. ‘I think we should resume this discussion in my office.’ He looked at Gary. ‘I expect to hear nothing of what was said in this room, Mr Burge.’
‘Value my job too much for that, Mr Dalloway. Nothing will pass my lips about it, be assured of that.’
The three visitors to the office prepared to leave. Gary opened the door for them. ‘You know the easiest solution would be for me to rig up a camera inside the room. I could monitor it from here. You wouldn’t know it was there.’
Dalloway gave the man a long and hard look. Barrows and Meredith kept quiet. Then Dalloway said, ‘Would you mind stepping out of the room for a minute and close the door?’
Gary shrugged. ‘Sure.’
Almost ten minutes later he was invited back inside. Barrows and Meredith passed him to leave. Dalloway shut the door behind them. He then turned to Gary. ‘How easy would it be?’
Gary’s smile was smug. ‘Like I said, you won’t know it’s there.’
*
Emily lay on a narrow table. It moved in and out of the large doughnut-shaped scanner as X-rays were taken of her head. She could hear clicking and buzzing and whirring as the machine rotated around her. She reached up and touched her neck and immediately heard a voice talking over the loudspeaker.
‘Place your hand back down, Miss Jacobs. Stay nice and still please. Not too much longer now.’
She mumbled an apology and lay still again. Her neck felt bare without her necklace. She had only removed it once before, on the day of her operation, and she felt lost without it. She wondered if Zoe was still wearing hers and squeezed her eyes, fretting as dark thoughts filled her mind. Would it still be around Zoe’s neck when they found her? Cou
ld it have slipped somewhere as her flesh putrefied? Emily wished such images would not come to her. She had to hold on to the belief that Zoe was still alive, still warm flesh and blood. She had to find a way to get out of this place so that she could carry on searching for her.
Others may have given up on the hope of her being alive. Geraldine perhaps, and maybe even Eric had doubted her ever being found. But she couldn’t. She owed it to her sister to find her. It hadn’t been Zoe in that street. Geraldine made a point of telling her this after she made her statement. She’d also suggested Emily look a little harder for her missing jacket. The way this had been said had implied that Emily had only half looked in the first place. Her missing jacket was probably still in one of those bin bags. She hadn’t emptied them completely. It could well be in the bottom of one of them, which now made her actions feel foolish. Yet in her heightened state, after finding that letter, it was not unreasonable that she would be on high alert for any sighting of her sister. She was wrong to think she had seen her, and wrong about the jacket, but she was not delusional about finding the letter. She didn’t write it and she didn’t stick it on Zoe’s photo. She didn’t dream that up, and nor did she dream of seeing this missing woman, Katka. Her image was large as life up on that screen, and her only regret was that she’d shared finding her with Shelly.
Seeing Shelly edge back into the changing room and close the door on her while she collapsed suggested a betrayal. She denied that she had given Emily anything, but Emily knew someone had given her something to make her collapse like that. She’d been given two drinks: coffee from Shelly and vodka from Gary. Either could have been doctored. But Gary had no involvement in any of this other than being the security guard who worked there. Shelly had been there from day one. Unless her betrayal was simply an order from Barrows or Dalloway? They could have ordered her to put something in that coffee. Yet if that was the case, why hadn’t Barrows tried to detain her? She’d almost demanded Emily leave the premises. If that was genuine and she had wanted Emily gone, Barrows’ words suggested that she was innocent of any wrongdoing and wasn’t involved in any of it. Emily needed to find a way to talk to her. Get her to look at the footage and see for herself that this woman, Katka, was real, before someone else got to it and had it wiped. If that happened and she lost the chance to prove her existence, she stood to lose her own freedom. Proving what she had seen was proof of her sanity. Without it she could be kept locked up for a long time. Emily’s fear of that happening was all too real. Shelly knew about the video. And soon, too, could others.
*
Geraldine was not really surprised when she wasn’t let in to see Emily. The doctors were still examining her. She sat in her car, feeling unsettled, and was aware that it stemmed from her being partly responsible for Emily being admitted to the place, even if reason said it probably was for the best. At least Emily was now being looked after. Right from the moment she had first met Emily she had known she was dealing with a highly intelligent young woman, who had, at best, a fragile mind plagued with hope and fear at not knowing why her sister had gone missing. At worst, if closure was never given, she would never know what had happened, and, tormented by images of a horrible death, her mind would fracture as a result. The arrival of the letter out of the blue like that didn’t make sense. Did Emily write it herself? Geraldine had no way yet of knowing. But if Zoe was alive, why hadn’t she just phoned or texted her sister to tell Emily to stop looking? Especially given that she had never been one to communicate by letter. Had Emily made herself believe her sister had written it?
Geraldine knew one thing. She had seen similar behaviour from Emily before. Two months into the investigation Emily had called the police to get a woman to open her front door because she was positive Zoe was inside the house. She had heard a baby crying and thought this was the reason her sister had gone missing – to hide a pregnancy. The anxious woman, who finally opened the door hugging her baby, cried fearfully that she’d seen Emily following her in the street several times and when she saw her outside her house banging the door, she had called the police. Under the circumstances, and at the time, Geraldine accepted Emily’s behaviour; someone going out of their mind with worry, and clinging on to hope, was likely to do such things.
The story of the missing patient believed to be related to the Dalloway’s nanny, though, was a whole other level. Why had she not called the police the day it happened if she thought a patient was missing? Why wait until after she met with the Dalloway’s nanny? Had her mind grasped hold of this nanny’s tale and made it a part of her own imaginings? Fitted it with this missing niece like the last piece of a jigsaw? Then handed it over to Geraldine as proof of a crime? Geraldine was only glad she hadn’t made it a formal interview to question the surgeon and ward sister. She had saved herself the embarrassment of explaining to her DCI why she was pursuing this line of enquiry. Glancing at the entrance to the hospital, she watched as the doors slid open and she saw Eric Hudson emerge. She took relief that it wasn’t really her doing that Emily had been locked away. Even before what happened last night, Eric Hudson had already set plans in motion by referring her to a psychiatrist. She looked up at the top floor of the building and imagined Emily in there feeling betrayed and alone.
Eric was now walking through the small hospital car park to his car which sat alongside Geraldine’s. They clearly had the same intention – to visit Emily. She wound down her window as he drew near. ‘They’re not letting me in. They said she’s still being assessed. How is she?’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t get to see her either.’
He held up a bunch of keys. ‘She let them give me these, though. I’m going to her flat to get her some clothes.’
Geraldine thought Eric kind and was glad that Emily had someone doing this for her. Her mother certainly wouldn’t.
‘Are you going there now?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘You want some company?’
He looked hesitant. ‘Er, I’m not too sure on that. Do you think she’d want you in her home?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. I’ve been there plenty of times before, and I bet Emily would rather I went through her smalls than you.’
He smiled. ‘You may be right. And I’ve never been there before, so your help would be good. Do you want to leave your car here? I’ll drop you back afterwards.’
Geraldine got out of her car by way of answer. She was pleased to be going with him. He could reassure her that Emily was in the right place.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
From the doorway Emily saw Gems sat perfectly still on the chair at his desk, his hands placed on his knees. They were red and scaly from too much washing. He hadn’t moved in over a minute and was staring at a spot on the wall in front of him. She could tell at a glance that he had obsessive compulsive disorder; she recognised his behaviour from past patients she had nursed. There wasn’t a dent or crease in the covers or pillows on his bed. Not a stray thread or speck of dirt marring the floor. The wardrobe and bathroom doors were closed fully. Three toy cars were lined up on the windowsill, a red, a blue and a yellow, spaced equally apart, bonnets facing forward, in perfect alignment. Four books stood in order of height, a few centimetres apart to prevent them touching. A pair of leather slippers and black slip-on shoes were placed in precise neatness against a wall, toes touching the skirting. On his bedside drawers a bottle of hand gel had been centred as if needing to be seen at all times. She wondered if the staff knew about the hand gel, whether he hid it from sight normally, and had forgotten to hide it now. Perhaps the liquid was alcohol-free and he was allowed it?
His hand suddenly shot out and with one finger he touched the spot he was looking at. ‘I see you,’ he said loud and clear, and for a moment she thought he was talking to the wall. She jolted and he turned his head and stared at her.
‘Get away,’ he growled and jumped up from his chair.
Emily backed away fast. She didn’t like what she sa
w in his eyes. He was looking at her as if memorising her face. She hurried back to the lounge to find Ben waiting for her.
‘There you are. Dr Green has asked to see you, if that’s convenient?’
Emily wanted to say she’d be busy, could he come back another day, but this next step was the most important one she would take. This psychiatrist was going to analyse her mind, to decide if she needed to stay there. Her fate was in his hands and she had to convince him that she was safe to be let go.
*
Geraldine and Eric stood in the middle of Emily’s living room, silently looking around. Eric looked a little awkward and Geraldine could understand why. It felt like an intrusion of Emily’s personal space. The walls, she noticed, had been painted since she was last there. The pale grey brightened the room, but it still lacked a homely touch, as if Emily had no time for such frippery. Geraldine suspected she gave little thought to her own comfort, her mind no doubt always on her sister. More photographs of Zoe had been dotted around the place since her last visit. The one she said she kept on the bookcase, still in police evidence, was the best one, though. These others were merely of her sister posing for the camera. The one Emily prided herself on had captured something more private. Her face was in repose, Geraldine recalled, and there was a gentleness in her eyes.
She turned to Eric. ‘I’ll get her stuff. Are you OK with that?’
‘Sure, I’ll just check around, make sure everything’s alright.’
In Emily’s bedroom Geraldine found a small wheelie case. She took some T-shirts from a drawer, a smart-looking pale grey tracksuit from the wardrobe, a pair of dark blue jeans and a light blue hoody. From another drawer she took a selection of underwear. She spotted a pair of trainers in the bottom of the wardrobe and added these to the collection. On the bedside drawers she found a smaller-sized photo of the one the police had, and added that.