by Liz Lawler
He looked at Meredith for an answer. ‘What’s going on? Why isn’t she ready?’
‘Ask your wife,’ Meredith replied.
‘She can’t survive this, Rupert,’ Jemma stated. The tone in her voice was firm. Cold, even.
He stared at his wife, to be sure he understood her meaning. ‘I can’t just let her die, Jemma.’
‘You have to, Rupert,’ she said firmly. ‘You know you do.’
‘What are you hoping for, Jemma? That I’ll cut part of her liver away and just let her bleed to death?’
‘You could take it all,’ she said, quietly.
‘I’m not a murderer!’ he shouted.
‘You have no choice, Rupert. Otherwise we will all go to prison.’
‘I am prepared to go to prison for this, Jemma, you must surely realise that! I’m prepared to go to prison for what I’ve already done. I’m not going to let her die – she’s saving our son’s life!’
‘And what about the rest of us?’ she asked coldly. ‘What about Isobel and Walter? I would also go to prison. Who would look after them? Meredith will go to prison. Her son needs his mother. Shelly will face prison for longer than the rest of us,’ she hissed.
Dalloway’s eyes went to Shelly. She avoided looking at him. ‘Why for longer, Shelly?’
She clasped her gloved hands together, her manner unfazed. ‘You don’t need to know why, Rupert. You just need to do what’s best for your son. You’re the only one who can save him. And he will need you when this is done.’
She moved over to the table and pulled up Emily’s gown and then deftly half turned her onto her left side. Meredith switched on the operating lights. Jemma came forward with a kidney dish which held a metal-handled scalpel with a razor-sharp blade. ‘Take it, Rupert. Save our son.’
He stared back at his patient and saw that the area from the side of her belly to up and over her lower ribs was painted a wet orangey brown. Shelly had prepared the site.
He picked up the scalpel with a steady hand and made the first cut.
*
Geraldine eased into the kitchen, her finger indicating for the two young police constables to stay where they were. She beckoned Ruth to follow. They had their radios to call them if necessary. If they all trooped through the house, the chances of making a noise increased. She trusted Ruth, more than herself, to walk through silently. She was far nimbler for a start. They came out of the kitchen and made their way along a flagstone corridor coming to a stone archway that brought them into an astonishingly large living area. The ceiling above was all dark beams, and the shape of it reminded her of a church, as the place was big enough to hold a fair-sized congregation. The Dalloways were not present. Ruth pointed to the stairs and Geraldine frowned at all the wooden steps they would have to climb, imagining the creaks and squeaks giving away their presence. Ruth took off her shoes and nodded at Geraldine to do the same.
In bare feet Geraldine led the way, each tread beneath her solid and unmoving. At the top she stood and listened and made out sounds coming from a room at the end of the landing. The door was closed, making their journey to get to it undetected easier. If it opened, however, they would be spotted immediately.
She edged slowly along the landing, the noises inside becoming clearer. She could hear a sucking noise. The sound was not unlike that of a vacuum when a sock is sucked up the tube.
She placed her hand on the doorknob, turned it easily and gave the door a gentle push. The sight in front of her didn’t match what she was expecting to see. Her wildest imagination wouldn’t have produced what lay before her. It was like she had opened the door on a film, the room the screen, the scene unfolding in 3D. Then she heard Dalloway’s voice. ‘Suction, please.’
The four people standing around the operating table hadn’t noticed them and Geraldine inched even closer. Through a gap between Dalloway and the person beside him, she saw a body on the table. A wide slit in the skin stretched open by surgical instruments revealed a shiny deep red glistening mass. She moved her gaze up the table and saw the side of a pale face with short black hair tucked behind an ear. Emily.
‘Step away from the table, Mr Dalloway,’ she said loud and clear.
Only the briefest reflex of a shoulder gave away his disturbance. ‘I can’t do that, Detective. I’ve just nicked her liver.’
Geraldine felt her insides revolt, the earlier ingested sandwich threatening to make an appearance. She took sips of air to keep it at bay, feeling herself shiver with her reaction. She was too fucking late.
‘You’ve killed her,’ she uttered.
‘Hardly,’ he stated calmly. ‘It just needs some diathermy. More suction, please.’
‘Step away from the table!’ she barked the order. Ruth came up beside her and Geraldine heard the sharp, swift click-clack as her baton fully extended. She raised it ready to attack.
On weak legs Geraldine moved a little closer to the table, feeling sick that she had mistaken the word ‘nicked’ for taken, and watched as Dalloway used a long instrument to burn the area that was bleeding. It made a loud buzzing noise each time he used it and she could smell the burning of human flesh. It wasn’t dissimilar to the smell of barbecued meat. She heard the same sound she’d heard from outside on the landing and saw a tube probing at the organ, sucking up a pool of blood that was not getting any smaller. Dalloway mopped the bleed with white gauze, stared at the area for a moment more and then stepped back from the table.
‘What are you doing, Rupert? You need to carry on. Ignore her!’
Geraldine instantly recognised the woman’s voice behind the surgical facemask. Jemma Dalloway.
‘You need to get a surgical team here now,’ Dalloway instructed.
‘Rupert, please! Please, don’t stop!’ his wife begged.
‘And my son will need an ambulance immediately,’ he said.
Geraldine gaped at him. ‘Your son?’
He pointed at something ahead of him and the two people on the opposite side of the operating table moved aside to let Geraldine see.
A small boy lay on a second operating table. He was wearing an oxygen mask on his pale face, and his body was wired up and connected to numerous machines.
‘My son is dying, so please be quick,’ he urged in a voice heavy with emotion.
The cry that came was so raw, so desolate, Geraldine felt an internal stirring as she recognised the cry of a mother who had lost hope. She had heard this sound before, at death scenes, when a mother cradles her child for the last time. She pulled out her phone.
She saw Dalloway move back to the operating table. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Closing her,’ he answered firmly. He turned and she saw in his eyes that he knew it was over, his offer genuine. ‘It will be quicker, less risk. We’ll bring her round in time for an ambulance to take her in.’
She nodded slowly and saw his look of gratitude. ‘Two ambulances, then, as fast as you can, and DI Sutton, one more thing: Emily has a necklace in a drawer in my bathroom. Please ensure it’s returned to her. It’s important to her.’
Geraldine moved back to make the call and two of Dalloway’s team closed in to help him. She took in the sights surrounding her and knew that no matter what the future held for her in her career as a police officer, this was something she was never likely to come across again. A doctor she was about to arrest saving the life of his victim.
Chapter Forty-Eight
In the intensive care unit in Bath, Eric sat opposite Geraldine and looked remarkably alert, given the time was approaching three o’clock in the morning. Geraldine had texted him to let him know Emily was found, and she was surprised that he was here. He was a kind man, but this level of care went beyond the call of duty. She wondered if he felt guilty for playing a part in having Emily sectioned.
Emily was sleeping deeply and Geraldine gazed at her face, hating the fact that she still had to consider her a suspect in the death of Nina Barrows, that she had positioned a p
olice officer outside the unit doors. Until the four involved in her unlawful operation were questioned she would still have to be guarded. And all Geraldine could do was hope Emily was innocent and that one of that four were guilty of the crime.
Emily had been checked over by a surgeon on her arrival at the hospital, and while her badly bruised body had caused some alarm, little needed to be done to ensure her recovery other than fluid replenishment, pain control and observations. The surgeon had said that, apart from the small nick to her liver, which they’d scanned and said was fine, her operation had been a simple open-and-close case, which was aborted before any serious cutting took place. Dalloway had done a good job closing her up and she would make a full recovery, albeit with a curved scar above her liver to remind her of the ordeal.
Geraldine stood up. She beckoned Ruth, who was standing near the exit, to come over and take her place. As senior officer, Geraldine was needed elsewhere. Before that, though, she had one last thing to do for Emily. She reached in her jacket pocket and pulled out the chain and pendant she had found in a drawer in Dalloway’s bathroom. Leaning over the bed, she carefully fastened it around Emily’s neck so it would be there when she awoke.
*
Two police officers were stationed outside the entrance to the paediatric intensive care unit, in Bristol. Permission to let the parents sit at the bedside of their dying son had been granted by Crawley. The curtains were only partially pulled around the five-year-old boy and Geraldine could see both parents from where she stood at the nurses’ station. Dalloway and his wife were sitting on blue plastic chairs as close as they could get to him. Dalloway was smoothing the child’s brow, his wife holding his hand.
Shelly Dalloway and Dr Meredith Moretti had been denied this privilege. They were arrested at the scene of the crime and were already in custody and waiting to be questioned. The Dalloways’ daughter was in the care of the social services team. Geraldine stood completely still, her eyes and ears noticing everything. The lump in her throat grew heavier at the sight of all the ill children on the ward. All the teddies and toys, the bright blue and yellow floor and colourful bed covers could not hide the complex medical equipment surrounding them saving their lives. There was a constant beeping of machines; a reminder that these little ones were not simply sleeping, but in need of care. She could never be a nurse, especially a paediatric nurse seeing children this unwell. Her heart wouldn’t take it. She was tough, she knew, and maybe if she didn’t have children she could do it but seeing the small shapes in the beds around her, all she could think of was her own two and how desperate she would be if anything ever brought them to this place.
A wail suddenly came from across the open unit, and two nurses made their way to Walter Dalloway’s bed. Dalloway was standing, his wife half lying across the bed sobbing inconsolably as he stroked her shoulder. The curtain was fully drawn to enclose them in privacy. Their son had died.
*
Emily saw Eric sitting beside her bed when her eyes opened. He was sleeping with his arms folded, his head lolled to one side. Daylight showed her where she was – the intensive care unit, where she used to bring patients from the emergency department. She had a simple drip line up and was attached by leads to a cardiac monitor, but other than this, nothing too serious seemed to be going on with her. A nurse walked over to the bed, her manner calming. ‘Don’t try and get up just yet. I need to check your dressing.’
Emily peered under the sheet and saw a large dressing covering the right side of her abdomen.
‘The policewoman is just in the loo, she’ll be here in a minute to talk to you, but in the meantime please be assured that the dressing is only covering sutures. You have not had any further surgery.’
Emily stared at her. ‘What about Walter Dalloway?’ she asked.
The nurse shook her head, her expression regretful. ‘The policewoman said he died, I’m afraid. He was in the Bristol Children’s Hospital, in the paediatric intensive care unit, and his parents were with him.’
Emily closed her eyes as they welled, and felt her hand being taken hold of. ‘It should have been me,’ she said. ‘He was too young to die.’
‘And he was too ill to live, Emily,’ she heard Eric say. She opened her eyes and saw that it was him holding her hand, a comfort given in the absence of family or friend.
‘It’s all my fault she died,’ she whispered to him.
Eric sat silent, his eyes not leaving her face, his own showing only kindness.
‘I saw her, Eric. I saw her walking to that road and instead of calling out to her to say I was there and taking her home with me, I watched her and let her walk in her bare feet hoping they’d be sore by the time she got home. I was so angry with her for once again needing me. I went back to my car and just sat there, punishing her. Then I went into the hospital to fetch her, knowing all the while she wasn’t there, she had already gone, and I pretended I didn’t know. I apologised for her behaviour and then went looking for her. I thought that by that time she’d be back at her flat. And all the while she was alone, really needing me to stop whoever took her, because that’s what I believe now happened. I let it happen, Eric, because for once I forgot.’ The tears in her eyes couldn’t hide her desolation. ‘I forgot that I loved her,’ she whispered brokenly.
Eric let her cry. She had much to cry for, and his silence and presence was all she needed for now. Later he would help her heal. He would begin at the beginning, getting it right this time. She no longer had to carry this burden of guilt alone. She was his patient for however long it took.
*
Rupert Dalloway signed a written statement detailing his full involvement in the death of Sophia Trendafilova. The statement said that she was a nineteen-year-old from Romania, who had given her verbal consent to being operated on after the enticement of payment but died as a result of Dalloway performing an illegal operation on her. He also confessed to a second illegal operation carried out on Emily Jacobs, though the statement outlined that this had not been successfully completed as it was interrupted by the arrival of the police. He had yet to admit to where he had disposed of Sophia Trendafilova’s body, and Geraldine was hoping he would do so now in this second interview with her and Crawley.
Crawley had yet to say anything other than to give his name and rank for the benefit of the recording, and so far was letting her take the lead. It was not the norm to have a DCI and a DI carry out these interviews; there were officers highly trained to do this job. Geraldine knew this was one last hurrah for Crawley to interview a suspect, and as both were previous specialist interviewers in their careers, the custody sergeant had kicked up little fuss. She pulled out a chair to sit down. The chair beside Dalloway was empty. He had declined the offer of a solicitor. Dalloway was the first to speak. ‘How is Emily?’
‘She’s doing well, Mr Dalloway,’ Geraldine replied. ‘They’ve moved her to a surgical ward.’
‘Please convey my sincere wishes that she has a speedy recovery. My behaviour is unforgivable, so any apology would merely add insult to injury, but I want her to know all the same that I am deeply sorry for what I’ve done to her.’
‘I’ll do that. And you can show you mean that by helping us now. Did you have any involvement in the death of Nina Barrows?’
Dalloway shook his head. ‘I had no involvement in her death whatsoever.’ His face was grey and drawn and he looked aged.
Crawley placed a photograph on the table. It was of the knife that Shelly said Emily had dropped. Crawley let it sit there for several seconds before he spoke. ‘I cannot imagine what you are going through. To lose your son after battling to save him with such extreme measures has come as a mighty blow, no doubt, and for that you have my sympathy. Emily Jacobs, too, has gone through immeasurable suffering this last year, even more so if she turns out to be an innocent party in all of this. She is presently being considered as a suspect in the killing of Nina Barrows. It would seem to me almost indecent to let an injustice continue, given
all that she has already gone through, wouldn’t you agree?’
Dalloway nodded fiercely.
‘So while you say you have no involvement in Nina Barrows’ death, do you know of anyone who might have had some involvement?’
Dalloway looked away.
‘You strike me as a man who has integrity, Mr Dalloway. In spite of the unlawful pathway you have taken in order to save your son’s life, I do believe you to be a principled man. So, with respect, I ask you to consider a fair answer to the question I put to you.’
‘Emily didn’t have a knife with her as far as I am aware. Nor did she come to my home brandishing one. At the time it was claimed she had done so, she was in one of our bedrooms recovering from a serious wound infection.’
‘So would it be true to say that Shelly Dalloway was mistaken in seeing her carry one?’
‘Yes, it would be true,’ he said.
‘The arm wound inflicted upon your niece – do you have any idea how she came by that injury?’
‘No.’
‘Would it be fair to say that it was unlikely to have been caused by Emily?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there when it happened. She materialised with the cut at about the same time as the knock on the door from DI Sutton.’
Crawley glanced at him thoughtfully. ‘My understanding, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that you and your niece together gave a detailed account of what happened. Your niece stated that Emily came to your door, tried to reach you, but was obstructed by Shelly, whereupon she was cut with a knife that was then dropped by Emily as her arm caught in the closing door. Your niece then stated that she heard a car, leading us to believe that Emily had left the house, which of course we now know to be untrue as she was in bed in your house at the time.’