Don't Wake Up: A dark, terrifying new thriller with the most gripping first chapter you will ever read!

by Liz Lawler

  Maggie Fielding rubbed her face hard. ‘I suggested she get in touch with someone I know, a therapist. I’ve used him in the past for some of my patients and they found him very helpful. Richard Sickert. I can give you his number if it helps? After she left, I immediately contacted Dr Cowan, because I was concerned. Dr Cowan said she would deal with it. I have to say, I found it very upsetting.’

  ‘Because she wanted your help?’ Greg asked bluntly. He was getting tired of hearing of the number of people who had turned her away.

  ‘No!’ she vehemently denied. ‘I was more than happy to help. But the stuff she was saying went beyond my abilities to help. A dead woman in her car park. Phone calls she got, her car . . . I wasn’t about to help her find someone who didn’t exist.’

  Greg accepted her explanation. He could only imagine how he would react if a colleague of his presented with a tall story like this. He too would have sent them to get professional help. He felt she was telling the truth, and knew it wasn’t her fault that all this had happened; he was just looking to share the blame. His chest had become increasingly heavy as he stood, unseen, in the bay beside Alex, and it had almost broken him to hear her unravel.

  ‘I just have a couple more questions,’ he said. ‘The first: have you ever been out with a man called Oliver Ryan?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘He was an actor, and he was here in this hospital for a short while last year. Not sure what date.’

  Again she shook her head. ‘I started here in August. I wasn’t here last year. But even so, I don’t know this man.’

  Greg’s expression was candid. ‘Dr Taylor said he was your boyfriend.’

  ‘What! This is truly unbelievable. Why would she make up such a story?’

  He shrugged. ‘We don’t know yet. The other question I want to ask is did you ever meet Amy Abbott? She was a nurse here and your paths may have crossed.’

  Her head tilted slightly and she gave a little sigh of despair. ‘The one and only time I met her was on the day she died. Our paths never crossed before. Again, I’ve only been here since August. We probably would have met eventually. And the fact that you’re asking questions about her is telling me that you are suspicious about her death?’

  Greg stood up. He would let her carry on with her work. ‘I’m sorry to have upset you.’

  ‘You have upset me – not only with what Dr Taylor said, but also hearing how in trouble she is. She is a fine doctor. I wish now I hadn’t been so hasty in calling Dr Cowan and instead found the time to talk to Dr Taylor properly myself.’

  As Greg wandered back along the corridor, making his way to the exit, he found himself wishing that they’d all taken the time to talk to her properly. She had been crying out for their help, and each in their own way had not listened. He counted himself and Laura Best among the people who turned her away. Patrick Ford, Caroline Cowan and even Maggie Fielding; they each were accountable in some measure for letting this happen.

  The sky outside was still black, but the morning had arrived. The day shift workers would be arriving soon and care would continue uninterrupted. He would have to come back later and formally arrest Alex Taylor, and he was not looking forward to it. He had a mountain of paperwork to fill in before then, but it could all wait.

  When he got in his car he had no intention of going back to the station. He would make one stop at home and then head for Oxford to see his son.

  *

  Maggie cast her eyes carefully over the floor and was reassured that nothing had been left behind. The place was as she found it: dark, dank and desolate. It was Oliver who had told her about the underground. He’d been shown it as a part of his tour around the hospital and thought it was a great place to do a horror story; another Silence of the Lambs as he called it, with him taking the starring role.

  This would be her third trip back to the room in the last hour and also her last. The police were still roaming the place and she didn’t want to chance being seen. She had no more use for the room and had returned the keys and various pieces of equipment she’d borrowed back to their rightful places. The plastic sheeting which had covered the floor for Amy Abbott’s visit had been rolled up carefully after the blood had dried and, if not still in the boot of Alex’s car, was now being forensically examined by the police. She would have to get rid of the Schimmelbusch mask; as much as she would like to keep it as a keepsake, it was safer to destroy it.

  The playacting of knocking Alex to the ground and holding a vaporous cloth to her mouth had been risky, but Maggie wanted Alex to believe she’d been rendered unconscious in this way so that when she told her story it would be an unbelievable one.

  Dressed for a windy night, her hair beneath a woollen hat, a scarf wrapped halfway round her face, Maggie had simply waited and watched for Alex leaving the department. With a loaded syringe of ketamine, all she had to do was make a small jab as she passed, then follow her to the car park and perform a mock knockout, confident that there would be little struggle because the drug in Alex’s system was already working. The theatrics had greatly appealed to Maggie. In fact the last several weeks had, on the whole, been amusing. To watch and wait for the right opportunities to manipulate the story that was unfolding. To take the risks and get to watch what she’d done. So much of it had been effortless.

  The simple switching of the wrong drug left waiting to be found. The spraying of the message on Alex’s car while she wandered off into the night without a witness to testify she hadn’t sprayed it herself. Those were merely teasers, like the phone call. But each moment had then lent an opportunity to fuel the belief that Alex Taylor was falling apart. What Maggie hadn’t banked on was the gift Alex would bring to the play. The beauty of it was that Maggie had to do so little. If Alex hadn’t been drinking she would have been more easily believed. She had destroyed her own credibility so easily.

  And the gifts just kept coming.

  Leaving her handbag at the doctors’ party had been one. A simple search and Maggie was given the setting for the next killing. However, leaving her own car parked near the scene of the crime had not been part of the plan, and she had theorised what she would say if the police had come knocking wanting to know why her car was there. A visit to her troubled colleague would have been her pretext, but finding her not at home she went back to her car only to find it wouldn’t start. If asked how she got into the car park, she’d say the gates were open. But they hadn’t come knocking because they weren’t interested in vehicles with fat tyres.

  Still, it was now immaterial. She had given a good performance to that police officer and he still believed Alex was guilty. That was all that mattered. Alex had finally shown she was a murderer by killing her best friend.

  She would get rid of the tranquilliser gun – a very useful tool that she couldn’t imagine ever needing again – which she had used on both occasions to incapacitate Alex. She would also destroy the audio tapes – real recordings of the sounds in an operating room, created especially for Alex. To make her believe that what she heard was really real.

  Last night was the end of a make-believe friendship. Alex would have assumed that after she met Oliver and confronted him she and Maggie would drive back to Maggie’s house for a late supper. But of course that was never to be. How could they eat together when Maggie would be at the hospital on a night shift and Alex would be under arrest for murder? And no matter how much she protested, her car would be full of incriminating evidence. Her car, which Maggie had suggested they use.

  She tapped grit from the soles of the shoes she had lent Alex. She’d not bothered with putting them back on Alex’s feet. Why give anyone the chance to question why they were too big for her? Better for them to think that Alex had lost her shoes instead. She cast another look around the room. Maggie listened to the cold silence and shivered. It was time to go. She had a life to live.

  Chapter fifty

  Alex ached with grief for her friend. She’d drifted in and out of sleep f
or most of the day, partly from all the drugs she’d been given and partly from exhaustion. The psychiatrist had visited a short while ago, and no matter how hard Alex insisted she wasn’t in need of an assessment, he had been equally persistent in staying and assessing her.

  Most of the day she lay in the bed numb, refusing to eat or drink and afraid to talk in case she made things worse for herself. She desperately wanted to see her parents and sister; they might be able to help, but the psychiatrist had said they’d already been in while she was asleep and it really was for the best that everyone just try and stay calm for the rest of the day.

  Alex wondered if her mother or Pamela had become hysterical on their visit and had been told to keep away. She could imagine her mother crying and Pamela yelling, wanting to know what was going on. Her dad would have been more restrained. He would have wrung his hands and walked up and down, quietly waiting to be told what was going on. Her poor parents must be out of their minds with worry, she realised, and she so badly wanted to reassure them, but she didn’t know how. Maggie Fielding had covered all the bases. Even down to her being in an operating theatre during the time she was with Alex. She had a perfect alibi, and Alex now realised why she had been left alone in the dark for so long. Maggie hadn’t been waiting with her; she’d been carrying on as normal – delivering twins.

  She felt the fresh sting of tears. This had been happening frequently in the last few hours. She would suddenly find her cheeks wet and one side of the pillow damp from where she lay curled on her side. The tears now, though, were for Fiona. Her dear, sweet friend. No one would tell her how she had died, believing that she already knew, and she could only imagine the situation her friend had faced and the fear she had felt. Maggie Fielding was a very resourceful woman when it came to thinking up deaths, and Alex prayed it had been quick for Fiona and she hadn’t suffered too long.

  The reason Maggie had let Alex live was now obvious. She never did intend for her to die, merely that she be destroyed. She would be blamed for all the deaths, including Fiona’s, and Maggie would have made sure there was no way she could prove her innocence. She would eventually be declared sane, or not, depending on how she handled this situation; either way, she would be locked away for ever.

  Her only hope now was the one person she hoped would visit – Greg Turner. He was a good man and he was adept at recognising when people told lies. He would know she was telling the truth.

  Her heart lifted at the prospect and then quickly, like most of her hope that day, it was instantly crushed, leaving her feeling distraught. Greg Turner was an ordinary man dealing with an extraordinary killer. There was no way he could set her free.

  Chapter fifty-one

  Joe’s face beamed at him through the car window as Greg waved goodbye. Clad in Spiderman pyjamas, cheeks flushed and hair still sleep-tousled, he held on for dear life to the bright yellow toy helicopter he had been given. It had been a wonderful morning and now, guilt-free, Greg set the car in motion back to Bath.

  At midday, as he drove through the outskirts of the city his mobile rang, and, pulling over into a lay-by, he took the call. The man’s secretary had come up trumps. Greg had spoken to her while he was at his ex-wife’s house and she had said she would do her best to get a hold of Robert Fitzgerald.

  Robert Fitzgerald had an American accent and his voice was loud in Greg’s ear. ‘So what can I do for you, Inspector? My secretary said it was urgent.’

  Greg held the mobile further away from his ear. ‘It concerns Oliver Ryan. You represented him.’

  ‘That’s right, I did.’

  ‘Could you tell me exactly when he died, and how?’ All Greg had managed to find from his internet search were the years for when the actor was born and had died.

  ‘It happened in July. And it came as a complete shock,’ Robert Fitzgerald answered. ‘Oliver Ryan was a narcissist, and not someone I would ever have believed would do this. They didn’t find any drugs in him at the autopsy, only alcohol. The only thing that I can think of is that it was a prank that went wrong. The coroner didn’t buy it, though.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Hanged himself.’

  ‘And why do you think this happened?’

  ‘I dropped him. Told him that I didn’t wish to represent him any more.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘The day before he killed himself.’

  ‘Why did you drop him?’

  ‘In a nutshell? The man was a loose cannon. I gave him a second chance last year after a bit of trouble he got himself into. Got him a few parts on prime time television in several dramas, kept him busy and in the eye of Joe Public. Then in July I was negotiating a lead part for him with a film producer, a sure winner, and what does he go and do? – gets himself in another jam. Only this time, there’s no walking away from it. The woman rings me up, crying, wanting to know where Oliver is. She’s pregnant, and lover boy has scarpered.

  ‘Well, that was it. I saw red. I could see the road he was going down and knew that wherever he went scandal would follow. Put him in a big movie and it would just give him licence to create havoc. So we had a little chat and he walked out of my office as arrogant as when he walked in, threatening to sue me.’

  Greg was mildly surprised. He would have thought it unlikely that an agent would dump someone over a bit of scandal, especially if they were about to get a big part. Maybe Robert Fitzgerald was a principled man.

  He had been doing the maths in his head as soon as heard the word pregnant, and now wanted to know who the woman was.

  ‘So this all happened in July? The negotiation for a new part and a woman ringing you to tell you she’s pregnant?’

  ‘All happened the same day, July 30th. I’d spent most of the morning on the phone to the producer and his secretary discussing contract details. It gets to lunchtime and I’m about to ring Oliver to give him the good news. Only I get this other call from this pregnant woman.’

  ‘Did she give her name?’

  ‘No, and I didn’t ask, but I reckon she was from Bath. She asked if I knew when he was coming back. I reckon she was either a nurse or a policewoman, because she asked me to tell Oliver she was on duty and could he call her workplace. The fool got into trouble with another woman there last year, and then goes back to the same place for more. Anyway, as I said, I saw red. I invited him over for a chat and gave it to him straight. Told him about the big part he was no longer getting and told him he was off my books for good. The problem with Oliver is he couldn’t keep his pants zipped for five minutes.’

  It had to be Amy Abbott he got pregnant, Greg thought. She was admitted to A & E in mid-November, and, according to the post-mortem, she was sixteen weeks pregnant.

  He had used his ex-wife’s computer to look up the actor and had gathered a brief history of his career. He would have to get more information on the man from other sources, and he would also have to re-examine Amy Abbott’s and Lillian Armstrong’s case files. Alex Taylor claimed that both women were killed by Maggie Fielding, but the reality was she had probably killed them herself. Laura Best was therefore right – Alex did have some form of Munchausen’s, or else she had killed them in cold blood for having some involvement with Oliver Ryan. Maybe, as Caroline Cowan suggested, Alex got too involved and became obsessed by him.

  ‘The woman from last year, what was that about?’

  The American agent sighed. ‘She was a doctor. Oliver was in her hospital learning the role of a doctor. Her boss rings me up after he’s only been there a few days and requests that he doesn’t come any more. She said there’d been a situation, that one of her doctors had been sexually assaulted. Oliver denied it, of course, and the doctor who made the complaint didn’t go to the police, so nothing came of it.’ The man paused. ‘I didn’t believe him for a minute. He was a danger where women were concerned.’

  ‘Was there anyone special in his life?’ Greg asked, and then decided to throw another woman’s name into the equation. ‘You eve
r hear of a Maggie Fielding?’

  ‘No, never heard of her. But yes, there was someone special.’

  Greg’s chest momentarily tightened.

  ‘Oliver Ryan. That was the only special someone in his life. There was no room for anyone else.’

  *

  His mood more sombre, Greg carried on driving, the conversation with the American playing in his mind. Fitzgerald didn’t believe the actor had intentionally killed himself, but that it was an accident. Greg wondered if it was neither suicide nor accident. He would have to speak to the police who investigated the death. A vague memory of the man’s face kept prodding him. He knew the memory could be from the TV, but somehow he didn’t think so. He had a feeling he had met Oliver Ryan, but couldn’t recall where.

  Alex Taylor’s apartment was still being searched, and he would head that way now and give them some help with what they should be looking for – links to Oliver Ryan, Amy Abbott and Lillian Armstrong. Even the old man she had nearly killed in the emergency department. They would run his name into the police computer on the chance that he was somehow connected.

  If they proved that she had in fact killed all of these people, including Fiona Woods, her name would go down in history along with all the other notorious serial killers. And he would become known as the lead detective of the biggest murder case to ever hit Bath.

  He felt no joy at the prospect. In the short time he’d known Alex Taylor she had wormed her way under his skin. Maybe the answer was to walk away. When this was over he could ask for a transfer to Oxford so that he could put it all behind him and be nearer his son. He could then see him more often, instead of trying to fit everything in on these quick visits. These last weeks had taught him one thing: going after someone you liked was the hardest thing.