by Helen Phifer
‘Thank you, dear, that would be wonderful. My name is Florence Wilkes and my silly husband is Edwin Wilkes.’
Tanisha took down their dates of birth and address. ‘I’m sorry, but it could take a while. They’re very busy at the moment.’
‘That’s fine by me; I have nothing better to do.’
* * *
Col looked up as the receptionist crossed the room to his desk.
‘Where’s the DI?’ she asked.
‘Gone to do an address check for the dead guy, why?’
‘Can you get hold of her? There’s a little old lady at the front desk reporting her husband missing.’
Col stood up. ‘Shit, yes; she might not have left yet.’
He ran to the spiral staircase, taking the narrow steps two at a time, pushed his way through the double doors at the bottom and ran down the corridor to the steel security door which led out to the rear yard of the station. He saw Lucy’s car at the main gates, about to leave, and he ran after her, waving frantically.
* * *
Lucy looked into her rear-view mirror and jumped, slamming the brakes on. ‘Jesus Christ! What’s the matter with Col? He looks as if he’s having a heart attack!’
Mattie whipped his head around to see a red-faced Col bent over double, trying to catch his breath. He got out of the car.
‘What’s up with you?’
Col held up his hand whilst he took deep breaths. ‘Argh, I’ve got a stitch. There’s a woman at the front desk.’
‘And?’
‘Her husband is missing.’
Mattie opened the car door and peered in at Lucy. ‘There’s a woman at the front desk; her husband is missing.’
Lucy reversed into the nearest parking spot, then jumped out. ‘Cheers, Col. Do you need an ambulance?’
He stuck two fingers up at her and she grinned.
She hurried back into the station, Mattie a short distance behind her, and headed in the direction of the front office to speak to Tanisha.
‘She’s in the first side room,’ the receptionist told her.
Lucy walked towards the door. Cupping her hands, she peered through the small pane of glass to see the elderly lady sitting at the table and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. Her heart ached for her. She knew there was a good chance that what she was about to tell the woman would irrevocably change her life forever.
She walked into the room.
‘Hello, Florence. I’m Detective Inspector Lucy Harwin, but you can call me Lucy.’ She held out her hand, which Florence took and shook with a much firmer grip than Lucy had expected. ‘Florence, we really need a picture of Edwin to circulate to the officers who are going to be out searching for him. Would you have one with you?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Florence said. ‘How silly of me; it didn’t even occur to me. Of course you need one. I have lots of them at home; I can go back and get you one.’
‘Why don’t I take you home and I can get a picture from you?’
‘Of course, if you don’t mind. That’s very kind of you. Tell me, do you know if anyone has phoned up to say they’ve found him yet?’
Florence smiled at her joke and Lucy felt her heart sink even lower for the grief she was about to cause this lovely woman.
‘Excuse me for a minute while I sort out a suitable car,’ she said. ‘Then we can go and get that photograph.’
Lucy left the room to speak to Mattie, who was waiting outside.
‘Get me a family liaison officer on standby and a plain car. I can’t cram her into mine and she’ll do herself an injury trying to climb into yours. Then we’ll take her home and see if the photographs match our victim.’
‘Shit, poor woman.’
Lucy nodded; it was very shit indeed. She went back into the small room and led Florence into the reception area. A silver Ford Focus pulled up in front of the doors and Lucy took the woman out to it, opening the rear door for her.
‘Florence, this is my colleague, Matthew. He’s going to be our chauffeur.’
‘You know, I’ve never been to a police station before in my life,’ Florence said. ‘I was quite worried in the taxi on the way here, but you’ve all been so very kind.’
Mattie smiled at her. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the local paper about us; we’re quite a nice bunch.’ He winked at her and she laughed, giving them a glimmer of the attractive woman that she must have once been.
Mattie drove them to the outskirts of town, where the really nice houses that overlooked the bay were. As he turned into the street, Florence pointed to a huge white bungalow with the neatest garden Lucy had ever seen.
‘Wow,’ Lucy said. ‘You have a beautiful house and garden.’
‘Thank you; that garden is the only thing that keeps us going. We both like to potter around in it. Edwin mows the lawn and does the weeding, I do the nice jobs like planting flowers and watering. It is rather nice, isn’t it?’
Lucy smiled at her. ‘It’s beautiful. Have you lived here long?’
‘Oh, around fifty years or so. Our son keeps dropping hints that we should sell up and move into one of those horrid retirement flats at the top end of the promenade. Well, I can tell you now that is never going to happen. They’ll be taking the pair of us out of here in our coffins before we let him sell our home from underneath our feet.’
Lucy found herself praying that they were mistaken about the wallet, that Edwin had misplaced it and would come home with his tail between his legs. She didn’t want to be the one to tell this lovely lady that her husband was dead and was currently lying in a mortuary fridge with his internal organs stuffed into a plastic bag and sewn back into his body. The familiar butterflies began to flutter inside her stomach. No matter how many times she had to do this, it never got any easier. She found her hands had slipped behind her back with her fingers tightly crossed.
Mattie parked the car. They all got out and followed Florence, who was clutching her front door key tightly in her hand.
‘Does your son live locally?’ Lucy asked, thinking that they’d need to call him soon to come and take care of his mum.
‘He does; no doubt he’ll be at the golf course. Paul is a good boy, but he spends all his time playing golf. He drives his poor wife mad with it all.’
‘Do you have any other family?’
‘Yes, I have a daughter who lives in Manchester. She’s a doctor, just like her father was, and we’re both incredibly proud of her.’
Lucy glanced at Mattie and mouthed the words, A doctor? He nodded.
‘Florence,’ Lucy said, ‘have you told either of them that Edwin hasn’t been home?’
‘Of course not. They have very busy lives. And I don’t make a habit of telling my children every time we have a disagreement because I’d be on the phone to them at least once a day.’ Florence laughed a little. ‘To be honest with you, officer, I have to admit I’m very worried about him. In forty years he’s never not come back home, and we’ve had some huge arguments in the past.’
They followed her inside the house, which was so light and airy that Lucy couldn’t believe that it belonged to an elderly couple. It was much nicer than her house. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘You really do have a lovely home.’
‘I used to daydream about the day my kids would be all grown up and leave home so that I could paint my entire house white,’ Florence said. ‘Of course, Edwin isn’t so keen on having such a white, light-filled house, but he knows it makes me happy.’
Florence winked at Lucy and pointed towards the kitchen. ‘You go and take a seat in there and I’ll see if I can find you a recent photograph of him. He really doesn’t like having his picture taken. He insists they’re not allowed to be on show.’
Lucy went and took a seat at the chalky white and grey painted table. Mattie perched himself onto one of the bar stools at the breakfast counter, and spoke in a low voice. ‘God, I’m praying that it isn’t him – even though I know we need it to be him. I’m hoping he’s shacked up
in a brothel with some Polish bird, having the time of his life. Anything has to be better than what I think is about to happen.’
Florence walked back in with a photo frame held to her chest. She turned it around and showed it to Lucy, who nodded. She knew that Mattie could tell by the look on her face that they’d just identified their John Smith. He stood up, taking hold of Florence’s elbow and guided her to a dining chair. She sat down and her shoulders began to heave. Mattie opened his mouth to speak, but Florence shook her head.
Lucy reached out her hand and clasped hold of Florence’s. The picture was face-up on the table and there was no doubt about it. Apart from the fact that he now had a gaping hole where his left eye socket was, their John Smith was identical to the man in the picture. Edwin Wilkes was never coming home.
Florence looked into Lucy’s eyes. ‘I knew this was going to happen. Well, I knew that something was very wrong. And you’ve all been so nice. He’s not coming home, is he?’
‘I’m very sorry, Florence, I’m afraid not.’
Lucy gave Mattie the nod to let the duty sergeant know that they needed the family liaison officer to come and take over. As heartbreaking as this was, they now knew who their victim was, and that meant that they were closer to a possible motive. Dr Edwin Wilkes must have really upset someone for them to drive a metal instrument through his eye socket.
19
SEPTEMBER 1975
Nurse Stone was blocking the exit from the showers; Dr Wilkes was standing behind the two porters who had come to help catch hold of Tommy. Nurse Stone pointed at the closed cubicle and the two men strode towards it. Billy, who was the bigger and more experienced of the two, pushed the door. It was locked. He leant his ear against it to listen. He could hear noisy breathing coming from the other side. Tommy always sounded as if he had a blocked nose. Billy knocked on the door.
‘Tommy? It’s Billy. Come on, lad. Let’s get you out of there and back into bed.’
There was no reply. Nurse Stone, tired of waiting around, glared at him and pointed to the door.
‘Tommy?’ Billy said again. ‘You need to step away from the door now because I’m going to open it whether you like it or not.’
Without hesitation, he kicked the door until it splintered and flew back, hitting the shower cubicle so hard that the whole room vibrated. Tommy ran at Billy, his head bent, and slammed into his stomach with as much force as he could muster. Billy yelped, then crumpled to the floor clutching his stomach, all the wind knocked out of him.
The other porter, who was younger and faster than Billy, lunged for the boy, managing to grab a handful of his shoulder-length curly brown hair. Tommy let out a yelp and began to scratch and flail at the man’s hands. Dr Wilkes ran towards him and sank the syringe full of sedation straight into Tommy’s neck. The boy screamed, then fell to his knees. His eyeballs rolled to the back of his eye sockets, leaving just the whites of his eyes showing. He keeled over and hit the floor with a thud.
Billy, who was still gasping for breath, watched in horror. ‘Did you… give him… too much?’
Nurse Stone looked at him sharply, then bent down to press two fingers to the boy’s neck. He still had a pulse.
‘Help me get him into bed,’ she said. ‘He’ll be fine. It might take him a little longer to come around, but he’s still breathing.’
The doctor was looking at the syringe he was holding in his hand. Nurse Stone leant over to whisper into his ear. ‘Pull yourself together, doctor. He was a danger to us and himself. You did the right thing.’
Dr Wilkes nodded in agreement with her. The younger porter scooped Tommy up into his arms and carried him to the bed.
‘If he’d stayed in there and gone to sleep like he should have,’ Nurse Stone said, ‘none of this would have happened.’
Billy pulled himself to his feet. ‘I need a cigarette,’ he said.
Nurse Stone covered the boy up to his neck with a sheet. His eyes were still open with the whites showing. Shaking his head, Billy turned his back and walked away.
Nurse Stone looked at her watch. ‘It’s late, doctor. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep? You have a big day tomorrow – isn’t it the board of directors’ meeting at eleven?’
Dr Wilkes ran his hand through his greying hair, then glanced at the comatose Tommy. ‘Yes, yes it is. I’ll expect you to ring me if you need me, though. And… the emergency doctor on call doesn’t need to know about this. If Tommy gets into any difficulty, I want you to ring me straight away and I will come right back.’
‘Of course I will. What do you take me for?’
* * *
Dr Wilkes walked away as briskly as he could without running. He knew full well what Nurse Stone was capable of, and now he’d proved himself as bad, if not worse. He’d just overdosed a child on Haldol – if Tommy woke up tomorrow, it would be a small miracle.
He let himself out of the children’s ward and headed straight for the staff entrance without so much as going to his office for his overcoat. His mind was a whirlwind of the consequences of what tonight’s actions would bring if Tommy didn’t wake up – so much so that he didn’t see Billy until they’d collided. He muttered an apology, barely even aware of Billy staring after him.
Pulling his keys out of his trouser pocket, he unlocked his car door and climbed inside. As he drove away, the full moon illuminated the hospital building in his rear-view mirror. It looked like something out of a horror film.
Before he knew it, he’d reached home. The house was in darkness. As he let himself in the front door and kicked his shoes off, a wave of tiredness washed over him. Instead of going for a shower like he normally would, he decided to put his pyjamas on and climb straight into bed.
He crept upstairs, not wanting to disturb Florence or either of their children. He tiptoed into his bedroom, and pulled back the covers as softly as possible. Florence let out a small moan, then turned on her side. She didn’t wake, and for that he was thankful. He didn’t want to talk tonight.
When Nurse Stone did her hourly checks, she found that Julie, who had no arms or legs, had managed to crap all over the bed. It took her the best part of an hour to clean the little witch up. She had to strip and remake the bed. If the rest of the ward hadn’t been so quiet, she would have made her have a cold shower, but Julie’s squeals would have disturbed the other kids so she’d let her have a warm one. Afterwards, she put her back into bed and covered her up.
‘Get back to sleep, and if you do that again, you can stay in it until the morning.’
If she’d given Tommy a second glance, she would have discovered that his breathing was very shallow and irregular – but she didn’t. Instead, she went to the staff kitchen and made herself a mug of coffee, and helped herself to the biscuit tin, which was full of biscuits brought in by Julie’s family. It was the least they could do, Nurse Stone thought. If they weren’t too selfish to let Julie live at home with them, then she wouldn’t be having to clean the shit off her back in the middle of the night.
Carrying her mug of coffee and a saucer full of biscuits, she went into the staffroom, where she shut the door and sat down. She took her book out of the drawer, put her feet on the desk and began dunking her biscuits into the mug. When she’d finished, she lay the book on her chest. A little nap wouldn’t hurt; the bastards were all fast asleep.
Her eyes closed and she began to snore. With every movement of her chest, the book began to slowly slip from her body, until it hit the floor with a bang and jolted her from a nice dream about having an affair with Dr Wilkes. She opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times, wondering where the hell she was. At once, it hit her that she was at work and not supposed to be sleeping.
She stood up and stretched before wandering back out onto the ward. It had never been so quiet. Normally at least one of the brats would be awake, or calling out in their sleep for parents who were never coming back. Not tonight, though. It seemed different tonight.
She began walking towards To
mmy’s bed to check on him. From a distance, she could see that he hadn’t changed position since she’d last looked over at him. Not that she really expected him to: he’d been drugged up with enough antipsychotic medicine to knock an elephant out. As she reached the bed, her footsteps slowed. His mouth was open and his eyes were glazed.
She ran the last few feet, but she already knew that it was too late. The kid was dead. She bent her head, putting her ear to his mouth. There was no sound. Tommy had already breathed his last breath. Reaching out, she touched his forehead with the back of her hand. It was cool to the touch. Panic set in. She pulled her hand back and ran to the staffroom, where she picked up the phone and dialled the number that was written in red marker pen on a piece of paper sellotaped to the wall.
Edwin Wilkes was dreaming about his mother, which was strange, because she’d been dead for ten years. She was sitting at his kitchen table, sipping tea from a cup and watching him. He was sitting opposite her, staring at the blue and white teapot in front of them. She placed her cup back down on the table and began to shake her head at him.
He heard a noise and wondered what it was, then realised it was the telephone and opened his eyes. Relief filled his heart that his mother wasn’t really sitting opposite him, berating him. He scrabbled around in the dark to pick up the telephone.
‘Hello,’ he whispered, his voice dry and groggy with sleep.
‘It’s Audrey; you need to come back now. He’s dead.’
Edwin had no idea who Audrey might be. He tried to clear the fog that was filling his mind. ‘Who’s dead?’
‘Tommy,’ the voice hissed at him.
He felt a surge of water and bile rise from his stomach to his mouth. Slamming the receiver down as if it were burning his fingers, he had to hold his hand over his mouth as he ran to the family bathroom. A hot stream of vomit exploded from him as he reached the toilet. His legs were trembling. He wiped his face with some toilet roll, then flushed the toilet.