by Helen Phifer
The whole time she was talking, she was pointing her finger at Alice. Lizzy wanted to run and kick the horrible woman. It wasn’t true. She’d never seen Alice behave like that before. It was all Lizzy’s fault.
‘I think you’re right,’ Dr Wilkes said. ‘I’ll go and get prepped, then we’ll have her brought down to theatre. It will only take half an hour. I can’t afford any more of these incidents; the board are already talking about closing this place down. We’re hanging on by a very fine thread, which could snap at any moment.’
He left. Lizzy had no idea what they’d been talking about, but she kept quiet. She looked down at her thigh, which had a big blue bruise forming where the nurse had kicked her.
Another nurse came over to help her up. As she bent down, she whispered: ‘You keep quiet now, Lizzy. No fuss, or they’ll take you away after Alice and do the same to you.’
Lizzy was terrified. She didn’t want it, whatever ‘it’ was, so she nodded. Taking the nurse’s hand, she went and sat on the chair next to Alice’s trolley so she could be near to her.
Alice was no longer awake. Lizzy didn’t know what they were going to do to her. She was terrified. All of this was her fault, because she’d lost her temper again. It wasn’t fair.
Thirty minutes later, when they came and wheeled Alice away, Lizzy felt so bad she had to run to the toilet to be sick. It hadn’t bothered her much when she’d killed that baby – she hadn’t felt sick when he’d stopped breathing. He’d been horrible, and she hadn’t liked him. But she liked Alice.
As she knelt on the cold tiled floor, Lizzy realised how much she hated Nurse Stone and the doctor. She knew that she wouldn’t feel bad when she got her revenge on either of them. She didn’t know how or when she would do it, but she knew that she would. It didn’t matter how long she had to wait. She was a patient child and she didn’t care if she had to wait until she was grown up. She would take pleasure from seeing to it that both of them paid for what they had done: to her, to Alice and to poor Tommy. And she wouldn’t get caught this time, like she had after John.
She pulled herself from the floor, feeling a little better. She went to sit by Alice’s bed and stared out of the window, down at the cemetery below and the rows of wooden crosses. She wondered how long it would take for them to bring Alice back. She felt lost without the older girl there to look after her. Whatever it was they were doing to her, it was taking forever. The only good thing was that Nurse Stone was nowhere to be seen.
It was a bright, sunny autumn day, and there were patients being led around outside in the grounds. Some of them even looked as if they had their family with them. Lizzy hadn’t seen her mum or dad for such a long time. She felt a tear trickle down her cheek. Did they even care that she wasn’t at home with them? It made her sad not to see them. She wondered if they were sad not to see her.
The double doors to the ward swung open with a loud clatter as they hit the wall. A trolley was wheeled in by two porters, with Nurse Stone following behind. She had a smirk on her face that she was trying to hide behind the clipboard in her hands. Lizzy stared at the girl who they were wheeling to Alice’s bed. It no longer looked like her friend. This girl had a bandage over her left eye which continued all the way around her head. Her other eye was glazed, and there was a large glob of spittle running down her chin.
Lizzy felt sick. What had they done to her? Scared to go over in case they took her away and did the same to her, she watched in horror as they put Alice’s back into bed and pressed the brakes down so it wouldn’t move. The two porters left and Nurse Stone bent down to check Alice’s breathing and blood pressure. When she had finished, she took the chart and walked back to the nurses’ station, turning her back on Lizzy.
Lizzy ran across to the bed, where her friend was lying immobile, staring at the wall. She shook Alice’s arm. It was cold and clammy. Frantically, she whispered: ‘Alice? Alice, look at me. What’s the matter with you? What have they done?’
Alice never moved, blinked or acknowledged that she was there. Lizzy felt as if someone had taken out her heart and replaced it with a block of freezing cold ice. She waved her hand in front of Alice’s eye and it didn’t even blink. She whispered her name again, but got no reaction. Turning around to make sure that none of the nurses were watching, she began to gently shake Alice’s shoulder. The only thing that happened was that a sliver of saliva began to run from the side of Alice’s mouth down her chin.
Lizzy stepped away. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t even speak. Her heart was racing. What if they came for her next?
35
As Lucy sat in the back of the police van, holding on for dear life, her phone began to vibrate in her pocket. She pulled it out to see Col’s number flashing across the display.
‘What have you got?’ she said as she answered the call.
‘Well, there is nothing on Tommy Wright. I’ve just double-checked. There’s a date in October where it says he was transferred to the general hospital; it also mentions he was a mongol, whatever that means. But I’ve just had an email back from the general hospital records office saying they have no knowledge of a Tommy Wright being admitted in October 1975. So there may be something dodgy going on there. Of course, they did stress that because of the time frame they couldn’t be one hundred per cent positive. I’ve done all the relevant searches to see if there’s any record of him anywhere later on, as an adult. But there is nothing to suggest that Tommy Wright lived to be an adult.’
Lucy sighed. ‘Poor Tommy. He had Down’s Syndrome – back then they were called mongols. I doubt very much he would be responsible for these two murders, even if he is still alive. It all sounds very cloak and dagger, though. I wish I could question Edwin Wilkes and Audrey Stone to find out exactly what happened to him.’
Colin started to cough and splutter on the other end of the phone. Lucy held it away from her ear, until he muttered, ‘Sorry, boss; swallowed my tea the wrong way. I’ve also traced the person who identified Lizzy Clements. It was a David Oldham. Unfortunately for us, he’s dead. Died of a heart attack in 2014.’
‘Bloody hell, Col, have you not got any good news for me? These are all dead ends.’
‘Sorry, Lucy. I’ll keep trying.’
Lucy instantly regretted being so sharp with him. It wasn’t his fault. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m not having a go at you. It’s just annoying that we keep hitting brick walls. It’s not your fault. Thanks.’
Cottage Lane had never seen so much police activity. The van parked up just outside the cordoned-off area. Lucy had been considering having the scene released, but had changed her mind, deciding they would wait until they’d searched Lauren’s house to make sure there was nothing out of the ordinary there. It was far better to be safe than sorry – even if that did mean the poor PCSOs were on scene guard for days.
She put on a pair of gloves and walked across to Lauren Coates’ small terraced house. It was painted white and mint green with a quaint wicker love heart on the front door. The curtains of the front room were open and Lucy cupped her hands to peer inside. There was no sign of life.
Mattie left them to stroll around to the back street. He came back around moments later to where Lucy was knocking on the front door.
‘Alley gates,’ he said.
‘And they’re shut?’
He nodded.
‘Jesus, this must be the only street in the entire town that bother to close the gates,’ Lucy said. ‘Typical.’
She had searched in all the usual places that people left spare door keys, and had come up with nothing. It wasn’t like her front garden, with its pots of lavender and roses. She turned around to the officers, who were leaning against the van, arms folded, discussing the menu from the latest Indian takeaway that had opened locally.
‘Could you please open the door?’
The taller of the two nodded and slid the van door open. He began to drag the heavy red battering ram out. Lucy motioned for Mattie to knock next door, to c
heck the neighbours hadn’t seen Lauren lately. She took the other side. Neither door opened, leaving them very little choice.
Lucy nodded at the man with the whammer in his hands and he began to swing it backwards and forwards against the lock. Three loud bangs, and the door gave away. The noise was enough to wake the dead – the whole time, Lucy watched to see if either of the neighbours’ curtains were twitching. They weren’t, so she let them off.
She stepped inside Lauren’s house – the door opened straight into the front room – and inhaled. It didn’t smell of anything bad. The air was a little stale, and there was the faint smell of lemon lingering in the air.
‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Lauren? This is the police.’
There was no response. It seemed Lauren was not here. Even if she had been lying in bed poorly, the noise of the door breaking in would surely have disturbed her. Lucy motioned for the two coppers to go and search upstairs, whilst she and Mattie searched downstairs.
There were a few letters on the floor by the front door, which Lucy picked up and placed on the small table next to the sofa. Also on the table was a vase of flowers and a black and white photograph of Lauren with Shannon, the friend who’d spoken to Lucy. She went into the neat kitchen and opened the fridge door. There wasn’t much food inside apart from a block of cheese, a packet of chicken slices and a full carton of milk. Blimey. Lucy felt a wave of sadness wash over her. This was practically her own life – she had a slightly bigger house, but the contents of her fridge weren’t even this grand.
On the kitchen worktop was a half-empty bottle of wine left uncorked. Alarm bells began to ring inside Lucy’s head. If Lauren had been drinking wine and hadn’t finished the bottle, why not put the cork back? It didn’t look as if she had so much money that she could afford to waste a decent amount of alcohol. Or was it just Lucy who would worry about wasting wine? Was she confusing her own, sad, shitty life with that of this woman, who she’d never heard of until a few hours ago?
Mattie came into the kitchen, waving a passport at her. ‘She hasn’t jetted off abroad to join her parents.’
Lucy took it from him, opening it to see a much harsher photograph than the one on the incident log.
The two officers came downstairs shaking their heads. ‘Nothing upstairs, boss. The bed is made and her toothbrush is dry. There’s no mobile phone lying around and there were a couple of empty handbags. She’s not here. Lucy had to agree there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Nothing was out of place; there were no signs of a struggle.
Mattie came in from the back yard where he’d popped out to check the small shed.
‘Back’s all secure. There’s only that shed, which is full of crap, and that’s it.’
‘Right, come on then,’ Lucy said. ‘We can’t do anything else. I’ll ask the PCSOs to keep an eye on the place while they wait for a joiner to come and secure the door.’ She tucked the passport into her trouser pocket. When Lauren turned up, she would give it back to her. For now, she was going to hang on to it.
As they got back into the van, Mattie looked at her. ‘Happy now?’
‘Not really. Where is she? If it’s out of character for her to do this, and there’s no sign of a struggle inside the house, she has to be with someone.’
‘I’m not being funny, Lucy, but did you tell your best friend every time you shacked up with a man for a shagfest?’
Lucy felt her cheeks turn crimson. ‘Mattie!’
‘Come on. You know what I mean. For all we know, this Shannon could be a bit of a jealous friend, so Lauren might have decided not to tell her about her latest conquest.’
‘I suppose you could actually be right.’
‘Of course I am. You should listen to me a little bit more.’
Lucy began to laugh. ‘I’m sorry, you’re right. I should.’
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing. I’m just being daft. It’s been a long couple of days. I suppose there’s not much more we can do. We’re a bit limited at the moment.’
‘Unless her body turns up before they do.’
‘I hope not; I’d kind of feel responsible.’
‘And how do you work that one out?’ Mattie asked. ‘Look, for whatever reason, Lauren’s friend sought you out and asked you to look into this. You’ve done the best that you can. How do we not know that her friend isn’t a crazy who’s jealous of her?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘We don’t. Well, I kind of do… I checked her out; she isn’t known to us. If she was some kind of psycho we’d probably have some prior knowledge of her, wouldn’t we?’
‘I suppose we would. Come on, let’s get back so you can update her friend.’
Back at the station, Lucy went into her office to call Shannon Knowles. The phone rang out and there was no facility to leave a voicemail. Lucy swore to herself.
Mattie waved at her as he left, and she waved back, wondering where he was so keen to get off to. She felt a twinge of regret. Perhaps it was because he was so happy, while she was so bloody miserable and feeling sorry for herself. Everyone was happy except for her, it seemed. Even Browning, despite being a pain in the arse, was married, and had been for years.
Lucy typed an update onto the missing person’s report for Lauren, and decided it was time to go home. She could call at Shannon’s house on her way – even though it wasn’t technically on her way – or she could wait until tomorrow.
As she left, she passed Browning, who was leaning on his desk. It looked as if he was reading something interesting on the computer. Lucy doubted it was anything to do with work, because if it was, he wouldn’t be so enthralled. Browning caught her looking and nodded his head. She waved at him, another wave of guilt washing over her. She didn’t really know the man that well, so she should stop being so judgemental about him. Today had turned into one of revelation for her. She decided that tomorrow she would do her best to be a better, kinder person. To everyone: including Browning, and everyone else who normally pissed her off.
Getting into the car, she wondered if Ellie would want to come over for tea. Then she looked at the clock on the dashboard – 19.49, definitely far too late for tea. Shit. How had that happened? Where had the day gone? She’d spent three hours looking into Lauren Coates’ missing person’s case, and now she was going to add on another twenty minutes by speaking to Shannon Knowles.
She sighed and turned the key in the ignition. Prince began to scream at the top of his voice – ‘Let’s go crazy, let’s get nuts’ – and she smiled, because at this rate, going crazy was a real possibility for her.
A van behind her turned its sirens on, making her almost jump through the roof of her tiny Fiat. She pulled over to let the van pass as the electronic gate began to slide backwards. It never ended. This job was one incident after another. Lucy certainly didn’t miss the days of getting sent from job to job, never having time to clear up the mess before having to move on to the next. She waited to see if a second van would follow. It didn’t, so she began to drive through before the gate shut.
As tempting as it was to go straight home, she knew that if she didn’t visit Shannon tonight she’d never settle. Before even realising it, she’d turned into the street where Audrey Stone’s house was still taped off with blue and white police tape. There was a PCSO sitting in a van outside the front gate, and Lucy knew there would be another one out the back. They had to make sure that they’d collected every single piece of forensic evidence that they could find before they released the crime scene. There was also the fact that Lauren had disappeared to take into consideration, what if she’d got caught up in some foul play?
Lucy waved at the van and smiled to see Rachel, the PCSO, waving back. She stared at Audrey Stone’s house, then at Lauren’s, which was still in darkness and now had a sheet of plywood securing the door. She needed answers. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that Lauren might have inadvertently stumbled onto Audrey Stone’s murder.
She picked up the log sh
e’d printed out with Shannon Knowles’s address on, and began to drive away in the direction of her house. She parked and went to knock on the door. It was opened by a much different version of the woman who had spoken to her earlier. Gone was the suit, high heels and immaculately made-up face. Instead, Lucy was greeted by a woman in work-out clothes, a high ponytail and a freshly cleansed face.
‘Evening, Shannon,’ Lucy said. ‘I know it’s late but I wanted to give you an update.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Shannon said. ‘I didn’t expect to hear from you again! Well, I hoped that I would, but I didn’t actually think I would, if you get what I mean.’
Lucy smiled at her. ‘Well, I told you I’d make some enquiries and I like to keep my word.’
Shannon stepped back and opened the door. ‘Would you like to come in?’
Lucy wondered if she should just tell her now, on the doorstep, so she could get home. She found herself walking inside, though. What did she have to get home to?
Shannon led her into the living room, where John Luther was paused in his full glory on a sixty-inch television above the fireplace.
Lucy smiled. ‘I’ve just started watching this too; it’s really good.’
Shannon smiled back. ‘Really? I wouldn’t have thought you would want to watch anything like this when you already do the same job.’
‘But he’s so nice to look at, and his world is a lot more exciting than mine,’ laughed Lucy. Although I’m sure the last few days could give him a run for his money.’
‘I heard about what happened to that old woman,’ Shannon said. ‘It’s so scary to think that could happen right near to where Lauren lives. Have you caught her killer yet?’
‘Ah, the perils of watching detective shows. I’m afraid that in the real world it rarely works so fast, especially if it’s a stranger-killing.’ Lucy could have kicked herself even as the words came out of her mouth. She’d said far too much. She had no idea what Shannon did for a living. Knowing Lucy’s luck, she was probably a journalist for the Daily Mirror.