Flatline

by Robert Innes

  “And how did they do that?”

  Gardiner hesitated. “Well. I’m sure there’s a hole in here somewhere that we haven’t seen. Maybe one of those ceiling panels comes loose. If someone was sat on the top of this compartment, they could throw the pipe in once Tilsley was dead and drain it out. All in twenty minutes. They’d probably even be able to get rid of it from the carpet.” He suddenly clapped his hands together as an idea struck him. “Maybe you wouldn’t even need the speaker thing. Those pipes can suck water out and put it back in again with just the flip of a switch. All you’d need is the pipe!”

  Blake was not entirely sure what to say. The theory was madness. As the lift arrived on the ninth floor, he just nodded and said “I think there’s something in that, Michael. Maybe just needs a bit of TLC. Iron it out a bit, and I think you might be onto something.”

  “Yes, I think we’ll find it’s something like that,” Gardiner replied airily. “Someone who works here with know how could get this lift to stop any time they wanted and get it going again. However long they needed to get rid of any evidence.”

  Blake merely nodded again as the doors slid open and they stepped out. As they followed the signs towards the ward, he began to wonder if it had been possible for someone to be hidden on the top of the lift, but something about the idea did not sit right with him.

  After asking one of the doctors if Stan was around, they were pointed in the direction of an office on the end of the ward, where they found Stan standing on a step ladder, fiddling with the wires of a fibrotic light in the wall.

  Stan looked down from his height as they entered the room.

  “Hello! Mr Harte, isn’t it? How are you feeling? I’d heard you’d discharged yourself. I had a feeling you were going to do something like that!” he chuckled. “Sometimes you get a sense who the difficult patients are going to be.”

  “Yes, ‘fraid I did, Stan,” Blake replied. “But, I’m back now. Can’t stay away from the place, really. We were hoping to speak to you about Joe Tilsley.”

  “Ah, yeah. I thought you might be,” Stan said, stepping down from the ladder. “Of course, what can I do for you?”

  “When did you last see him?” Gardiner asked. Stan glanced around at Gardiner as if he had only just noticed him. Gardiner rolled his eyes, then pulled out his ID. “Acting Detective Sergeant Gardiner, I’m in charge of this investigation. When did you last see Mr Tilsley?”

  Stan pulled a face that implied he was thinking. “It was the other night. The night before he died. I saw him leaving and called good night to him from across the floor.”

  “And how did he seem?” Blake asked.

  Stan shrugged. “Bit distracted. He seemed to barely acknowledge me to be honest, but I’m sure he didn’t mean to be rude. He was soaking wet I noticed, but then it was raining really heavily that night, so maybe he’d already been out in it once, forgotten something and wanted to get back in his car as quickly as he could.”

  Blake frowned. He could feel something was trying to get into his brain, but it couldn’t quite make its way in yet.

  “Does the name Lucy Pennock mean anything to you?” Gardiner asked him.

  “Yes,” exclaimed Stan, looking sympathetic. “It was that poor girl who got knocked down in Harmschapel last year. Nasty business that. It’s the family I feel for.”

  “We believe Mr Tilsley was involved in her death.”

  Stan stared at them in amazement. “What? Joe? No, I don’t believe it.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Blake told him. “And then somebody went after him because of it. When Joe broke down in that lift, what did you do?”

  “Me?” Stan asked. “I heard Kelsey banging and shouting on the doors, so I came to see what the problem was. Then, I went to grab the maintenance lads, and Kevin to give him a bit of experience, to try and fix it. It took me ages to find them, they were on the top floor, if I remember. Anyway, I brought them down, obviously we had to use the stairs cause the lifts weren’t working, then they went about mending it. But it sorted itself out in the end. They do that, lifts. Anyway, once we’d got the doors open, that’s when we found him, the poor lad.”

  “Sorry I’m late, Stan,” said a voice behind them. It was Kevin, Stan’s assistant. “The traffic was stupid.” Blake realised it was the first time he had heard Kevin speak. Normally, he just seemed to nod wordlessly.

  “No worries, lad,” Stan said cheerfully. “Just carry on with that fitting while I talk to these two gentlemen, would you?”

  Kevin nodded and climbed the step ladder. Blake watched him work while Gardiner continued talking.

  “Would you ever have access to any of the other uniforms in this hospital? Maybe from theatre? Do you ever go in there?”

  “Into theatre?” echoed Stan. “Yeah, every now and again. I’m normally helping push a patient about if I’m down there. Why do you ask?”

  “Has there been any reports about surgeon’s caps and masks going missing?” Gardiner asked.

  Stan shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. You’d have to ask them.”

  “We will be doing,” Blake said. He scratched the back of his head as he realised that Stan was not offering any especially helpful information. The feeling of having questions to ask that would led them to the culprit but having no idea who they should ask those questions to was extremely frustrating.

  Then, from behind them, a familiar noise echoed around the office. Blake and Gardiner looked at each other, their eyes wide.

  Then, it came again. A sharp, huffing sound, like a sudden intake of breath. Slowly, they turned around.

  Kevin was staring at them cluelessly, with an inhaler in his mouth. “What?” he asked, his eyes darting between the two of them. “I ran up here from the bottom floor, I’m breathless.”

  Blake’s mouth went dry. “How long have you had asthma, Kevin?”

  Kevin shrugged as he put his inhaler back into his pocket. “Since I was about ten I think. My mum smoked when she was pregnant with me. She says she quit soon after I was born, but the doctor says that the damage was already done. My sister had it too.”

  “And when does it come on? What triggers it?” Gardiner asked, stepping forwards.

  Kevin narrowed his eyes. “Why are you asking me about that?”

  “Rainy weather?” Blake asked. “Stress?”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said cautiously. “I dunno why it happens in the rain, something about mould spores being released apparently. And yeah, stress. Everyone gets stressed though, don’t they?”

  Again, Blake and Gardiner exchanged looks.

  “You never told me you had a sister,” Stan said, sounding slightly affronted. “I’ve told you about all my family.”

  “It just never came up,” Kevin said sharply, staring at Stan intently.

  “What’s your sister’s name?” Blake asked.

  For a few seconds, Kevin hesitated. It was all Blake needed.

  “Wouldn’t be Lucy, by any chance, would it?”

  Kevin stayed silent for a few moments, then he looked down at the ground and finally said in quiet voice, “Why did you ask about my inhaler? How did that help you?”

  “The video, Kevin,” Blake told him. “The one you took of Joe and Kelsey on the night of your sister’s death. It was raining really heavily that night, and I think witnessing your sister being hit by a car comes under the category of stress. You had a suck on your inhaler in the film.”

  Kevin frowned slightly, then his expression softened as he remembered. “I try not to think too much about that night. I’ve not exactly sat and watched it on repeat. I do remember needing my inhaler though. The last thing I expected was that you’d be able to hear it over the weather that night. You found the video then? On Joe’s phone?”

  Blake nodded. “Yeah, we did. Just like you wanted us to.”

  “Good,” said Kevin. He appeared to be at a loss for words, as if he and Blake had come to the end of a business deal and they were both about to go their separate
ways.

  “Am I missing something?” Stan asked, staring around the room looking confused. “What video? Kevin? They’re not suggesting that your sister was Lucy Pennock, are they?”

  “We are,” Gardiner said sharply. “Because she was. Tragedy struck, and you decided to take matters into your own hands, didn’t you?”

  Kevin stared at Gardiner, as if insulted that he had summarised it to make it sound at all simple. “There was a bit more to it than that, come on. I’m not a psycho.”

  “Kelsey couldn’t have had anything to do with it though,” Stan said, still looking baffled. “What’s all this got to do with poor Kelsey and Joe?”

  “Oh, more than you could ever believe, Stan,” Kevin said, a slight smile appearing in the corner of his mouth. “Poor Kelsey? Maybe. At a push. But poor Joe? Do me a favour. That guy knew what he was doing, and he did it well. Kelsey never had a clue. He was out having affairs left, right, and centre, and she sat at home playing the dutiful girlfriend.”

  “We can carry this on down at the station,” Blake said. “We don’t need to do it here.”

  “I knew what he was like,” Kevin murmured, staring ahead and ignoring Blake. “You can tell, sometimes, can’t you? Just those types of people that don’t give a toss about who they hurt in the long run. And I could see it in him. Oh, Lucy was forever singing his praises, but how much happiness can you get from someone when you weren’t their first choice? Especially if they refuse to break up with the person who was. Look at what Joe had to gain by getting Lucy out of the way. Kelsey never found out about the affair. He could have his cake and eat it. Now, tell me that was an accident.”

  The room was silent. Blake watched Kevin as he took another puff on his inhaler and walked across the office, his back to them, staring out of the window. “It happened two days before my birthday, you know. I guess I was lucky it didn’t land on the actual day. I wouldn’t have a birthday to celebrate at all then. Lucy had got us tickets for this gig and it was just going to be the two of us. I couldn’t wait. We never got to spend all that much time together, especially since she started getting all obsessed with Tilsley.

  “But when we got there, there they were. Him and Kelsey. At the same gig. Didn’t take long for him to leave Kelsey dancing and to drag Chloe off somewhere. I knew it was going to happen the second I saw his smug little face at the bar. They disappeared for a bit, and I presumed that they’d gone off somewhere, but when I went outside, they were both there, arguing.”

  “What about?” Blake ventured. He was surprised that Kevin was divulging all this information in front of Stan, but like he had seen with Kelsey in her interview, he was someone who appeared to be getting a lot off his chest that had been there for too long.

  “Lucy wanted him to dump Kelsey. He said he wouldn’t. ‘Can’t we just keep things as they are, babe?’ When he said that, I just saw red, waded in and thumped him. Who was he to treat my sister like that? Anyway, the bouncer saw me throw the first punch and chucked me and Chloe out.”

  “And then, what? You walked home?” Blake asked.

  “Yeah, it was later than we thought,” Kevin replied, turning back to them at last. “Last bus had long gone, we didn’t have enough to get a taxi, so we walked. I say walked, Lucy stormed ahead, and I tried to catch her up. Arguing all the way. She didn’t like the way I’d interfered. I said to her, ‘you’re my sister. What am I supposed to do?’ But she wasn’t having any of it.

  “We’d been walking for about an hour. We were just coming up to Harmschapel, we were cold, wet, tired, my asthma was getting really bad. And then, she started going on, and on about how I never leave her to get on with her life, how mine was so dull that I had to get involved with hers. She was getting really in my face, and I’d had enough. So I just…” His voice trailed off.

  “What?” Blake asked. “You just what?”

  “I pushed her away from me.” Kevin murmured. “I didn’t think it was a proper hard push, but she slipped or something. I dunno if it was the mud from the path we were on, or whether she stumbled on the curb of the pavement, but she fell into the road.”

  Kevin closed his eyes as the moment seemed to return to him. Blake shut his eyes too, but in sympathy. He could not imagine what had gone through Kevin’s mind at the moment he shoved his sister away from him into the path of an incoming car. He doubted there was a feeling even close to it.

  Kevin sat down on an office chair, fiddling with a pencil sharpener on the desk. “I don’t think I was actually capable of movement for a minute or so. I was just staring into the road, waiting for her to get up. I didn’t even register the car really. Then I saw who got out of it.”

  “Kelsey and Joe?”

  Kevin nodded. “There and then, I had to make a decision. I dunno what made me settle on the choice I made, but I knew once I’d gotten it in my head, I wasn’t going to get it out. As far as I was concerned, Tilsley killed her.”

  “Well, I think you helped,” Gardiner said caustically.

  “Shut up, Michael,” Blake snapped. Gardiner returned to silence.

  Kevin did not appear to have heard. “I just knew there and then that I had a chance to make him suffer for a change.”

  “I’m guessing him smirking didn’t help matters?” Gardiner asked, slightly more cautiously.

  For the first time, Kevin looked up and frowned. “Smirking? What do you mean?”

  “In the video,” Blake said. “You filmed Joe. It looked like he was smiling when he was looking at Lucy.”

  “Oh,” Kevin said, shaking his head. “He wasn’t. I wish he was, it would have made his death much more sweet. But no, he was actually crying. I know what you mean. My auntie does something similar when she cries. We all thought she was laughing the first time she watched Titanic, but then we realised she was in floods of tears.”

  “So, you film these two having hit your sister,” Gardiner asked, his face suggesting he was having difficulty taking it all in. “Then, what? You keep the film all this time?”

  “I didn’t know what to do with it at first,” Kevin replied. “Then, as the weeks and months went by, and you lot didn’t have anything new to tell us, I knew they’d gotten away with it. I could deliver my own justice to them. I made a promise that if they were both still walking free within a year, then that’d be it. I made the plan of this Watcher bloke, and then went about it all a few days ago. Managed to get the key to the room where they kept the tannoy system. I didn’t think it’d still be working, but it worked a treat. Then I did the videos, the phone calls. I was really starting to enjoy myself.”

  “But then you killed Joe and it all changed?” Blake asked.

  Kevin stared at him and shook his head, looking slightly insulted. “I didn’t kill Joe. I dunno who did. But it wasn’t me. I’m not a murderer. I couldn’t. I’ve seen death, first hand and close up. I couldn’t do that to someone.”

  Again, there were a few moments of silence. Blake jumped slightly as he heard Stan move behind them, having completely forgotten he was there. He was standing, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking appalled.

  Blake nodded at Gardiner to cuff Kevin.

  “Come on,” Gardiner said to him. “You can tell us more about how you don’t kill people back at the station.”

  “I don’t,” Kevin said. “I know what you think about what happened with Lucy, but I don’t. Trust me, I wanted to. And if I had done it, I’d tell you now. I’ve got nothing to hide. The Watcher was the best thing that happened to me since Lucy’s death. I got my justice. In the end.”

  They led Kevin out of the room and down the corridor. As they walked, he did not say a word. He had a look of almost tranquil calm about him, as if he had been expecting his arrest. As they made their way back towards the lifts, they passed various members of the staff who were looking as confused as Stan, asking Kevin what was going on. He did not reply to any of them.

  Gardiner tapped Blake on the shoulder and pointed into one
of the private wards. “That’s the cleaner I spoke to. She saw Tilsley entering the lifts. I expect you’ll want to speak to her too? Seeing as you’re in the process of wrapping everything up once again?”

  “Yes, I would,” Blake murmured. “Can you take him to the car and wait for me? I only want to ask her a couple of questions.”

  Gardiner gave a resigned sigh. “Yes, go on then.” He turned to Kevin and walked him on. “Come on, you. I think we’ll take the stairs if you don’t mind.”

  Blake watched Gardiner disappear down the corridor then wandered into the office where a large tanned woman was furiously scrubbing the floor.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  The woman looked up, her long black hair matted to her forehead. “Yes?” she said, a strong Spanish accent evident in her voice.

  “I believe you were interviewed by police the other day?” Blake asked, pulling his ID out of his pocket. “About Joe Tilsley?”

  “Ah, si, si, I was. I am Maria, and you are?”

  “Blake Harte,” Blake replied, smiling. “I just wanted to go over what you were saying when you saw Joe?”

  “Ah, si, he is doctor, yes? I see him, he go towards lift.”

  “That’s right. Two days ago?”

  “Si,” replied Maria. “I am mopping corridor floor, these visitors they come in with their mucky shoes and make my floor dirty, but I see him that morning, he is talking on telephone.”

  Blake nodded, thinking back to what he heard from Kelsey about talking to Joe on her mobile before he was found.

  “I think he was talking to friend,” Maria went on as she put her mop back in her bucket and leant on it. “He say, ‘yes, I come down, I am coming down, I meet you.’

  “That’s right. And how did he seem?” Blake asked her.

  “Seem?” repeated Maria, shaking her head. “I do not know.”

  “How was he?” Blake said patiently. “Was he happy? Was he sad?”

  “Ah, I see, sorry, sorry,” Maria laughed. “My English, I learn.”