Sisters of Mercy

by Andrew Puckett

  Back in the Duty Room, Mary told me that Mr Peters was now on life support for the purposes of transplant and that everything else was running smoothly. I decided not to talk to her about the ‘other matter’ until my temper had improved.

  That night, I couldn’t sleep for thinking about things. The next morning — Saturday — I left Mary in charge and went to the city’s main police station.

  2

  Other than to produce my driving documents once, I’d never been in a police station before — sheltered upbringing, I suppose. It was so unwelcoming.

  Cream and brown paint and grubby tiles on which my shoes clacked.

  A youth in a leather jacket and filthy jeans trendily torn at the knees sat on a chair with one foot balanced on the other leg, absently picking his nose. His eyes registered my arrival, otherwise he made no reaction. There was a counter with a glass hatch and a bell push with a notice: Please ring for attention. I rang.

  After a few moments, a sergeant pulled back the sliding glass.

  ‘Can I help you’ — his eyes took in my uniform — ‘ah, miss?’ He was in his late thirties, plump, with a face that might once have been good-looking, but was now puffy and dissipated, with receding hair.

  I lowered my voice. ‘I’d like to speak to someone, in confidence, about a crime that may be — er — being committed.’

  ‘A crime that may be being committed,’ he repeated patronizingly. ‘And what crime might that be, miss?’

  ‘Murder,’ I snapped. ‘Can I speak to somebody, please?’

  ‘Oh!’ His eyebrows went up. ‘I see. To whom would you like to speak, miss?’ He had a flat Midlands accent.

  ‘I don’t know. Somebody in authority. And in confidence.’

  ‘And you are …?’

  I told him my name.

  ‘If you’d like to take a seat, Miss Farewell’ — he indicated to where trendy knees was sitting — ‘I’ll see if there’s anybody available at the moment. Anybody in authority, that is.’

  There were only three chairs and trendy knees was sitting in the middle one. I walked slowly over to the opposite wall and waited. Glanced at my watch. Shouldn’t leave Mary on her own for too long.

  I looked round. Trendy knees was staring at me, not looking away when our eyes met. I looked above his head, at a picture of a villainous-looking man and next to it, a young woman. I was too far away to read the writing, but I could hazard a guess as to what it said …

  If someone doesn’t come soon, I thought, I shall walk out of here. Glanced at my watch again. Five more minutes, I thought.

  After three, a man in plain clothes looked round the door. ‘Miss Farewell? Would you like to come through?’ He held the door open and led me down a corridor. ‘In here, please.’ It was a tiny room, just two chairs and a formica-topped table with a battered tin ashtray.

  ‘Have a seat.’ He indicated one of the chairs and we sat.

  ‘I’m Detective-Inspector Anslow and I believe you want to talk about a possible murder.’ He, too, had a Midlands accent, but not so pronounced — more pleasant.

  ‘Inspector, I’m in a difficult position. I believe that a crime — murders — may have been committed in the hospital where I work. I went to my senior — my boss — about it. She wasn’t very impressed and told me to do nothing. Told me not to contact the police. But I’m here and I’m asking for an assurance that our conversation is in complete confidence.’

  He regarded me in silence for a moment. He had widely-spaced grey eyes, I noticed, and fair hair over a square, chunky, rather pleasant face.

  ‘That could place us in a difficult position,’ he said at last. ‘If I were to agree with you that a crime — murder — may have been committed, how could I remain silent?’

  I glanced at the ashtray between us again, opened my bag and bought out my cigarettes.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, Inspector. I don’t usually smoke during the day, but that waiting room of yours got to me.’

  He grinned. ‘And its occupant, I daresay.’ He pushed the ashtray towards me. When my cigarette was alight, he said, ‘So what are we going to do, Miss Farewell?’

  ‘If you were to go to my boss,’ I said slowly, ‘and tell her what I’d said, it would do me no good at all.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be the case if you were right, surely?’ he said. Then, before I could answer, ‘The best I can do for you is to give you my word that we won’t speak to your superiors unless it becomes absolutely necessary. Will that do?’

  I looked at his face. Could I trust him?

  ‘I suppose it’ll have to,’ I said. Then, I told him my story. It sounded even less convincing in my ears than it had when I’d told Miss Whittington.

  He listened without interrupting, other than to ask me to slow down once or twice while he took notes. When I’d finished, he looked at me pensively for a few moments, tapping his teeth with the end of his pen.

  ‘Miss Farewell, is there anyone that you suspect might be doing this?’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Someone on your ward perhaps who gives you a bad feeling, the creeps?’

  ‘There’s no one like that.’

  ‘You’ve no ideas at all?’

  ‘None, I’m afraid.’

  ‘OK. D’you have any idea how the killings were carried out? What method was used?’

  ‘No specific ideas, but there are precedents, as I’m sure you already know. There was the doctor last year who killed his patient with an injection of concentrated potassium chloride …’

  ‘But that was a mercy killing, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but still an effective killing. And there was the case of the nurse in Thatchbury who killed four children with insulin, they weren’t mercy killings. Nor the nurse in Germany who killed seventeen patients with the drug Catapresan, nor the nurses in Vienna who murdered forty-nine patients using a variety of drugs and physical means …’

  ‘All right, all right, you’ve made your point.’ He held up his hands in surrender. ‘But wouldn’t it be fairly obvious if a patient died immediately after they’d been given an injection?’

  ‘If it was given intramuscularly, they wouldn’t die immediately after. There would be a delay of two or three hours, maybe more.’

  ‘Hmm. Handy for a killer.’ He thought some more. ‘Wouldn’t these things be detected in a post-mortem?’

  ‘Not unless you specifically looked for them. Even then, not always. And only a minority of patients who die in hospital are given a PM.’

  ‘All right, but surely there’s a limit to the number of people who can just come into a ward and give a patient an injection?’

  ‘You’d be surprised how many, Inspector. There are thirty-five nurses on my ward, and half a dozen doctors. And patients on ITU are given a lot of drugs, often by injection. They are also frequently on a drip — something could be added to that.’

  ‘But presumably you’d have records of all such treatments?’

  ‘Yes, although there are an awful lot of them, and the fatal one probably wouldn’t be recorded.’

  He studied me for a few seconds. ‘Miss Farewell, why don’t you think your superior, the nursing officer, would believe you?’

  I thought for a moment, then said, ‘Because it sounds very improbable, I suppose. So it does, but as I said just now, there are precedents, aren’t there?’

  ‘Ye — es. Would you mind if I photocopied those case reports? And your statistical analysis. To show to my superiors.’

  I hesitated. ‘Very well. But please —’

  ‘Not unless absolutely necessary,’ he said, standing up. I handed him the reports and my analysis.

  When he returned, he handed them back and said, ‘That’s as far as we can go for now. If I need to speak to you again, I’ll ring your home number. Are you usually available in the evenings?’

  ‘As often as not. Inspector, what will happen now?’

  ‘Well, as I said, I’ll have to take it to my su
periors before I do anything else.’

  ‘Then what?’ I persisted.

  ‘I can’t be sure at this stage. In view of your request for confidentiality, it might be better if you didn’t know.’ He grinned to show it was a joke, then told me he’d contact me as soon as he heard something.

  *

  Mary was in the Duty Room when I got back. ‘I thought you were only going to be half an hour,’ she said reproachfully. ‘I know, I’m sorry. Things took longer than I thought. Everything OK?’

  ‘Nurse Armitage has gone off sick, although I suppose that’s no great loss.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And Mr Peters has gone. They found matches for his kidneys in London.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Jo —’ she looked at me curiously — ‘d’you have a problem?’

  ‘Problems, plural. And one of them concerns you, Mary.’

  ‘Oh dear. Is that what the Witless wanted to see you about yesterday?’

  ‘Yes. And it’s Miss Whittington from now on.’

  ‘Oh,’ she began, ‘that bad —’

  ‘James is coming,’ I said. ‘We’ll go into my office.’

  ‘Dammit!’ Mary said, after I’d finished, ‘Nursing officers and matrons have had nicknames since time began, and not always flattering. You know as well as I do, Jo, that we have to have a … robust sense of humour here.’ Her voice was controlled, but there were two angry red circles on her cheeks — she didn’t like being rebuked.

  ‘I know, Mary, and I agree — to an extent. But it was a bit dim of you to tell Nurse Hadley — loudly — not to leave the blood packs lying around because, and I quote: It’ll drive the Witless shitless, when she was ten paces behind you.’

  She smiled sheepishly. ‘No, it wasn’t too bright, was it?’ She sighed. ‘Would it help if I apologized to her — personally?’

  ‘Best if you just looked … chastened for a while.’

  ‘OK. I should be able to manage that. Sorry to have dropped you in it, Jo.’

  ‘Not the best metaphor, in the circumstances,’ I observed, and we both laughed.

  Glad though I was to have that problem out of the way, it didn’t help with the other, major, one. As I wrote up the report on Peters for Miss Whittington, my mind kept jumping about, wondering what the police were going to do.

  Send someone incognito …? An image of the desk sergeant in nurse’s uniform flashed in front of me — I smiled, then pushed it aside.

  Or would they — someone senior to Anslow — decide to approach the hospital manager, despite my request?

  They couldn’t sack me for it, I thought, but it would do my prospects no good at all … and a small, desolate feeling formed in the pit of my stomach and grew. I was ambitious and when I’d been appointed senior sister in ITU at St Chad’s after returning from Birmingham, I’d been really buoyed up, so sure that I was on my way. I couldn’t bear to lose that feeling.

  When the report had been typed, I debated for a moment whether to give it to Miss W personally or put it in the internal post. The latter, I decided. She’d be sure to say some-thing about THE PROBLEM, as I thought of it, and my face might give me away.

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully and a little after five, I drove home to my terrace.

  Although I’d lived there for nearly a year, walking up the path, opening the front door and hearing it close behind me with a solid snick still gave me a sense of pleasure. As a girl, I used to cycle round the city and I’d loved this street of Victorian artisans’ cottages even then, although my parents, who owned a ’fifties semi, raised their hands in horror when I told them so. Still, that sort of attitude has changed now and my little terrace has become almost trendy.

  I put on the kettle, kicked off my shoes and flopped on the sofa to open my letters — I have to leave before the postman comes.

  The sleepless night had caught up with me and I felt almost too tired to get to my feet when the kettle boiled. That made me remember I had a loose arrangement to go out with Mary that evening — she would phone, she’d said earlier in the week. I was fairly sure she wouldn’t now, not after I’d played the heavy with her this morning, and that suited me. Mary’s company could be stimulating, and one or two of the parties we’d been to had been fun, but she could be very wearing. She was a divorcée who liked to ‘play the field’, which included toy boys. One evening when she’d set us up with a couple, I’d told her bluntly that as far as I was concerned, it was infra dig, and she’d called me a snob. She’d got the message though, and we’d remained friends — as I said, she could be great fun. But not tonight, Josephine, I said to myself.

  I made some tea and thought about Inspector Anslow. There was something about him I liked, and I was glad now that I’d been to the police. The more I thought about it, the less worried I felt; it was as though I’d handed the whole problem over to them. Which only goes to show that police officers are every bit as good at giving false comfort as doctors.

  3

  The next morning, I had a lie-in (til nine, anyway) then a leisurely breakfast over the Sunday paper before driving over to my parents’ house for lunch.

  They lived on the other side of Latchvale, in the same ’fifties semi I’d grown up in. They were very conservative, rather like Latchvale itself — an English cathedral city that had somehow found itself in the West Midlands. I was something of an afterthought: Mum was over forty when she had me, which meant she was nearer seventy than sixty now. Dad was even older.

  They didn’t repeat the experience (whether by design or default, I don’t know) which meant that one way and another, I had rather an odd upbringing.

  They sent me to the same small private school that Mum had been to (a survival even then) which believed in educating their ‘gels’ rather than gaining them qualifications. It gained me enough to become a nurse, though.

  ‘Hello, Mum.’

  ‘Hello, dear.’

  We kissed cheeks.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea? Or a glass of sherry, perhaps?’

  Yeeuch!

  ‘I’d rather a coffee, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Very well, dear. Your father’s in the lounge.’

  I went through. He was dozing over the paper. I kissed his papery cheek.

  ‘Hello, Dad.’

  ‘Oh! Hello, Jo. I didn’t hear you come in. How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. You?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Although I loved them both, we had nothing in common and it sometimes seemed to me as though the silences between us were more intimate than the conversations.

  Lunch. Roast beef, potatoes and two veg …

  ‘No more roast potatoes for me, thanks, Mum.’

  ‘I can’t think how you survive on what you eat, Jo.’

  Table talk …

  ‘Have you made any friends yet on your new ward?’ She meant boyfriends.

  ‘I’m a career girl, Mum. Too busy.’

  ‘Such a shame when you stopped seeing Alan …’

  Dr Alan Mitchell, with whom I went out for a year.

  ‘That was ages ago, Mum. While I was still working in Birmingham.’

  ‘Still, it was a shame. Do you ever hear from him now?’

  ‘He got married last month.’

  ‘Oh.’ Pause. ‘Well, I hope she’s a nice girl. I liked Alan.’

  So did I, I thought.

  I loved my parents dearly, but I sometimes wondered by what accident of genetics they bred me.

  *

  I adored the autumn. The mornings were so fresh after the dusty overripeness of late summer, and the streets and half-timbered houses of the old part of the city seemed so clean. They’d been autumn-cleaned. I decided to walk through the park to work on Monday — it was only about a mile to the hospital. The sun highlighted the deep autumn green of the trees, and the pink sandstone of the city spires pricking above them. The air held a faint, earthy tang.

  The first person I met in the main corridor was Mary. �
��Sorry I didn’t phone you on Saturday, but Hugo invited me to a bash at the university.’

  ‘That’s all right. I was shattered anyway. Did you have a good time?’

  ‘Mmm, I did.’ She paused. ‘You’re looking very healthy this morning.’

  ‘I walked in.’

  ‘That explains it. Well, here we are.’ We turned into the lobby of the ward. ‘Another day, another dollar.’

  I followed her through, wondering why she’d used that rather dated expression. There was something rather dated about Mary generally: her name, and the way she’d bestowed a nickname on Miss W — no one called her Witless until Mary came. That got me wondering how old she was — she’d never told me. Late twenties? Early thirties? Older than me, anyway. And today she looked it, although the bone structure of her face could take it. Men found her slightly ravaged beauty attractive. But for how much longer, I wondered.

  Bitch, Josephine …

  Teresa Barlow, who’d been in charge of the graveyard shift, handed over to me and the day began.

  First, check everything for the consultant’s round at nine. The mundane: beds tidy, floors clean, equipment cleared away …

  The detail: patients’ notes, graphs, recordings all in order …

  The technical: monitors functioning properly, life support systems, infusion drips …

  Patients happy …

  Our consultant, Mr Chorley, had a gift for making patients happy. He gave each one a portion of his undivided attention. His manner was so reassuring that even the most sick brightened up. And he didn’t bully his house officers either; at least, not in front of the patients.

  He was a small, slight man who always wore a dark suit and was consistently immaculate in appearance — unusual in a small man. He was balding, wrinkled, and his blue eyes were faded. He could so easily have been a figure of fun, but he wasn’t.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Ashbourne. How are you feeling today?’

  ‘Fine, thank you, Doctor.’

  ‘Fine — all right, or fine — really fine?’

  A smile. ‘Fine — all right.’

  A quick look at the charts. ‘Better than you were feeling yesterday, anyway?’