Finding Milly

by Nathan Burrows

  Jimmy was just about to ask Joe how much he owed him for the coffee and sausage roll when he felt his mobile phone buzzing in his pocket. With an apologetic glance at Joe, Jimmy skipped to his feet and made his way towards the beer garden at the back of the pub to take the call. It had to be Milly, and he didn’t want to talk to her in front of Joe, no matter how long they’d known each other.

  He pushed the door to the beer garden open and stepped out into the small concrete yard, pulling his mobile phone from his pocket as he did so. According to the screen, someone was calling from an unknown number.

  ‘Milly?’ Jimmy gasped as he answered the call. It was a woman’s voice that replied, but to his dismay, it wasn’t Milly’s.

  ‘Mr Tucker?’ the voice said. ‘My name’s Angela. I’m calling from the neurology team at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.’

  ‘Oh,’ Jimmy replied, utterly deflated. He sat on the graffiti scarred bench in Big Joe’s excuse for a beer garden. The lump in his throat from earlier was back. ‘Hi.’

  ‘I was wondering if we might organise an appointment for you to come in and speak to us?’ Angela continued in a lilting Irish accent.

  ‘Sure, when do you want me to come in?’

  ‘How about tomorrow?’

  Chapter 7

  Jimmy stared out the window of the bus at the red brick houses rushing past, half distorted by the rain running down the glass. It was a miserable morning, and he was glad that he wasn’t out on the lorry even though he could have stayed in the cab and let the others do the bins. At least his boss had been reasonable about him having another day off for the hospital, but he needed a letter from the doctor at some point.

  More concerning to Jimmy than whether his boss minded if he had another day off for a medical appointment was the fact that Milly still hadn’t come home. He’d got back from work yesterday afternoon fully expecting her to be curled up on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate, watching Desperate Housewives on the television. But there’d been no sign of her, other than the untouched mug of tea still in the bathroom.

  Jimmy had spent the rest of the previous day sorting out his fish tank, which he normally found relaxing. He had such a set routine for doing it that he could do it in his sleep, and once he’d completed the water changes and chemistry tests, he sat in front of the tank to enjoy watching its inhabitants. Milly helped him out here and there, calling out the timings for the various tests that measured things like nitrate, magnesium, and calcium in the water. They all had to be just so, otherwise the fish and corals wouldn’t thrive. He’d not enjoyed it last night, though. Jimmy had been half-way through changing the water, lugging a full barrel of fresh reverse-osmosis water in from the utility room. The barrels weighed twenty-five kilograms when full, and he could normally manage two of them with no problem at all. Last night though, he was hit with a sudden and unexpected pain in the back of his head as he was carrying a single barrel.

  Convinced his aneurysm had burst, Jimmy had dropped the water and limped through to the lounge where he had sat for a good twenty minutes, waiting for the pain and breathlessness to subside. He had considered for a moment whether to call an ambulance, but decided against it as the pain had faded the minute he sat down. Once it had receded completely, Jimmy sat alone as he experienced something he’d not experienced for a long time. Fear.

  The bus ground to a halt outside a youth club on the outskirts of Norwich, and two young lads wearing hoodies got on. One of them gave Jimmy an enquiring look, as if to say Who are you looking at? but he looked away when Jimmy returned the stare with interest. He might have forty years on the youngsters, but he still had an air about him when he wanted to. The two boys shook rainwater from their hoodies and huddled in the back of the bus, sniggering to themselves. Jimmy figured they were probably sniggering about him, but he couldn’t care less.

  When the bus got to the hospital, Jimmy thanked the driver and hurried through the rain into the main entrance of the sprawling complex. When it had been built ten years previously, replacing a tired and wholly unsuitable Victorian hospital in the city centre that was now apartments, it had been a state-of-the-art facility. Now, it just looked like Jimmy felt. Tired.

  He was way too early for his appointment, but made his way to the outpatients department, anyway. The coffee shop by the main entrance was full of people, and Jimmy wasn’t really in the mood to be around them. When he reached the outpatients department, Jimmy checked in with the reception desk and sat down to wait.

  Half-way through reading an article about a forthcoming charity auction in the Royal Hotel, Jimmy heard his name being called. Surprised, he looked at the clock on the wall to see that it was still before his appointment time. He got to his feet and walked across the waiting room to the nurse who’d called his name.

  ‘Hi,’ he said to the young woman. ‘I’m Jimmy Tucker.’ He glanced at her name badge—according to the black lettering, this was Angela and she was a second-year student nurse in the Neurology Department.

  ‘Hello,’ Angela said with a broad smile, introducing herself even though Jimmy was sure she’d seen him glance at her badge. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Tucker. Would you follow me?’

  The student nurse chatted to Jimmy as she led him down the corridor. She had a sing-song Irish accent that he recognised from the phone call the previous day, and told him she was from a place called Ratoath, pronounced Rathaus, in County Meath. No, Jimmy confessed, he’d never been there. He’d never even heard of the place in fact, but he didn’t tell Angela that for fear of offending her. Her hair was bright red and barely tamed, and Jimmy warmed to the young woman as she spoke. She was wearing a simple pair of green scrubs with vertical white stripes, had tiny feet with plimsolls on, and bright pink socks which Jimmy didn’t think would be in line with the hospital’s uniform policy.

  ‘Have you come on your own?’ Angela asked him, and he immediately thought of Milly. The nurse was nothing like his daughter, but he couldn’t help but compare the two women.

  ‘I have, yes.’

  ‘Oh, okay. Do you live on your own?’

  ‘No, I live with my daughter. Milly. She’s…’ he faltered for a few seconds, suddenly unsure what to say. ‘She’s busy at the moment.’

  ‘Ah, okay, so,’ Angela replied. ‘Have yourself a seat, and I’ll go and get the Sister.’

  While he waited, Jimmy looked around the consulting room. It was a lot better appointed than the other ones he’d been in over the last few weeks. The others were more sterile, functional almost. This room had comfortable chairs and a large window that looked out over the rain-sodden fields behind the hospital. As Jimmy watched, he saw a pair of deer making their way along the tree line at the edge of the field as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Which they probably didn’t, Jimmy thought.

  Angela returned with two other nurses in tow. The older and presumably more senior of the two was a woman called Bernie or Bernadette. Jimmy didn’t quite catch her name, and he was too busy trying to work out what she’d said that he missed the third woman’s name and she wasn’t wearing a name badge. He squinted at the first nurse’s badge. She was Bernie.

  ‘So, Mr Tucker,’ Bernie said with a well-practised smile. ‘I’m the senior nurse here in the Neurology Department, and Catherine here is one of the pain control specialists.’ Angela, Bernie, and Catherine. ABC. What are the chances of that happening? Jimmy thought. Three nurses, all here for him, and with the first three letters of the alphabet as their initials. Angela, Bernie, and Catherine. ‘Mr Tucker?’ Bernie asked.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Miles away.’ Bernie’s smile broadened for a split second, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  ‘It must be a lot to take in, what’s happened over the last few weeks.’

  ‘She was born here, you know?’ Jimmy replied. The two older nurses exchanged a brief look. ‘Well, not here. The old hospital in the city that’s now flats. This one wasn’t built then.’

  ‘Would that b
e your daughter, Mr Tucker?’ Angela asked in a quiet voice.

  ‘Milly,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Her name’s Milly.’

  ‘Could we get in touch with her for you, Mr Tucker?’ Jimmy heard Bernie ask. ‘Perhaps she could be here with you?’

  ‘No,’ Jimmy said, looking down at his lap. ‘She’s busy.’

  ‘Okay, well perhaps she could come to your next appointment with you?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The four of them sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds. Jimmy looked at Angela, who replied with a smile. She looked as if she was about to burst out laughing, and Jimmy liked her even more. The other two nurses were deep in thought.

  ‘Mr Tucker,’ a new voice said. It was Catherine. The pain control nurse. If there was a pain control nurse here, Jimmy reasoned, then whatever was going to happen to him would hurt. At least that answered one question that had been rattling round his head since the diagnosis. Yes, it turned out. It would hurt. ‘Mr Tucker, we’ve got a lot to talk about.’ Jimmy shook his head, embarrassed at the tears he could feel behind his eyes.

  ‘But I don’t want to talk about it.’ When Angela reached across and took his hand, the tears broke free. Why was it, Jimmy thought, when he was sitting in a room with three nurses, that the only one who was comforting him was the student?

  An hour later, Jimmy was sitting on another bus. The same number he’d got earlier, but going the other way, and with a different driver. In Jimmy’s pocket was a clutch of leaflets, all given to him to reinforce what the nurses had told him. It hadn’t been a discussion, but a series of lectures from the two older ones on what to expect, what to do. Basically, how to die with minimal fuss and discomfort for everyone, even him.

  ‘You might want to think about making a list,’ he’d been told. ‘You might want to think about the financial arrangements for your loved ones after you’ve gone,’ he’d been told. No, he’d told them. He didn’t have a will, but yes he would organise one. The only thing he knew, and he didn’t tell the nurses this, was where he wanted to be buried. When Hannah had died, he’d bought the plot next to where she was. Jimmy just hadn’t planned on using it so soon.

  According to the senior nurse, there wasn’t a specific set of symptoms that Jimmy could expect. It would depend on what part of his brain the aneurysm was pressing on, and could range from numbness in his fingertips or mild unsteadiness all the way through to black-outs and possibly fits. He certainly shouldn’t be driving a large lorry around Norwich. If his aneurysm did burst, he probably wouldn’t know much about it. Jimmy didn’t know whether to be grateful for that.

  They’d asked him if he had any questions just before his appointment ended. Unless they knew when his aneurysm was going to rip open or where Milly was, the answer to that was a big fat no. Angela had walked with him to the entrance of the hospital after his appointment. They’d walked in silence, a marked contrast to their earlier conversation. An in-depth discussion about your own rapidly approaching death would do that to a conversation, Jimmy figured. As they reached the automatic doors to the hospital, Angela turned to Jimmy.

  ‘So, I’ll see you here next week,’ she said, the smile returning to her face for a few seconds. Then she put her arms around him and hugged him, and Jimmy’s heart broke a bit. The gesture was so natural, not learned in a classroom but straight from the heart. Whatever Angela ended up doing long term, Jimmy thought, she would be a fantastic nurse.

  Inside his house, it was stuffy and way too warm. Jimmy had forgotten to turn off the heating before he’d left for the hospital earlier. He checked the thermometer on the fish tank to make sure it wasn’t too hot, before dragging the heavy barrel of water he’d dropped earlier to the side of the tank. Jimmy hadn’t mentioned to the nurses the headache or breathlessness that lugging the barrel had caused. What was the point?

  Deciding to leave finishing the water change until later, Jimmy made himself a cup of tea and sat in front of the television. He balanced his iPad on his knee as he flicked through the channels to find something to watch before bringing up his favourite marine fish forum on the iPad screen. Jimmy tapped the icon to start a new thread in the Sales and Wants section. With a deep sigh, he typed out a title.

  Breaking down 5’ Marine Tank because of change in personal circumstances.

  Whatever was going to happen to him, Jimmy needed to make sure that his fish went to a good home before it did.

  Chapter 8

  The policeman behind the front desk looked to Jimmy as if he was barely old enough to shave, let alone be a copper. He didn’t even look up as Jimmy walked into the police station, preferring instead to concentrate on the football report he was reading in the newspaper spread on the counter in front of him. One thing the policeman would never be, judging by the size of his midriff, was a professional footballer, so Jimmy let him dream for a few seconds before clearing his throat.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ the policeman eventually said when he tore his attention away from the newspaper. The inflection he put on the word ‘sir’ spoke volumes. Jimmy might have emptied bins for a living, but he wasn’t so stupid as to not realise he was interrupting the policeman’s not particularly busy day.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, officer,’ Jimmy said, glancing at the newspaper where an opinion piece on Norwich City’s slim chances of staying in the Premier League was being discussed by the Eastern Daily News’s versions of football pundits. Jimmy knew this because he’d read the same piece on the bus as he travelled into the city. ‘I’d like to report a missing person, please?’

  ‘Right,’ the policeman said, looking mildly interested. ‘And who is it who’s missing?’

  ‘My daughter.’

  ‘Ah,’ the policeman was suddenly much more attentive. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Twenty-four.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ Any semblance of interest on the policeman’s face disappeared. He cast his eyes back to the newspaper for a second before pushing it to one side and pulling a sheaf of papers from under his desk. ‘Let me take a few details. Name?’

  ‘Jimmy Tucker.’

  ‘No, her name?’ the policeman replied with a bored look. Jimmy looked at him, wondering for a few seconds what would happen if he did what he wanted to do, which was slap the young copper round the side of his smug face. Redden his cheek and give him something to think about, the fat little fuck.

  ‘Milly. Milly Tucker.’

  ‘And how long has Ms Tucker been missing for?’

  ‘Three days.’

  ‘Is she vulnerable?’ the policeman asked, reading from a checklist on his paperwork.

  ‘How'd you mean?’

  ‘Is she disabled? Does she have mental health issues? Drug user, perhaps?’

  Jimmy clenched and unclenched his fists in his pockets. Every once in a while, he met someone who he took an instant dislike to, and the copper in front of him was slotting right into that category.

  ‘No, she’s not vulnerable in that respect.’

  ‘Three days isn’t very long,’ the policeman replied. ‘Not for an adult. Are you sure she’s not just off having some fun somewhere?’

  ‘Pretty sure. She’s my daughter. She would have told me.’

  ‘Kids don’t always do that, especially grown-up ones. They go off all the time, shack up in a hotel somewhere with someone new for a couple of days, and then come home like nothing’s happened.’

  ‘Have you got kids?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you’ve got no idea, then.’

  ‘In my experience,’ the policeman replied. Jimmy looked at him, wondering just how much experience the man actually had.

  ‘Not Milly.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jimmy replied, pulling his hands out of his pockets and placing them on the counter. ‘Not Milly.’

  ‘I’d come back in a few days if I were you. She might come creeping back home, tail between her legs.’ The policeman gave Jimmy a wry smile. ‘If you know what I mean?
’

  ‘Mr James Tucker?’ a man’s voice said. Jimmy looked up from his seat in the interview room as the door opened and a broad-shouldered man in a cheap suit walked in. ‘I take it that’s you?’ Jimmy nodded before returning his attention to his cuffed wrists.

  ‘My name’s Detective Superintendent Griffiths. Malcolm Griffiths,’ the man said. He reached across the table and undid the handcuffs with a small silver key. ‘You free for a chat?’

  ‘I haven’t got much else on just at the moment,’ Jimmy replied, rubbing his chafed wrists. The handcuffs had been far too tight, but Jimmy hadn’t been in a position to discuss that when they were being put on.

  ‘Now what I should be saying to you,’ Malcolm said, ‘starts with the words “you have the right to remain silent” and so on. But I figured there’d be no harm in having a quick chat first. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘So, I’ve reviewed the CCTV footage from the front office, and there was just under sixty seconds between you entering the building and trying to clump PC Donovan around the head.’

  ‘He annoyed me,’ Jimmy said. ‘A lot.’

  ‘How so?’ Malcolm asked, the ghost of a smile around his mouth.

  ‘I was trying to report my daughter missing,’ Jimmy replied, ‘and he was inferring that she was on the shag somewhere and hadn’t bothered to tell me.’

  ‘So you were going to hit him?’

  ‘Slap him.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘I think you know,’ Jimmy replied, appraising the policeman. He looked like an old-fashioned copper, who would recognise the value of a slap as opposed to a punch.

  ‘What’s going on with you, Mr Tucker?’ Malcolm asked. ‘I’ve looked you up. Clean as a whistle, and yet you come in here and try to clout a policeman round the side of the head. Why?’