Dead Man's Daughter

by Roz Watkins

  ‘I wouldn’t want a gay doctor,’ Craig said, with absolutely no sense of irony.

  I sighed. ‘Yeah, those morons.’

  I looked up and saw that Fiona was standing near us. I hadn’t noticed her approaching. Her eyes flitted back and forth between us. Finally, she said, ‘Did you know my brother’s gay?’

  Craig nudged his chair backwards. ‘So?’ His tone was defensive, but I sensed he didn’t actually want to upset Fiona.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘let’s ditch the homophobic comments and move on. I only said the thing about the gay doctor as an example of something self-evidently absurd. I never expected anyone to agree with it.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Craig,’ Fiona said. ‘You should be safe. I don’t think a gay doctor would be interested in a pasty, podgy, straight man.’

  A few moments of stunned silence. Fiona was normally so quiet and professional, so careful not to upset anyone.

  Finally, Jai let out a sharp laugh. ‘Brilliant,’ he said.

  Craig got up, giving my chair a belligerent shove in the process, and stormed out.

  Fiona bit her lower lip. I should have probably said something about her attack on Craig but no words came. I pulled a chair out for her. ‘Have you come to tell us about that Michael Ellis guy I called you about?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sat down and seemed to gather herself together. ‘I have actually. Okay. Right. Abbie Thornton was on a new anti-rejection drug made by quite a small pharmaceutical company. The company was set up by this Michael Ellis and another man. Apparently the drug’s super-effective. But there are some questions over it.’

  ‘What questions?’

  ‘Michael Ellis seems to be keeping a really low profile but I found a blog post about it from October last year, on the Wayback Machine thing that has deleted web pages on it. I printed it off in case it disappears. It doesn’t say a huge amount but Michael Ellis had concerns about one of the drugs – the one Abbie’s on. So many concerns he left the company.’

  ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘You’ll have to read it. It might not be relevant but it’s a bit odd. Shall I find it for you?’

  I nodded and she leant over my desk and tapped a few keys.

  Jai scooted his chair round and we both peered at the screen.

  The blog post had been on an ‘NHS Whistleblower’ website, and the author wasn’t named.

  Concerns have been raised about a new drug that is being used within the NHS.

  IMMUNOXIFAN is an immunosuppressant which has been used with success in transplant patients. Rejection of the transplanted organ by the recipient’s immune system is the main reason why transplants fail, so effective immunosuppressant drugs are a vital part of the transplant process.

  But does this drug have terrible side effects?

  Michael Ellis was one of the founders of Pharmimmune Ltd, the company which makes the drug. He left the company recently, amidst rumours of a dispute with his former colleagues. Ellis had safety concerns about IMMUNOXIFAN, and believed his concerns were not being taken seriously.

  Ellis is not speaking to anyone, claiming he has been threatened by his ex-colleagues. But we have found out that the side-effects concern the behaviour and mental state of the transplant recipient, rather than any strictly physical problem, and they are potentially very severe. For now, we cannot find out any more. But Michael Ellis was so concerned that he left the company he founded and sold all his shares, and that leaves us wanting answers.

  *

  I left the Station late, and drove slowly, knowing I was distracted. The dark had the thick quality it developed in Derbyshire winters – as if even headlights couldn’t penetrate it. And I couldn’t banish the images of Abbie from my mind – her unseeing eyes, her blood-stained hair, her tiny hands gripping the handle of the knife. What was the phrase used in the article? The side effects concerned the behaviour and mental state of the transplant recipient, and were potentially very severe. ‘Potentially’ was a hedging word, like the annoying use of ‘up to’ in adverts. But the article suggested that something pretty worrying was going on. Could a combination of the new immunosuppressant and Sombunol have turned Abbie into a sleep-murderer? I let it all swirl around, but my mind was abruptly sliced by a pang of guilt so strong I nearly swerved off the road. Why was I spending all this time working? Abbie wasn’t family. Abbie didn’t have only a week to live.

  Everyone I knew who’d lost someone regretted not spending enough time with them – tortured themselves over those moments when they’d chosen to watch TV instead of talking, when they’d spoken harshly, not knowing it would be their last exchange. If only I’d been nicer to her. If only I’d taken the time to be with her. It didn’t have to be like that with Gran. We knew how long we’d got.

  I took the road to Eldercliffe and headed for Mum’s house.

  I parked under the street-light on Mum’s privet-hedged road, noticing the curtains twitching opposite. Mum’s neighbour regarded me with deep suspicion due to my lack of interest in marrying her son who, whilst passable to look at, still lived with his mother and had never read a book.

  The man next door was out salting his driveway in the light from the streetlamp, inexplicably wearing hi-viz. He shouted gleefully at me as I climbed from the car and headed up towards the house. ‘We’re in for a cold snap!’

  I nodded weakly and wondered if I should be putting salt down for Mum. She’d been taking Gran out in her wheelchair each day. What if she slipped and fell?

  I let myself in and Mum appeared in the hallway. ‘Oh. I was watching my Downton DVD.’

  ‘Lovely to see you too, Mum.’

  ‘Don’t be touchy. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m glad you came.’ She gestured to the kitchen. ‘Come on, I’ll put the kettle on. Will you have something to eat.’ This was not a question; it was an order.

  ‘No, I’m fine.’

  ‘I’ll pop some soup on the hob.’

  I followed her though and Mum bustled around, fishing home-made soup out of the fridge and cleaning her already- clean work-surfaces. This clearly wasn’t a genetic thing.

  ‘I’ll make the tea,’ I said. ‘You sit down. I don’t need soup. Do you ever sit down? How can there be so much to do in a three-bed semi?’

  ‘If you actually tried cleaning your house, love, you’d be surprised.’ But she sat, and I made tea.

  I put a mug in front of her and plonked myself opposite. I noticed Mum’s skin was rough, as if she needed a light sanding. ‘You look knackered,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you so much, Meg. It’s always a great comfort to be told how awful I look. We’re in for a cold snap, they say.’

  ‘So I gather. Shall I put some grit down for you?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, next door said he’d do it. He takes it from the council grit bin.’

  ‘You’re not allowed to do that, Mum.’

  ‘Well, I know, strictly speaking. But it’s okay if you wear hi-viz.’

  ‘I don’t think . . . ’ But I decided I had more important things to get stressed about. ‘How’s Gran? Still doing a Lazarus act?’

  ‘She’s worried about us getting into trouble. Especially you. With your job.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ A flush of anger rose in me. ‘I feel so helpless. It’s not right that we can’t give her a decent death here.’

  ‘And she seems to have taken a turn for the better.’

  I had a stab of hope that we could postpone it. That I could carry on with the Thornton case. Delay falling out with my best friend. ‘You think we should leave it a bit longer?’

  ‘If we leave it any longer, they won’t let her on the plane.’ Mum’s tone was sharp. ‘You’re thinking about work, aren’t you?’

  ‘Only about how I’ll manage things. I’m definitely taking the time off if she wants to go.’

  ‘And Richard’s okay about it?’ She stood and poured some of the soup into a pan; stuck the gas on high.

  ‘Kind of,’ I said.
/>   ‘You’re not fooling me. He wasn’t even happy about the Yulin dog meat demo, and this is on a different level.’

  I shrugged. ‘Turns out Fiona was there too, not that I knew her then. I’m not the only one with these radical ideas.’

  ‘Thinking it’s wrong to torture dogs and cats? It’s hardly radical.’

  My mind filled with images from the placards on the march. Dogs being skinned alive, thrown into cauldrons of boiling water. A little girl sobbing over her pet who’d been stolen and killed for meat. I’d had to stop looking, just to get through the day, which was of course what we all did on a larger scale, about all kinds of things, all the time. I shook my head to clear it. ‘I think it was the scuffle with the uniforms outside the Chinese Embassy Richard wasn’t so keen on.’

  ‘He’s not going to like this then, is he?’ She turned away from the soup pan, and leant against the cooker, too close to the open flame. ‘There’s no point getting sacked, Meg. We can’t afford to take her if you’re going to lose your job. It’s already costing more money than we have. You know the police will investigate, don’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t exactly told Richard what we’re doing.’

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Meg!’

  ‘Well, we can’t pay someone else to help, can we? They’d get into trouble. And Richard’s not the one who’s going to end up dying in agony if we don’t go, is he?’ I banged my mug down.

  ‘Okay, love, no need to get all melodramatic about it.’

  ‘Hannah’s upset about it though,’ I said.

  ‘About us taking Gran?’

  ‘It’s about assisted dying in general, more than Gran. She says most people want to die because they’re scared of losing dignity or autonomy, not because they’re in terrible pain, and it sends the message that being disabled is worse than being dead.’

  ‘That’s not the case with your gran though. She’s dying. If people knew they could be helped to die when they were ready, they wouldn’t be so terrified of losing autonomy. At the moment, they’re terrified because they know once they get past a certain point, they won’t be able to kill themselves and nobody’s allowed to help them.’

  ‘I suppose so. But we don’t know what it’s like to be Hannah. I don’t want to upset her. She thinks I’m going to end up being the poster-child for assisted dying.’

  ‘I’d be surprised if we got that much attention.’

  I stood and walked to the window. Looked into Mum’s garden. A neighbour’s security light cast a pale glow over the tree branches, which swayed in the breeze. ‘Mum,’ I said. ‘Have you told anyone about us taking Gran?’

  Mum hesitated. ‘I don’t think . . . Oh, well I said something to Sheila next door, of course. Because the house is going to be empty. She’d have worried. Why?’

  ‘She doesn’t know anyone from that Life Line group, does she?’

  Mum flushed. ‘Oh Lord, I forgot. I think she knows the receptionist at the health centre. Vivian, is it?’

  ‘Oh God. She must have told her. They’ve been blogging about us. Slagging us off for taking Gran.’

  ‘Oh dear. But I don’t suppose anyone sane reads their blog, do they?’

  I laughed. ‘That’s a good attitude.’ Sometimes Mum could be very Zen. Why hadn’t I learnt to be the same?

  I made a cup of tea for Gran and took it through to her new quarters. She’d moved to the downstairs front room after an unfortunate incident with a gas leak, in which we’d struggled to get her out of the house. Now we could just fling her out of the window onto the front lawn if it came to it.

  She was propped on pillows watching a soap in which women with permed hair berated one other. She flipped the remote to switch it off. She didn’t look too bad.

  I sat on the side of her bed. ‘How are you doing?’

  Gran took the tea, her hand shaking and spilling it into the saucer. ‘I don’t want you to go killing me off if it’ll get you into trouble, Meg, with your job.’

  ‘Blimey, Gran, can we approach this a bit more euphemistically?’

  ‘Oh, this damn tea. I’ve spilt it on the sheets again. I’m good for nothing now.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Gran. No one minds.’

  She steadied her hand. ‘How’s that job of yours?’

  ‘Okay. They’re making me work with Craig though. You know, the one I told you about?’

  ‘Don’t you let him get the better of you. You’re a clever wee thing. He’ll be no match for you.’

  I glanced up and saw Mum in the doorway. I gave her a helpless I-see-what-you-mean look.

  ‘Yes, a clever wee thing,’ Gran said. ‘You get it from your father.’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ Mum said. ‘I thought you didn’t even like him.’

  ‘Can’t abide the man but there’s no denying he had brains.’

  ‘He’s not dead, Gran,’ I said. ‘Just in Scotland.’

  Gran made a Hmmph noise to express her feelings about Dad. Mum rolled her eyes.

  ‘Mum, the soup,’ I said.

  Mum jumped. ‘Okay.’ She took a step away, then said over her shoulder. ‘I emailed your father again but he didn’t reply. You’d think at a time like this . . . I’m done with him.’

  She headed off back to the kitchen.

  ‘Do you still want to go, Gran?’ I said. ‘Next week? You seem really well today.’

  I looked at her hand lying on the white sheet and felt tears welling up. How could we do this?

  She sighed and all the energy seemed to leave her. ‘I’m fed up of feeling poorly.’ She lifted her hand, with its paper-thin skin, and put it on mine. ‘This is no life. Lying here, staring at the wall and trying not to be sick. Having to be waited on by your mother.’

  ‘You’re not a burden, Gran. You do know that, don’t you? We’d rather have you for longer if we can.’

  ‘I’m done.’ She shuffled down into her pillows. ‘I’m going to meet Carrie. She’ll be there. It’ll be lovely.’

  I smiled at her, and for a moment I pictured a heaven-type place – fluffy clouds and green fields and little birdies. Yeah, right.

  ‘I know it’s a load of nonsense,’ Gran said. ‘Heaven. But I meant what I said. I’m done. And I’m proud of you. Catching criminals. You women now, look at you. Not relying on a man. I always said you shouldn’t rely on a man. It’s alright to have a boyfriend, but don’t let them tie you down.’

  I coughed. ‘Really, Gran? I’m not sure that’s in the official book of authorised grandmotherly advice.’

  Gran had never spoken to me about her husband. I knew he’d been violent – a drunk and a gambler. She hadn’t had an easy life. And now it was ending.

  Her eyes closed, their blue-tinged lids fluttering. I carefully lifted myself from the bed and crept out.

  Mum was stirring the soup, trying to scrape burnt bits off the bottom of the pan. ‘It’s ruined.’

  I swallowed. My words stuck in my throat. ‘Mum, can we actually do this? Is she absolutely sure?’

  Mum looked up. Her face was white and traced with deep lines I didn’t remember seeing before. ‘I’ve thought some more about it since I called you. I know she seems good at the moment, but she goes to bed every night praying this will be the one she doesn’t wake from. Every night. She doesn’t believe in heaven but she’s talking about meeting Carrie. She wants to go.’

  ‘Enough to go all the way to Switzerland?’

  ‘Do you know what the end might be like if we let it take its course?’

  ‘Of course I do. I’ve tortured myself on the internet. They can help with the pain but not necessarily the sickness, and morphine makes her vomit so they won’t even be able to overdose her on that to end it. I know it all. Is there nothing we can do here? Without having to take her away?’

  ‘Do you want to be the one to put the pillow over her head?’

  10.

  The next morning, Craig and I drove to the juvenile secure unit where Abbie Thornton was being held. The threats of snow h
adn’t yet materialised, but instead we were blessed with bone-chilling horizontal rain.

  The unit looked like a low-budget motel in red-brick. It had recently been the subject of historic sexual abuse allegations from the 1980s – glorious, care-free years when children taken into care because they’d been abused by their siblings were housed with children who’d abused their siblings. Now, in contrast, levels of paranoid arse-covering had reached critical levels, and Abbie was apparently causing the staff Defcon 1 levels of stress due to her extreme medical requirements and the potential liability if anything happened to her.

  We showed our ID to several cynical-looking staff members, no doubt ground down by years of pay-freezes, and settled ourselves into a small interview room. It was painted in depression-green, and smelt inexplicably of cat pee. The rain battered a tiny window laced with anti-smash chicken wire. I’d asked Craig to let me handle the questioning. Child suspects were treated as victims, whatever they might have done, and I knew Craig would struggle with that. I hadn’t mentioned what he’d said to Richard, but it was gnawing away at me.

  Rachel’s lawyer and the teenage-looking social worker sat on either side of Abbie like lions at the entrance to a country mansion. Whereas most of us aged with stress, the social worker looked even younger than before, as if the trauma of the case was forcing her to revert to childhood. She caressed a spot on her forehead.

  Craig’s sinusy breathing filled my left ear.

  ‘Abbie,’ I said. ‘We need to know if you’ve remembered anything more from the other night.’

  Abbie wiped her eyes with the flat of her hand. ‘I had a knife.’

  I spoke calmly, but my insides were squirming as if I was about to vomit something slithery onto the floor. ‘When did you have a knife?’

  ‘It wasn’t a dream. I remember now. When I had a shower and Mum dried my hair. It was real. I woke up and I had a knife. Did I kill him? Did I kill Dad?’

  I felt tears well up in my own eyes. Even if she had killed him, it had been in her sleep. She had no memory of it. How could we hold her responsible for that? ‘We don’t know,’ I said. ‘You need to tell us everything you remember.’