The Siege of Reginald Hill

by Corinna Turner

  Nature mollified, I raced back towards Kyle’s room, coming face to face with U in the stairwell.

  Only his quick reactions averted a collision. “Margo! Excellent. I can give you this and get back to the lab.”

  My heart lurched in fearful hope. “Have they…?”

  U’s face fell. “No, Margo, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise your hopes. Progress is…dreadfully slow. The lead doctor says that on current evidence, Mr Hill may well have been telling the truth, but that they’re certainly not going to stop trying. I just…I feel more useful there, you know?”

  I needed to be by Kyle’s side and Unicorn needed to be overseeing the hunt for the cure that probably didn’t exist. I understood that well enough. “That’s alright, U. I’m grateful you’re working so hard.”

  U shrugged this away and handed me a packet. “Mr Hill’s medicine. If you wouldn’t mind giving it to him. He’ll need to give instructions to the doctors for what to do with it.”

  I drew a plastic vial out of the little packet, feeling more rolling inside. At my shoulder, Georg, now back on duty, tensed.

  “Relax, Friedrich,” said U. “We ran it through a basic security screening and it’s not toxic, flammable, explosive, or obviously dangerous in any way. Seems to be what it’s supposed to be: medicine. All the same, if Hill shows any sign of chucking it at Margo or trying any funny business, plug him. Just the once, mind.”

  Georg relaxed again. “Yes, sir.”

  U hurried off before I could think of a reason for him to give it to Hill himself, so reluctantly I resumed my canter down the hospital corridors.

  Well, Margo, you promised you’d ‘do your best’, so you’re going to have to somehow get used to interacting with the old buzzard, aren’t you?

  Suffice to say, this sage advice did nothing to make it any easier walking up to Hill’s bed.

  “Mr Hill? Your medicine arrived.” I held out the package and he took it quickly, his eyes flying to the clock.

  “Less than two and a half hours, not bad going, Senor Doctor.”

  His self-satisfied tone did nothing to soothe my temper, but I held back any comment and simply moved to return to Kyle’s bedside.

  “Wait.” Hill’s sharp voice paused me.

  I turned back to him, even more irritated at his bossy manner, but somehow kept my voice level and polite. “What is it, Mr Hill?”

  He took a vial from the packet, turning it meditatively in his hands.

  “Mr Hill?” I wanted to get back to Kyle, blast him!

  As though reading my mind, Hill glanced across at Kyle’s unconscious form, cocking an ear as though listening to his wheezing breathing, clearly audible even from across the room. The heart monitor made a mournful—but reassuring—counterpoint to the heart-wrenching sound. Hill had got the nurses to mute his, claiming it gave him a headache.

  A tiny beep from the morphine machine—warning that the far too slowly emptying bag would need changing before long—seemed to draw Hill out of his abstraction. Decisively, he slid the vial back into the packet—and held it out. “The medicine’s not for me. It’s for him.” He nodded towards Kyle.

  My mind gummed up and shuddered to a standstill as it attempted to understand what Hill had just said. “Wh…wh… Do you mean it…?”

  “Yes, it is the antidote,” said Hill, as slowly and clearly as if speaking to a toddler.

  I snatched the packet back, desperate hope now bursting insuppressibly in my heart, though I hardly dared believe… “But…you said there wasn’t one.”

  Hill rolled his eyes mockingly. “Now, little girl, I hate to break it to you, but there is such a thing as lying. But then, you’re quite good at that already, aren’t you—Little Miss Forgiveness?”

  I peered into the packet, at those vials, my mind reeling, hope and joy and fear struggling in my chest. The antidote? Really? “How do we administer it?”

  “One vial in his IV drip every two hours. Three is the normal dosage, but at his advanced stage, I’d give him four. The fifth vial is for your security guys to have fun with.”

  My eyes went back to Kyle. Barely alive…

  Hill clearly saw the doubt on my face. “It’s actually an exceptionally good antidote, if I say it myself—I commissioned the drug, after all—and it will work at any time up until the cascade starts. However, it will not work afterwards, so if you do want to save him, I don’t think you’ve got a moment to waste.”

  If I did want to save him! Ugh, that man! But he was right! Why was I standing around wasting time?

  I grabbed Hill’s call button and pressed it—wait, would people respond quickly to his?—I raced over to Kyle’s bed and held his button down.

  A dozen nurses spilled into the room like ants from a kicked anthill, followed by Doctor Fathiya, closely followed by U, pinged by Georg, no doubt. The medical staff converged on Kyle and almost immediately began to assure me that his condition hadn’t greatly deteriorated.

  But U’s eyes locked onto the packet I clutched to my chest. “Margo?”

  “This is the antidote…Mr Hill says.”

  “The antidote! To think I tested it and…” Beet red, U didn’t stop to dwell on his embarrassment. “Do you believe him?”

  Did I believe Hill? Why would Hill give Kyle the antidote? Give up the organs he needed so much? Yet…if it was a cruel trick, it was an exceptionally expensive one. Six hundred thousand eurons, just to turn the knife in my back one more time? Surely, once Hill had his new organs he would hope to escape and make use of that off-shore money? But if it was the antidote, he’d never get the organs… It just didn’t make sense.

  I glanced at Hill, but he watched, his expression detached, with only the barest hint of amusement for our suspicion. We’d no time to plumb the murky depths of Hill’s twisted psyche and figure out why. And what did we have to lose? “I think we might as well try it. I mean, even Mr Hill would have trouble coming up with something more unpleasant for Kyle, right? And if it does nothing, it does nothing.”

  Or could the drug actually cause Kyle even worse pain? Hard to imagine, considering what he suffered already. But if it did…if it did, well, we could fix it by raising his morphine, right?

  “Let’s do it,” I said. “Come on! Mr Hill said it only works before the cascade.” I held a vial out to Doctor Fathiya. “One of these in his drip, every two hours, up to a total of four. One is for analysis.” I handed a second vial to U.

  “Only works before the cascade begins?” echoed Doctor Fathiya, her free hand moving towards her watch, then dropping to the rosary hanging from her belt.

  I nodded.

  “There’s no time for analysis, then. The cascade could start at any moment.”

  I glanced at U.

  He frowned—allowing Kyle to receive an unknown drug went against his professional instincts—but he nodded firmly. Intellect over instinct.

  “Do it,” I said.

  Doctor Fathiya moved briskly to Kyle’s drip and in moments the pale blue liquid from the vial was diffusing into the bag. And was gone.

  Now we could only wait.

  And pray.

  “Mr Hill? Your dinner.”

  I opened my eyes as a soft voice spoke on the other side of the room. I must’ve dozed off beside Kyle’s bed. My rosary had fallen to the ground…

  Wait…dinnertime! My gaze flew to Kyle…

  I couldn’t hear his strained breathing—panic gripped me—then the gentle beep of his heart monitor reached my ears. He lived. Dinnertime and he still lived! And…I leaned closer, listening. Yes, a breathy wheeze still rattled his breathing, but far less pronounced than earlier. Could he…could he actually be improving?

  Still being alive was hard proof of that, surely?

  But would he really recover? My heart thudded even more painfully as my hope grew more and more swollen and raw.

  Live, Kyle. Come on, live… Please, Lord?

  “Doctor Fathiya reviewed your meal records at lunch time,” th
e nurse was saying to Hill, “and wasn’t at all happy with the amount you’re eating. So she asked the chef to make something a bit more European for you. This is called, ah, Sheep’s Pie, I think.”

  I caught Hill’s eye roll at this mangling of the dish’s title, and he greeted its arrival in front of him with his usual lack of enthusiasm. What a picky eater and no mistake. Okay, so the chances of it tasting exactly like Shepherd’s Pie were probably slim, but the hospital had made a real effort. In fact, it sounded like this had got underway even before Hill had—apparently—shown mercy to Kyle.

  Well, I’d learned better than to expect gratitude from Reginald Hill.

  Except… If it was the antidote… Okay, so he hadn’t said thank you, but you couldn’t get a bigger thank you than that, right?

  But why? When Kyle living would cost him far, far more than a mere six hundred thousand eurons?

  Maybe…maybe he thought we’d be grateful enough to let him go. Somewhere outside of the EuroBloc. Then he could go off and use another out-of-bloc bank account to buy himself his new organs. Surely Hill had our measure better than that—he remained far too grave a threat to the safety of innocents to be released—yet…that must be it. He thought this way he could win his freedom and get his transplants. But in that case…why hadn’t he bargained for it?

  Hill’s head turned slightly in my direction as he scrutinised his meal, and I looked away quickly before our gazes could cross. I wasn’t thanking him until certain Kyle would really live, and I’d no idea what to say to him until then.

  “Margo…” U appeared in the doorway.

  I shot to my feet. “What’s the result?”

  “Oh, they haven’t finished the analysis yet. Certainly, no sign yet of it being harmful. Results so far are very promising, in fact. But it’s not that. We’ve got your parents on the line.”

  “Oh, good grief!” The timing! Okay, so I didn’t now have to tell them Kyle was definitely dying—or dead—but what if I held out hope he would be okay and then… Ugh, bad timing, without question. “Okay, I’m coming.”

  I paused to kiss Kyle’s cheek and whisper a rather fierce “Live, Kyle!” in his ear. I’d be as quick as I could and get back to him, but I didn’t fancy carrying on this emotional conversation with Hill listening in.

  KYLE

  Birds sang in the dawn quiet. I lay still, enjoying the sound. God’s little feathered friends had such beautiful voices. Actually, some of those splitting the dawn with their calls were rather big feathered friends. I knew that, though I couldn’t actually see them.

  That ghastly, searing pain in my chest had eased so much. Bliss…

  Wait a sec. No, not good. Someone must’ve raised the morphine.

  I opened my eyes and checked the readout. Huh. Odd. The level was correct. I lifted my half-hands slightly, one at a time, checking my wrists in case they’d connected a second morphine line—nothing.

  Hang on a minute… How was I able to even slightly raise my hands?

  Looking a little further afield, I saw Margo dozing in a chair beside the bed. Uncle Reginald lay in his bed opposite, asleep. Why wasn’t I choking to death on my own blood? Why was I so…well, pain-free wasn’t quite accurate, though compared to what it had been, it almost felt like it. And I felt so much stronger. I’d actually managed to move my hands.

  Lord, am I…getting better? Did they find an antidote in time?

  The inescapable conclusion had the same effect on my heart that cutting the cables has on an elevator. It plummeted down my skinned legs into my big-toeless foot, landing with a dull, wind-ing thud.

  I would live?

  My horrified mind reviewed the ‘terms’—if one could call it that—of my greatest and most painful offering on Uncle Reginald’s behalf.

  Lord, does this mean I could live to be a hundred and twenty and never feel you ever again?

  Probably. It hadn’t crossed my mind when I gave my yes that I might live. Would I still have given it, if I’d known?

  Uncle Reginald’s sleeping form drew my eyes again. Yes. I hoped. But it would’ve been even harder.

  “Kyle!” Margo’s delighted cry cut off my anguished thoughts. “Kyle, you’re awake! How do you feel?”

  “Astonishingly well.” Her arms went around me, gently. I managed to turn my hands upwards and clasp her slightly in return.

  “Whatever’s been happening while I was asleep?” I asked, as she sat down again. I could talk almost normally.

  “Hill gave you the antidote.”

  I stared at her, gobsmacked. “Mr Hill gave it to me?”

  “Yes. He got it from Europe from some doctor he knows. On a fast jet. He had to pay the fellow six hundred thousand eurons.”

  A jet? Six hundred thousand… That would have built an orphanage and funded it for about ten years. “But…”

  Margo spread her arms, looking frustrated. “No one can figure out why, Kyle. It makes no sense, but he did it.”

  “Did anyone try asking him?”

  Margo’s cheeks grew red. “Well, I haven’t really spoken to him. I was…you know, waiting to see how you were. It’s been night-time, anyway.”

  “Oh. Yes.” It’d been…what, mid-afternoon…the last I remembered. I’d been out of it for a long time. Despite that, sleep dragged at my eyelids again already.

  By the time Doctor Fathiya had examined me, a nap more than beckoned. I shot another look across at Uncle Reginald, but he still slept—or pretended to. Waking him to thank him—and interrogate him!—would be a poor show of gratitude.

  MARGO

  My heart felt like it had grown lips and a voice box, so it could sing away lustily in my chest. They’d completed analysis of the antidote: one hundred percent beneficial and harmless. It completely undid the effects of Mr Hill’s nasty ‘Insurance Policy’.

  Doctor Fathiya’s assessment of Kyle confirmed it. Significantly improved already, Kyle should make a full recovery. Well, from the lung poison. It wouldn’t grow his missing parts back.

  I could still scarcely dare to believe it. Since Kyle had gone to sleep again, I hurried to the chapel to catch the early Mass and prayed for a while afterwards, trying to somehow express the profound thanksgiving in my heart. Then I went to the hospital canteen for a quick bite of breakfast before hastening back to my brother.

  I needn’t have worried, he still slept.

  Hill sat up in bed, though, eyes open. Blast.

  I couldn’t put it off any longer, could I?

  With a quick prayer to Angel Margaret and the Holy Spirit, I approached his bed. “Mr Hill?”

  “Ah, good. I need your wristCell again.”

  “You do, do you?” What a bossy-boots.

  “Your brother’s medicine is not yet paid for, little girl. Would you like Senor Doctor, so angry and disappointed—and very out of pocket—to send some rather less health-inducing packets? Not that I care, so I’ll keep the money if you prefer anthrax to honesty.”

  Of course, Hill hadn’t actually made the payment yet, and clearly he wanted to honour his bargain, though he pretended indifference. An obscene amount of blood money being transferred from one evil specimen of humanity to another… I scarcely liked to be involved, even so slightly. Still, we hadn’t gainsaid Hill when he promised payment… and Lord knows what the doctor did have access to, if he felt inclined to act as Hill predicted.

  I called U and relayed Hill’s request. U’s hesitation suggested that he shared my distaste for the transaction, but he agreed to the loan of the communication device and no doubt monitored the text messages Hill quickly typed out and sent.

  Hill handed back my wristCell—without thanks—and I returned it to my wrist, then took a deep breath. “Actually, I’d like to thank you—”

  Hill’s mouth twisted in a malevolent sneer and he cut me off at once. “You do not owe me any thanks, Margaret Verrall, nor do I wish to hear any. I did not do this for you. I would never do this for you. The fact that this brought any benefit to yo
u is in my eyes no more than an irritating—but unavoidable—side-effect of my desired outcome.”

  His desired outcome…Kyle not dying? He poisoned Kyle in the first place.

  “If my thanks are going to cause you such discomfort, then since, like it or not, I am grateful to you, I will withhold them. But I have to ask, Mr Hill, in the circumstances, all things being as they are…why did you do it?”

  His eyes ran over me, balefully. “I don’t like you, Margaret Verrall. If I believed in the devil, then as far as I’m concerned you’d be the devil’s daughter, hell-cat that you are. But your brother…he’s a nice young man. Totally insane, of course. But a nice young man, all the same.”

  A hint of a frown crossed Hill’s brow. “But then, I place no value on nice, so that’s not why. No, in the end, I suppose it just seemed…such a waste.”

  “A waste? Although you got two new organs out of it and would’ve made me cry, to boot?”

  A supremely nasty smile curved Hill’s lips. “But I’ve made you cry before, Margaret. Nothing new there. Is there?”

  His expression drew my mind straight back to blood-splashed paving slabs…Lucas; to Bane lying there, blind and in agony; to Father Mark, ready to die rather than commit the evil Hill had tried to make him do; to Dominique, to Snakey, to Hyena, to myself, lying on that gurney…

  No, not the slightest point denying what Hill said. He’d made me cry, all right. Many, many times.

  “And what about the organs?”

  “If I really needed your brother’s organs so badly as that, do you truly think he’d still be breathing? I’d have had them out of him at once, the moment we kidnapped him. No, this was never anything but a self-indulgent little game of mine.”

  So Kyle’s organs would only ever have been a…a what? A perk? A little bonus? This really had been all about revenge and his need for a transplant was nowhere near so urgent as he’d led Kyle to believe. Had he told Kyle otherwise just to…to try to make him feel bad?

  “You are a very twisted man, Mr Hill,” I said. “But thank you for sparing him, anyway.”