Merciless: a gripping detective thriller (DI Kate Fletcher Book 2) Read online

  ‘Where do you want this?’ she asked, shaking the case as if it were a naughty child.

  Dennis looked around, suddenly helpless and vague, his age clear in every tic and twitch of his facial muscles. ‘Empty it out and you can put the stuff in the cabinet.’

  It was an instruction rather than a suggestion and Caroline did as she was told more out of habit than any sense of being helpful. She unpacked the items carefully and stacked the clothes into the shallow drawers housed inside the small bedside cupboard. The toiletries she placed in the top drawer where they would be easily accessible.

  ‘Put that down by the chair and I’ll get a nurse to put it away somewhere,’ Dennis said, as she closed the suitcase. ‘I can use it when I get out.’

  His economy with words hadn’t changed much, Caroline noted. Never bother to speak when a gesture or a look would do. Words could give too much away, they could indicate moods and feelings; a shake of the head is always much less easy to read anything into, much less easy to invest with emotions or meaning.

  Emptying the case had given Caroline a focus but once the task was completed she was unsure of her next move. She checked her watch in what she hoped was a surreptitious manner.

  ‘Don’t let me keep you.’ Dennis was fiddling with his newspaper. ‘Thanks for bringing a few bits and bobs. You can get off now if you want.’

  More ambiguity. If you want. He could be dying in front of her, Caroline knew, and he still wouldn’t ask for her assistance. Other members of the family had said it was just his way; that he didn’t like to put people out. In the past, Caroline had often felt like she was the only one who had a clear, unblinkered view; the only one who could see Dennis for what he was – manipulative, calculating and flint-hard. She was the only one who knew the truth.

  ‘If you’re staying you might as well sit down,’ Dennis’s instruction broke into her musings. Caught by surprise, Caroline sat and studied her hands, aware that she must look like a small child who had been told to sit still and not fidget. Feigning nonchalance, she stretched her arms, palms clasped together, fingers linked, and rolled her shoulders.

  ‘Must have been a long drive,’ Dennis commented wryly, as if noting her tiredness.

  ‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘It’s less than an hour. It was fairly quiet on the roads.’

  Silence blanketed them again.

  Caroline was surprised at how little they had to talk about after so long, but so many topics were taboo. ‘So what’s up with you? Bren wasn’t specific. I know it’s cancer.’

  Dennis laughed and Caroline felt she was being mocked; so many years and that was the best she could come up with. Still, he wasn't doing any better.

  ‘It’s my liver. The doctors have said a few positive things but I haven’t got long. They reckon six months at best. I had a bad turn in bed a couple of days ago. I phoned Bren and she rang for an ambulance.’

  Caroline wasn’t surprised at the sequence of events. Dennis never had liked to bother the medical profession if it could be avoided. ‘So how long are they going to keep you in? Do you want me to find a doctor? Ask when you'll be let out?’

  Dennis turned to face her and she felt suddenly impaled on the sharpness of the glance. ‘No, just leave it. They’ll be busy. I'm sure they’ll tell me in good time.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Caroline said. ‘Is there anything I can get you while I’m here?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’ More silence.

  Caroline studied the floor, avoiding taking in details of the ward around her. A telephone rang at the nurses’ station reminding her of the world outside. How easy it must be to accept this as the actual, tangible world; this temperature-regulated, disinfected reality. Better than outside, safer, easier to manage. Routine meals, drugs for the pain, for the worry, drugs for the drugs. Then a comfortable death.

  ‘Did you see Bren?’ Dennis asked.

  ‘No. She just left me a note. I didn't want to bother her,’ Caroline lied. ‘Is she coming to see you?’

  ‘I thought she might.’ His voice was light but his eyes betrayed his disappointment. ‘She's probably busy. I expect she'll come tomorrow. You could have given her a lift.’

  The accusation was clear and Caroline felt instantly on the defensive.

  ‘Didn’t think, sorry. I just packed your case and drove over here. Next time maybe. Look, I’m going to see if I can find anybody who can give me some information. You might not be bothered when you’re getting out but I need to make plans.’

  ‘Plans?’

  ‘Somebody’s got to look after you and I don’t think bloody Bren’s up to the job.’

  Caroline walked away from his muttered protests and headed back to the nurses’ station where a harassed-looking woman in a dark blue uniform was tapping a keyboard. She didn’t look up, engrossed in what she was doing, so Caroline coughed gently, unwilling to seem rude but keen to get the information she needed and get out of the hospital. The woman looked up, dark eyes briefly flaring with irritation from beneath her untidy fringe as she made two final keystrokes and pushed away the keyboard.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said, glaring at Caroline as though she were a minor royal granting an audience to an annoying fan.

  Caroline smiled, trying to diffuse some of the tension that had arisen from nowhere. ‘I’m just after some information about my father. I’d like to know when he’s likely to be discharged.’

  ‘Which one is he?’

  ‘Dennis Lambert. He’s been here since yesterday.’

  The woman’s face suddenly softened, the planes and angles flattening in sympathy. ‘Ah, yes. He’s…’

  ‘He’s got liver cancer. I am aware of his condition.’

  ‘You know it’s serious?’

  Caroline nodded. ‘I know he’s not going to get better. Is there somebody that I can talk to about getting him home?’

  A hacking cough came rasping from one of the rooms, desperate and deep.

  ‘Let’s go somewhere a bit quieter,’ the nurse said, standing up and stepping round the desk. ‘It’ll be easier to talk.’

  Caroline allowed herself to be led into a small room around the corner from the nurses’ station which was obviously used for private consultations. It contained a pair of hard plastic chairs and a curtained hospital bed. Beneath a tiny window, a small table held a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope, both casually arranged and unthreatening. Caroline sat down without being asked and leaned forward as the other woman did the same.

  ‘I’m Maddie Cox. I’m a clinical nurse specialist and I have oversight of your father’s condition. He’s in stage four liver cancer and, as you know, his prognosis isn’t good.’

  Caroline struggled to contain a smile. The woman was clearly hiding behind jargon and didn’t want to brutalise Caroline with plain language.

  ‘He can be made comfortable with pain relief…’

  ‘He’s in pain?’

  ‘He will be. At the moment he can manage it with paracetamol but, as the disease progresses we many need to prescribe morphine.’

  Caroline’s thoughts flitted about her brain like angry wasps, unable to settle on anything clear. Morphine. Pain. She recognised the words but couldn’t quite grasp their meaning.

  ‘He should be mobile for a while yet. He can walk and there’s always the option of a wheelchair, further down the line.’

  Further down the line. What did that mean? Caroline could picture a freight train bearing down on her at ever-increasing speed. ‘How long?’

  ‘Well it’s…’

  ‘How long?’

  Maddie sighed. ‘It’s hard to say but, in my experience, cases like this usually don’t drag on. Six to eight months possibly.’

  Plenty of time. Too much time.

  ‘If you’d like to speak to your father’s consultant I can…’

  Caroline shook her head. ‘No. I’m clear about what’s happening and what needs to be done.’

  The nurse nodded, her mouth a flat line of sy
mpathy and understanding.

  ‘Well, if…’ She stood, obviously expecting Caroline to do the same. Something dropped from her pocket and rolled under her chair. Caroline leaned forward to retrieve it despite Maddie’s protests and saw that it was a blue plastic disc with the number 50 and the letters GA on one side. The other side was blank.

  Caroline passed it back to Maddie without comment, storing away this small nugget of information about the nurse. Knowledge was power, Dennis had taught her that.

  7

  Caroline timed her next visit to the hospital precisely – not enough time to get caught up in Dennis’s misery but just enough to have a chance to talk to the nurse that she had met the previous day; if she were working the same shift. Back at her father’s house, Caroline had spent the evening tapping the screen of her phone, researching her father’s cancer, the stages and possible progress of the disease. It might take longer than she’d anticipated.

  She negotiated the foyer with more confidence this time, the uncertainty of her previous visit banished by her faith in the seeds of her plan. This time she noticed how drab the corridors looked; scuffs and scars marred the flooring, and the walls, although bright, were battered and scraped. She breezed into Aspen ward and walked up to Dennis’s bed, empty-handed this time. He was asleep. Caroline briefly considered giving him a nudge but couldn’t really see much point; at least, this way, it was easier for her to re-establish contact with Maddie Cox.

  The nurses’ station was deserted again, the staff obviously too busy to spend time answering phones or updating records, so Caroline wandered around the ward peering into each ‘room’. Most contained quartets of elderly men who looked like they were hovering somewhere between life and death surrounded by clusters of relatives who mostly looked bored. Faces turned towards her, a sudden rush of anticipation, and then settled back into their set expressions of hopelessness.

  There was no sign of Maddie. One or two nurses gave her a curious stare as they ministered to patients but none wore the dark blue uniform of the clinical nurse specialist. Was she on a different shift? Was it a day off? Frustrated, Caroline paced back to Dennis’s bed and considered her next move. She sat on the hard chair next to his bed and watched the steady rise and fall of his chest as he slept. He looked almost peaceful. Her resentment uncoiled inside her, a taut spring looking for release after years of strain. Finally, decisively, she pressed the call button on the handset which lay next to Dennis’s arm.

  Hurried footsteps approached, barely allowing Caroline time to set a concerned expression on her face and pull her chair closer to the bed.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The nurse who arrived was slightly dishevelled-looking as though the call had dragged her from a few snatched minutes of sleep. Strands of her blonde hair hung loose from her practical bun and the dark smudges beneath her eyes made her look exhausted.

  ‘I think his breathing’s a bit funny,’ Caroline lied, pointing to her father’s still-sleeping form.

  The nurse looked at her sceptically then leaned closer to Dennis. ‘He sounds fine at the moment. He had a bit of a rough night so he’s probably exhausted.’

  ‘Rough night?’ Caroline prompted.

  ‘Unsettled. I think he wants to go home and he got a bit agitated.’ She picked up the chart that hung on the bottom of the bed. ‘It looks like he was given something to help him to sleep, that’s all. He might be a bit groggy when he wakes up.’

  ‘I was just worried. I spoke to Nurse Cox yesterday and she sort of prepared me for the worst. I was hoping to speak to her again. I have a few questions about bringing my father home.’

  The nurse glanced over her shoulder towards the nurses’ station. ‘I think she’s still on shift. If you give me a few minutes I’ll see if she’s available to speak to you.’

  Caroline watched the woman walk away before turning back to her father. Sleeping pills. Another piece of information to store away for future use. Dennis’s breathing was slow and steady and the effect of the heat of the ward and the rhythm of his chest was soporific. Caroline felt her eyes growing heavy as she waited.

  ‘You’re back then?’ Her father’s voice roused her from her stupor and she looked up to see his cold eyes watching her suspiciously. ‘Thought you’d have gone back to Sheffield by now.’

  ‘No. Still here. I told you I’m going to take you home when you’re ready to leave. I had a chat with one of your nurses yesterday so I’ve got a bit more of an idea of what you’ll need.’

  Was that fear in his eyes? She couldn’t be sure. And, if it was, what was he afraid of? Death? Her? ‘What did she say, this nurse?’

  He obviously hadn’t asked. He tried to sit up and Caroline leaned forward to rearrange his pillows so he could get comfortable. There was a scum of whitish saliva in the corners of his mouth and she tried not to look at it as she spoke.

  ‘She said it’ll be a few more days. I’m going to talk to her again about what I’ll need to do for you.’

  This time the fear was more obvious. Visions of bedpans and sponge baths darted across Caroline’s mind, the lingua franca of elderly illness. Hopefully, not this time.

  ‘You were asking for me?’ A voice behind her.

  She turned to see Maddie Cox peering anxiously at her father, probably expecting him to have deteriorated rapidly; her eyes flicked back to Caroline when she was satisfied that her patient’s condition hadn’t changed.

  ‘I was,’ Caroline said. ‘I have a few more questions about my father’s care after he’s discharged. I just thought you’d be the right person to ask after we spoke yesterday.’

  Maddie coloured slightly and Caroline wondered if she was remembering the Gamblers Anonymous chip that Caroline had picked up for her.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, glancing expectantly from Caroline to her father.

  ‘Not here,’ Caroline said with a pointed nod towards Dennis, knowing that he would make no protest, that he’d accept whatever the professionals suggested without question.

  Maddie led the way to another cramped room hidden away behind the nurses’ station. It was obviously a rest room for staff as one wall was lined with cheap foam-seated chairs which looked like they’d been shoved together to make a makeshift bed. The walls were adorned with posters warning about the dangers of MRSA and other illnesses, and the window blind was closed. Opposite the row of chairs was a kitchen counter with a sink, microwave and kettle. A small fridge nestled beneath the sink. All the basics, Caroline thought, with the emphasis on the ‘basic’.

  ‘Have a seat,’ the nurse said. Caroline perched on the one nearest the door, forcing Maddie to sit further inside the room; further away from anybody who might overhear.

  ‘So what do you need to know?’

  ‘To be frank, I didn’t just want to ask about my father. It’s a bit more personal than that.’

  Maddie sat back in her seat, a wary expression of surprise in her eyes.

  ‘Personal?’

  ‘I saw your fifty-day chip from GA when you dropped it the other day. I recognised it immediately.’

  She paused and waited for the implication to sink in.

  ‘Oh, you’re…’

  ‘Yes. I’m an addict. I’ve been attending GA for a few months and one of my worries about staying with Dennis is that I won’t be able to get to meetings should I need to. I thought I could ask you where to go.’

  Maddie scowled, obviously irritated by the intrusion into her personal life. She dug her hands defensively into the pockets of her uniform top.

  ‘You could have looked in the yellow pages. Or online.’

  Caroline hung her head. ‘I could have. But it’s hard enough going to a new group. I thought you might let me tag along, introduce me.’

  Maddie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mix work with my personal life, especially this part of my life. Use Google.’ She stood up.

  Caroline sighed. ‘I’ve overstepped. Sorry. It’s just that I’ve got such a lot goi
ng on and I know what I’m like. I’ll give in eventually. I haven’t had a bet in over a year but the first thing I thought about doing when I left on Tuesday was going to the bookies and then to the pub. You’re right though. It’s my problem. I’ll find somewhere. I apologise in advance if I end up gate-crashing your meeting.’

  Maddie sighed, walked over to the door and closed it quietly. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to help. I’m just not sure it would be right. I’m looking after your dad. I don’t want patients or their families in my personal life. You can understand that.’

  ‘I do. And I feel embarrassed for putting you in this position. Hopefully he’ll be out of here soon and you can forget this happened.’

  Maddie held the door open for her and allowed her back through to the nurses’ station. As soon as she’d turned her back on the nurse, Caroline’s face cracked into a self-satisfied smile. She’d seen the look on Maddie’s face as the nurse had listened to her sob story. This wasn’t the end of the discussion.

  Caroline closed the lid of her laptop. She’d taken Maddie’s advice and searched online for GA meetings in Doncaster. There were two regular ones but neither was near the infirmary. However, two meetings gave her a 50/50 chance and she wasn’t in a hurry; she’d find the right one eventually. She stretched out her arms, easing the tension in her muscles. It was good to be home. She’d decided against spending another night at her father’s house. One had been enough. The memories and the grime had both been off-putting in different ways and she couldn’t bear the thought of being watched by Bren every time she stepped out of the door.

  She looked around the room, taking pleasure in the bright décor and the modern furnishings. She loved this house and the area, and had no regrets about moving back to South Yorkshire despite her initial misgivings. Dore was far enough away from Thorpe for the village to barely cross her mind but close enough for her to get back if she needed to. Now she needed to.