Twisted Bones (A DI Fenella Sallow Crime Thriller Book 3), page 7
Hawk-eyed, Fenella once again scanned the car park. The chance she'd spot Eve was nil. But she did not believe in chance. Not when it came to her sister.
And she searched for another person.
The man with the devil's-wisp beard.
She'd seen him only once. She was in the lane by the priory in the village of St Bees. He was only five foot in height with a build so slight, she took him for a young girl. But his worn thin face and deep-brown eyes told the world late forties at least. He wore black leather with knee-length boots.
"From Whitehaven Couriers," he had said in a soft voice.
He gave Fenella an envelope. Inside, it contained a single sheet with three words:
I'm sorry.
Eve.
When Fenella looked up, the man with the devil's-wisp beard was gone. And Whitehaven Couriers? No such firm.
She sent the letter to the labs. No touch DNA on the note or envelope. No prints either. The devil's wisp wore gloves. She'd missed that when she first took him in. They tried ink-dating to figure out when the note was penned. Nothing unusual in the ink. Could have been penned in the past decade with ink that was sold everywhere.
Fenella scanned the car park one more time. Slower. No Eve. No devil’s wisp. A deep breath. An exhale. Time to move on with the day. She turned and pushed the door, and it struck her for the first time that hospitals were a place of hope for the living. And a broken promise to the dead.
Chapter seventeen
Fenella entered the cool lobby and hesitated.
People hurried, many with gift-wrapped boxes or bunches of bright bergenias and pale lemon primrose. A small girl in a lime dress skipped with a large clump of daffodils. But this evening Fenella didn't see the colour. Everything seemed to fade to grey. Only hours ago she had been at the Grange Bake Shop Café with Nan and Eduardo. A relaxing Saturday on her day off without a care in the world.
Now her life had changed.
How much more for Rab Nash? Was he even aware of what had happened?
She gazed around. This place was a rabbit warren. You could wander for days. She hurried to the welcome desk. A broad-faced man in the crumpled hospital-issued suit read a newspaper.
"You all right there?" Fenella asked.
He muttered under his breath as he flicked over the page. She tapped the bell on the counter. No response. Tufts of white hair poked from his ears, and his lips moved as he read. Retired, Fenella thought. Doing part-time work to make ends meet.
She leaned forwards and touched his arm. His head jerked up, and a hand went to his ear.
"Sorry, turned off. Saves the battery."
"Aye, good for the environment, very green." Fenella suspected he turned it off to read in peace. Hearing-aid batteries lasted for weeks. "I'm here to visit a patient."
"You'll need to be quick. Visiting time ends at eight." He looked like he wanted to get back to his reading. Gossip column, Fenella noticed. "Who are you visiting?"
"Mr Rab Nash."
He shifted the newspaper to reveal a keyboard, pecked at it with two fingers, and glared at the screen.
"Take the lift to the fifth floor, then follow the signs to Ward K. Might not let you in, though, seeing as it is so close to eight. Bet they are already kicking folks out; you know how militant these nurses are. Best be quick."
He glanced about, then touched his earpiece. Carefully, he covered the keyboard with the newspaper.
Fenella hurried along the tile floor but paused at the wail of a child.
She spun around, taking everything in. The broad-faced man on the reception desk had his head down reading the newspaper. There was a soft whoosh as the entrance door slid open and closed. Another wave of late visitors hurrying through the lobby. That's when she saw the small girl in the lime-green dress carrying a large clump of daffodils. Tears streaked down her cheeks.
Fenella rushed over and said, "Are you lost, luv?"
"I'm not to talk to strangers."
"But I'm a policewoman," Fenella said, showing the girl her warrant card. "I'm here to help, pet."
"Then you can find my mummy. She is lost."
"How do you mean?"
"She was with me, then she vanished."
"Ah, I see, pet." Fenella glanced around searching for an anxious-looking mum. "And who are the flowers for?"
"Grandma. She is sick."
"Tell you what, pet, let's go stand by the reception desk, see if we can't see Mum."
Less than thirty seconds later, the mother showed up with a worried expression and her voice full of relief.
"We've stress enough with my mum sick, and to lose the little one… well, you can imagine."
Fenella watched them disappear along a hallway, then walked to a bank of lifts. Five doors, four not in service. A crowd waited for the single door to open. They carried boxes of chocolates and gift-wrapped flowers. Last-minute visitors. Fenella counted three in uniform, might be more but she could not see the front. She supposed they'd let the workers in first, seeing as they had a job to do.
A bell dinged. The door opened. The crowd surged, nearly trapping the people who wanted to get out. Fenella went with the flow. Another ten-minute wait, and she'd be too late. The door shuddered shut with everyone in.
There'd be more room in a tin of sardines, Fenella thought as she faced the metal doors. The lift screeched and shuddered as though the weight were too much for its cables. Trapped in a lift stuck between floors would just about round off the day. The lift continued to screech and judder.
"Fenella, that you?"
The question came from the back of the lift. There was no way she could turn to eyeball the person. No need, though. She recognised the voice.
Gail Stubbs.
Her friend worked as a nurse. They'd met years back when Fenella was in uniform and walking the beat in Whitehaven. A young boy playing soldiers with his friends superglued a tin helmet to his head. Fenella was the first to arrive as the frantic mum yelled at the boy for doing such a stupid thing. It took ages to calm the mum. Fenella rode with them in the ambulance. At the hospital, Gail Stubbs worked her magic. The boy was fine. His bald patch would soon regrow.
Fenella said, "We still on for Monday evening at your place?" And there was the gift from the Grange Flea Market. She didn't mention that. Not yet. Not in a crowded lift. "Nan and Eduardo will join."
"The more, the merrier," Gail replied. "I've a new recipe I want to try out. It will make enough food for ten. Wonder if Nan can bake a blackberry pie. I'll make the custard?"
Chapter eighteen
The hallway where Fenella got off the lift was pale lime. She walked fast. The clatter of plates from the evening meal rang out from behind a closed door. A faint smell of roast beef with boiled veggies mixed with a clinical tang hung in the air. No windows, only doors and those harsh, white overhead lights.
At the door marked Ward K, she stopped. A dull spasm wrenched in her gut. What was the fate of Rab Nash? What else must she face on this day?
She ran a hand through her grey hair and adjusted her face into a professional smile. She needed to be calm and in control. A quick tilt of the head to relieve the tension in her neck, then she gripped the handle, tugged, exhaled, and stepped through into Ward K.
Chapter nineteen
It was as quiet as a funeral parlour inside the lime-coloured lobby of Ward K. No beeps on medical devices. No flashes of warning lights. Silent and cool and still with the smell of a morgue.
The desk nurse raised her head. Without words, she nodded at Fenella to wait. A few moments later, a whip-thin aide with a worried face hurried her into a white-tiled hall.
"They moved him in here," the aide said and pointed at a closed white door. "The doctor will be along in a short while to give the final instructions. Please be quick. They get upset with us if visitors are here when they do their rounds. Go in."
Fenella opened the door a crack, then pushed it wide. She stood in the doorway and took in the room. A gasp slipped from her lips. This wasn't what she was expecting. Not at all.
No one lay on the hospital bed.
Neat sheets.
Neat pillow.
Rab Nash sat in an armchair cracking peanuts into a bowl and sipping from a large plastic cup that smelled suspiciously like beer.
Fenella stared. She didn't understand. He looked like a zombie when she saw him on the trail. Now he was the picture of health.
"Rab Nash?" she said.
"Hello, gorgeous," he replied.
"I'm Detective Inspector Fenella Sallow. Do you have a minute?"
He stood. That, too, shocked Fenella. There were no tubes attached, and he moved with the ease of a cat.
"Dexter said you'd visit."
"Oh, aye?" No surprise to Fenella. Dexter had his ear close to the ground. When the ground didn't speak, he went with shoe leather. He might be gnarled and grizzly, but he had a big heart for those who worked the job. "Beat me to it, did he?"
"He visited twenty minutes ago with a long face and moist eyes. He thought I was dead! I told him I was sorry to disappoint, but the Grim Reaper tossed me back." Nash gave a gutsy laugh. "Dexter has helped me out a time or two over the years, and I've returned the favour. We go way back. A group of us used to visit Spain in May for a hard session in the bars of Benidorm. We called ourselves the Old Amigos."
Drunken jollies in Spain! This was news to Fenella. She wondered what other secrets Dexter kept close to his chest. She'd have to sharpen her prying skills and find out more about Rab Nash. Dexter's lips would remain sealed, Old Amigos and all of that. Not to worry, she'd find a way. Not that she was nosy. It was management's duty to stay on top of things with their team.
She leaned forwards, dropped her voice, and said, "Tell me what that fuss was with you on the trail."
The door opened. A woman in a long, white coat with an Afro the size of a beehive strode in, sniffed, and said, "Mr Nash, you're not supposed to be drinking." She turned to Fenella. "You bring him booze?"
"Not me, Dr Kendi." Fenella had met Bishara Kendi a handful of times. Gave her one of Nan's blackberry pies. Knew that she had just moved from Kenya and was friends with Gail Stubbs. She also knew who brought the beer, but she'd not say a word against Dexter. "It was here when I came."
The penny of recognition dropped. Dr Kendi smiled. "Fenella! Thought it was you. Tell Nan her pie very delicious." She turned to Nash. "Hypokalaemia is a serious condition. Could kill you. We watch you overnight and tomorrow you go to the chemist, get a good bottle of multivitamin pills."
"Hypo what?" Fenella had to ask.
"Low potassium. Make heart beat fast. Fatigue, weakness, muscle cramps." She stared at Rab Nash. "You have low B vitamins too, Mr Nash. No wonder you pass out. When last did you eat a salad?"
"I'm a detective," Nash replied. "We have to eat on the go."
Dr Kendi said, "Eat a few green shoots with your meal and you'll live to ninety-nine. No eat greens and poof your heart gone and you with it. Next time you not so lucky."
"What about my knees?" Nash asked. "They are as stiff as rusted wheels. What are you going to give me for them?"
Dr Kendi said, "I not knee doctor but they go too if you no eat your greens. Crack go the joints and you in wheelchair till your heart go poof."
She turned and hurried from the room.
"She doesn't mince her words," Nash said.
"Best that way," Fenella replied. She didn’t dance about the bush, either, and got straight to the point. "You found the body on the Bowder Stone; what are the details?"
He told her and finished by saying, "Thought I heard a motorcycle as I climbed down from the Bowder Stone. Then I passed out."
"It was a bus," Fenella said. "The driver called it in when he got to Seatoller."
Nash cracked a peanut. "I suppose the woman waved him down."
"What woman?"
He popped the nut into his mouth and munched. "Short and plump. Long, brown duffel coat with a matching headscarf and Walsh running shoes." He paused to think. "Mrs Jo Pitt, from Old Hen Lane, St Bees."
Fenella frowned. "There was no one of the name of Mrs Jo Pitt on scene when the responding officer arrived. No mention of her waving down the bus either."
Chapter twenty
There was only one thing on the mind of Dawn Ross at 7:00 p.m. that evening.
How to get her boss to take the week off so she could keep Steve Marsh happy and get her hands on his cash.
Her boss, Claire French, forty-eight and single, was a workhorse. Like a nun devoted to the divine, social work was her god. No space for anything else. No family. No friends, not even inside the job. Hers was a life of zealous abidance to the cause where the faithless and lazy were shunned.
"I've a pile of reports to read through," Claire had said in a sour tone when Dawn called to ask about dinner out. But when Dawn described a delicious free meal in a village pub with fine ale thrown in, Claire jumped at the offer. The woman was a foodie but too lazy to cook. She'd never accept gifts from clients. That rule did not seem to extend to her staff.
Now Dawn sat in a booth in the Yew Tree Inn, a quaint, thatched pub in the hamlet of Seatoller. Claire French rested her plump elbows on the other side of the thick oak table, empty plate pushed to one side. A log fire crackled in the far corner. It's flick and flare added a soft glow to the dim oak-beamed room. Add to that the faint smell of smoke mixed with the aroma of hops, roast meats, and savoury pies.
Claire sipped from a pint glass. Langdale ale. "You don't know what you're missing. The roast pork, apple sauce, and Yorkshire pudding are to die for."
"Meat is not my thing," Dawn replied. She did not mention that her grandma ran a butcher’s shop in the days when they slaughtered pigs in the backyard. She still heard the animal screams in her dreams. It was her job to hold the knife.
"Mind you, that veggie shepherd's pie looks good," Claire said, eying Dawn's plate with a greedy stare.
Dawn gave a polite smile. Claire French was a glutton when it came to food and work. Not so with her time off. She hardly took holidays and worked through every weekend. How do you ask your work-mad boss to take a week off?
Claire was still speaking. "Next time I'll order sample plates. That way I'll know what I'm missing."
Four years ago, Dawn stumbled on the plan she hoped to use tonight. A holiday cottage in the village of Bretteville, France. Something had come up and she couldn't make the trip. Her boss jumped at the chance of a free jolly overseas.
If Dawn pulled it off, Claire would be out of the way, Steve Marsh free to work his magic with his Chinese clients, and she'd have a wad of cash to invest in her girls. Yes, next weekend I'll visit Paige Hoyt, give her a pile of money for art supplies. The girl will go far with her paintings. After the babies are born, I'll help her move on and ditch that good-for-nothing boyfriend.
The problem, Dawn realised, was that she had used the exact same plan four times over the past two years. Just how often do you book a holiday in France, cancel, and give it away to your boss?
She was pondering that question when the waiter appeared. He carried a wicker basket lined with greaseproof paper and filled with wafer-thin crisps.
"Rosemary and garlic thin-sliced potatoes fried in avocado oil. Last season's crop straight from our vegetable plot. On the house." He paused, scanned the table. "I'll send someone to clear away the empty plates. Enjoy."
The savoury aroma filled the booth air. The fireplace crackled softly. A murmur of contented voices hummed in the room.
Claire squealed in delight. "Oooh, fresh from the earth!"
Her hand shot out, snatched the basket, shook two thirds onto her plate. She stuffed thin slices into her mouth and chewed with rapid munching movements.
"Mmm, delicious. This is so much fun. You know what we should do?"
Dawn put on her eager face. "Do tell. You have such good ideas."
"Have a karaoke night in this place. A chance for the team to let our hair down. It will help us bond. What do you think?"
Dawn didn’t like to sing. She couldn’t stand karaoke. It brought her out in a cold sweat. When she was a child, Grandma made her sing a song about the human skull as Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals played on the record player.
Grandma had an old colour picture ripped from a library Encyclopaedia Britannica. She'd bring it out, and together they'd name the bones, Grandma in a low-pitched baritone. "The mandible, some call the jawbone." And then in a girlish squeak, "Sphenoid behind the eye socket."
Dawn said, "Karaoke night? What a good idea."
It was then Dawn noticed the young man standing at the side of the booth. He carried a dishcloth over his arm, and his eyes were fixed on her. An orange glow from the fire flickered across his face, and for a moment she thought he looked like the devil.
Why was he looking at her like that? Where had she seen that gaunt, pockmarked face and wary stare?
Paige Hoyt's boyfriend!
They didn’t get on. He was paranoid, petty, mean, and always drugged up to the eyeballs. The two had clashed before. Dawn made it clear she didn’t like him. He was a bad influence on Paige. Not a good dad for the unborn twins. She yelled that much to his face on her first try to scare him from the young girl's life. Told him he was a waste of space, that she'd call the police and tell them about his drugs. He'd almost swung for her. And by the look on his face as he stood by the booth, he might swing for her again.
"Come to clear the table," he said in a deep growl.
Dawn let her hand slip into her pocket and touched the smooth pentagon-shaped stone she always kept with her. She carried it for luck, but she'd fling it at him if he attacked. She held her breath, watched, and waited.
