How long now? It must be morning although there’s no change to the light in the room. Or, rather, the dark in the room. She doesn’t wear a watch any more. She always has her phone with her. The loss of it feel like an amputated limb. She misses it, that comforting rectangle full of people. Even if she couldn’t reach anyone, she would have a torch, she could play a game, read a book on the Kindle app. But all she has are her thoughts and these are not pleasant companions.
Last night he brought food and water, two biscuits and an apple. He pushed it through a grille in the door so, once again, she didn’t get to see his face.
‘A nice slimming meal,’ he said, before closing the metal flap.
She tried to eat the biscuits slowly and kept the apple until later. She ate every bit, pips and all, but now she is starving, her stomach aching. In a way, she relishes the sensation. At least it proves she is still alive. At one time in the night – if it was night, everything is night here – she wondered if she wasn’t already dead. Opening her eyes didn’t help at all. She ended up pinching her arm until the pain made her believe that she was alive. But now, she wonders again. Is she in the afterlife? If so, she has definitely taken the turning with the goats and the sinners and is in The Bad Place.
Will he come and feed her again? If not, then she will certainly die, hungry and alone. She thinks of that story, The Grey Lady. She starved to death but, before the end, she had been so desperate that she had started to eat her dead parents. Without warning, she is retching. There’s nothing much to throw up but, afterwards, as she is kneeling on the stone floor, she thinks: This is the lowest point in my life.
And then the grille opens.
Judy is expecting Nelson’s call. She’s only surprised that it took him until ten thirty to ring. There’s no change, she tells him. Cathbad has been ‘intubated’, whatever that means. In the words of the ICU nurse, ‘he’s critical but stable’.
‘Stable must be good, surely?’ says Nelson.
‘I don’t know,’ says Judy. ‘I don’t know anything any more.’
She can sense Nelson’s frustration from the other end of the phone. He wants to do something, to drive to the hospital and make Cathbad better. But there’s nothing anyone can do. Judy can’t even go and sit at her partner’s bedside. She thinks of Little Nell, of Beth dying in Little Women. Even these Victorian tearjerkers could not imagine a time when people had to suffer and die alone.
‘He’ll pull through,’ says Nelson. ‘He’s tough.’
‘So everyone keeps saying,’ says Judy.
‘Do you remember when he went into the dream world to rescue me when I was ill?’
‘He said that’s what he did,’ says Judy. As she remembers it, Nelson has always dismissed this story as ‘utter bollocks’.
‘I saw him,’ says Nelson now. ‘I saw him when I was in a coma. And Erik too. I’ve never told Cathbad that. We talked about murmuration.’
The world has gone mad, thinks Judy. Cathbad is dying and the boss has turned into Mystic Meg.
‘Trust to the flow,’ says Nelson. ‘That’s what he told me. He’ll be OK. I’m sure of it.’ Then, with an abrupt change of gear, ‘Zoe Hilton didn’t come home last night. She’s not at work either. I went to the surgery this morning.’
How does he know Zoe didn’t come home last night? thinks Judy.
‘Did they know at the surgery?’ she says. ‘That Zoe was Dawn Stainton?’
‘Yes,’ says Nelson. ‘She was very straight with them apparently. I spoke to Dr Patel.’
‘Rita? I like her. She comes to Cathbad’s yoga classes.’
‘She sent her best to him,’ says Nelson. ‘And to you.’
‘That’s nice of her,’ says Judy. ‘But if Dawn – Zoe – was innocent and they know all about it at the surgery, she’s not really a person of interest, is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Nelson. ‘Turns out that she knew Avril Flowers. She went to the same slimming class. You were right about that.’
Despite everything, Judy feels a faint glow of satisfaction. ‘And you’ve no idea where Zoe is now?’ she says.
‘No. She seems to have disappeared. Joe McMahon too. Although apparently he popped up in Tombland at the weekend.’
‘What was he doing there?’
‘God only knows,’ says Nelson. ‘But you don’t need to worry about any of this. Concentrate on Cathbad and your family. Let me know if there’s any news.’
That’s easy to say, thinks Judy, putting down her phone. She can hear Maddie and the children downstairs. She knows that she should go to them. But instead she opens her file on the Avril Flowers case.
Nelson drives back to the station, feeling disturbed on many levels. He’s worried about Cathbad. Much as he believes in the druid’s powers of survival, it’s no joke being in ICU during a pandemic. He wishes there was something he could do for Judy. Last time she had a crisis, when Michael went missing, the team had rallied round immediately. They had rushed to her side, not that they had received much gratitude for it at the time, and had worked night and day to find the kidnapper. Now Nelson can’t drop in on Judy to give her an awkward hug and promise his support. The team can’t career around the countryside solving crimes. Judy can’t even visit Cathbad in hospital. All they can do is wait and waiting is not something that comes easily to Nelson.
He’s concerned about Zoe too. She might have been found innocent of murder, but he doesn’t want a person with such a chequered past living next door to Ruth and Katie. The two women have become quite friendly too. And is there some sinister explanation for Zoe’s disappearance? At the very least, it seems out of character. Her employers were expecting her to be in work today and she hadn’t left instructions for feeding her cat. At the thought of Ruth and Katie going into the empty house next door, Nelson grinds his teeth again. He wishes that he could keep everyone he loves safe and under his eye but, even in lockdown, this is proving impossible.
And, finally, he’s still worried about Leah. Should he call her at home, just to check that she’s OK? Or would that seem bullying, as if he’s insisting that she come to work even if she’s ill? He wishes Judy was there to do it for him. But it’s Tanya’s day and, whilst his DS has many sterling qualities, empathy is not one of them.
Tanya is still working on the suicide cases. In his office, Nelson googles ‘Zoe Hilton’. There’s not much. She has a Facebook page but it’s mostly pictures of that mutant cat. He tries ‘Dawn Stainton’ and the headlines spring up.
Killer Nurse
Angel of Death
Hospital Failures
Agony of families
He reads that Dawn Stainton, 31, was arrested when three elderly patients in her care were suspected of dying from insulin poisoning. The case came to trial the next year and Dawn was found not guilty, partly, it seems, because this type of poisoning is hard to prove. Chris Stephenson, Nelson’s least favourite pathologist, gave evidence that the deceased showed signs of lower glucose which – counter-intuitively – might point to insulin overdose. But Dawn had no motive and there was no direct evidence of her involvement. She was acquitted. Two years later another nurse, Christine Sands, was found guilty of the murders but this case does not seem to have generated nearly as many headlines. Nelson suspects that this is because Christine was not as photogenic as the young Dawn.
So, on the face of it, Zoe is innocent, a victim of a miscarriage of justice. All the same, Nelson still feels uneasy about her living next door to Ruth and Katie. And he’d very much like her to turn up.
‘Boss?’
Nelson looks up to see Tanya in the doorway, the lower half of her face covered by one of her colourful masks.
‘I may have found something.’
‘Yes?’
Tanya comes closer but not too close. ‘I spoke to Samantha Wilson’s adult children again. Just to see if anything had come to them since their mother’s death. The son, Brady, mentioned that a neighbour had seen a man going into the house a few times. A bearded chap, she said.’
A bearded chap. Nelson recalls the picture on Joe McMahon’s student card, the intense stare, the full black beard.
‘Did you talk to this neighbour?’
‘That’s the frustrating thing. She moved away, Brady says, as soon as lockdown started. She was going to stay with her grown-up son, but Brady doesn’t know where he lives.’
‘See if you can find her.’
‘I will.’
Tanya seems to be expecting something but it’s a few seconds before Nelson realises what it is.
‘Good work,’ he says.
Ruth finds it very hard to concentrate on her tutorials. These are final year students so her main job is to ensure that they finish their dissertations and to reassure them that, one day, they will have a graduation ceremony. She sympathises. It’s hard writing a dissertation at the best of times but, when you can’t get to a library and you’re stuck at home in your childhood bedroom with no support from lecturers or fellow students, the task must seem monumental. Ruth gives all the help she can, whilst glancing at her phone to see if she’s had a text from Judy.
When she’s pressed ‘leave meeting’ for the last time, she thinks about Eileen Gribbon. She didn’t appear for Ruth’s last lecture. Is Eileen still in the empty halls of residence or has she gone back to the home where she doesn’t feel welcome? She texts Fiona, who is Eileen’s personal tutor.
‘I was just about to message,’ texts Fiona. ‘Eileen hasn’t turned up to the last two tutorials. I’m a bit worried.’
Me too, thinks Ruth. She texts David and asks if he’s seen anything of Joe McMahon.
‘No,’ replies David, with what seems like breezy unconcern. ‘I think he’s dropped out.’
‘Contact him,’ Ruth texts back. ‘ASAP.’ She doesn’t add ‘please’. That’ll teach him, she thinks. The truth is that David probably won’t even notice.
Her phone pings. Nelson. Cathbad in ICU. Tubes. Doesn’t sound good. Ruth’s heart sinks. She texts a quick Thinking of you xxx to Judy. What can she do to take her mind off her magical friend reduced to a body on an intensive care bed? Kate is absorbed in her cat saga, watched intently by Flint. Ruth goes to the window. Still no sign of Zoe although Ruth thinks that she hears faint meowing from Derek. Ruth gets out the yellow file marked ‘House’. There are the photographs, the dray, the copy of the title deeds and the printout of the newspaper article.
Big-hearted Foster Mum Dies
Tributes have been paid to Dot Barton, of 2 New Road, Saltmarsh, who died of cancer at the age of 68. As well as being mother to two sons, John and Matthew, and grandmother of three, Dot also fostered more than a hundred children. ‘Our door was always open,’ says Dot’s husband, Alf (70). ‘Dot was so kind,’ says Alma McLaughlin (21), who was fostered as a teenager. ‘She really made a difference to my life.’ Dot’s funeral will be held at St Peter’s Church, Gaywood, on Wednesday 17th June.
Ruth googles Alma McLaughlin and, at almost her first try, finds her on Facebook. She’s the right age, early seventies, based in Cornwall and, by the looks of it, living an active paddle-boarding, scuba-diving existence. Ruth messages Alma and, a few minutes later, gets a reply. That’s one of the only good things about lockdown. People are glued to their computers and have little else to do besides replying to random strangers. Yes, says Alma, she was fostered by Dot for a year in 1964 when she was fifteen. Her home life hadn’t been easy but Dot – and Alf – had made all the difference. She has very happy memories of the cottage.
‘I know this is going to sound strange,’ types Ruth, ‘but does the name Dawn Stainton mean anything to you?’
The answer comes back almost immediately. ‘Yes! She was Dot’s foster child too. But she was only a baby then. About a year old. She was living with Dot until she got a permanent adoption. Sweet little thing.’
‘Do you know anything about Dawn’s birth parents?’ asks Ruth, typing so quickly that she almost misses out the apostrophe. She doesn’t though; some things are still sacred.
‘I think I overheard once that her mother was young and unmarried. The usual thing. You didn’t keep your baby if you were an unmarried mother in the sixties. Makes you feel sad, doesn’t it?’
It certainly does, thinks Ruth.