Bleed Like Me (21 page)

Oh, Ade, so steady, so thoughtful.
She felt a trickle of relief in every pore. Mixed with guilt. There were times when she wanted to throttle Ade, when he was being boring, when his glumness was sucking oxygen from the air, but any crisis and he was there, completely dependable.

After finding a space in the car park and getting a ticket, she made her way to the accident and emergency department. It was a familiar place. The job brought them here at times, wanting to talk to victims who’d been attacked or suspects or witnesses. Not as much as in the days when Janet had patrolled in uniform and her night and weekend shifts were awash with drunken fights. She looked about and saw Ade just down the corridor at the drinks machine.

‘Still no news,’ he said. He pointed to the machine and Janet nodded.

‘Water. Where was she? Did you see her? Was she conscious?’

‘She was in the kitchen. I don’t think she was conscious: her eyes were closed and she didn’t answer any questions.’

But no blood. He hadn’t mentioned blood. That was a good thing, surely?

They found seats.

‘She’d not fallen downstairs, then,’ Janet said. She drank some water, trying to quench the raging thirst she had. ‘Did they give her oxygen, anything like that?’

‘Not at the house,’ he said. ‘They got her into the ambulance pretty sharpish.’

Janet felt tears sting the backs of her eyes. ‘Oh, Ade.’

He put his arm round her, gave her a hug.

‘Do you want to go?’ she said.

‘No, I’ll wait with you.’

‘The girls?’ she asked.

‘I texted and explained, told them to sort out something from the freezer if we’re not back.’

Janet shivered. Watched a new group arrive, a teenage boy being helped to walk by two mates, one trainer off, his foot a mess. Janet looked away. There was a young woman in a sari on her own, head bowed, every so often dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. Janet wondered if she was hurt or if she was waiting for someone: son, daughter, parent. Janet thought of Margaret Milne, could barely imagine the desolate landscape she was inhabiting. Her son and daughter, her granddaughter, all dead.

‘Mr Scott?’ A nurse stood there.

‘Yes.’ Ade cleared his throat.

‘You are next of kin?’

‘Janet is – my wife. She’s Dorothy’s daughter,’ he said.

The nurse nodded. ‘We’ve done some initial assessment and it looks like a burst appendix.’

Janet gulped. That could kill you.

‘We’re prepping her for theatre now but we need you to sign some consent forms.’

‘Yes,’ Janet said, ‘of course. How is she?’

‘She’s very poorly, but we’ll know more in theatre.’

Janet couldn’t speak, just nodded her head.

‘If I could go through her medical history with you, allergies, that sort of thing.’ The nurse sat down and Janet answered all the questions she could, the practical task almost a distraction from the fear gnawing inside her.

She elected to wait even though the nurse could not tell how long the operation would take, but she insisted on sending Ade home. ‘There’s no point in us both being here, and it’d be good to have someone with the girls. They’ll be upset.’

‘Ring me as soon as you hear anything,’ he said.

She nodded, close to tears.

‘Hey.’ He bent over and hugged her.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Don’t be daft.’ He kissed her gently on the forehead.

She’d been mercifully unaware of anything when she’d been in here herself back in April. Lost two weeks of her life as her body concentrated on fighting the massive physical trauma of having her abdomen sliced open. Hopefully her mother’s suffering had stopped when she lost consciousness. Worries prowled around Janet’s mind: what if the operation failed? If her mum didn’t wake up? If there were complications?

Time crept by. She was hungry but didn’t want to eat; just the thought of food brought a wash of saliva into her mouth that nauseated her. She had nothing to do, nothing to read. There was a shop somewhere where she could have bought a
paper or a magazine, but she didn’t want to leave the waiting area in case she was missing when news finally came.

She was daydreaming, memories of a holiday with her mum and dad when the girls were small. An apartment in the south of France. There had been some little niggles between the adults, not used to different routines, but most of the time the four of them got on well enough and her mum had come into her own, speaking fluent French at the market and in the restaurants. English was her subject at school but she had kept up her French and went to conversation classes before the trip.

‘Janet.’ Gill sat down.

‘What are you doing here?’ Janet said.

Gill gave her a look: daft question. ‘How is she?’

‘In theatre,’ Janet said, ‘burst appendix.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘You shouldn’t be here – with everything . . .’

‘I can spare ten minutes for a mate,’ Gill said.

Janet tried to smile. ‘Thanks.’

‘So what happened?’

Janet told her the story, from getting the phone call to the diagnosis that the doctors had made. ‘She said yesterday she was feeling off.’ She shook her head.

‘You weren’t to know,’ Gill said. ‘She obviously didn’t.’

‘If she’d just got it checked out.’ Janet thought of her own health, how she had been ignoring whatever her body was trying to tell her. That was one promise she could make. Or a bargain. She
would
carve out the time to see the GP and get it sorted out. If it was adhesions then the sooner they were treated the better.

‘And work?’ Janet asked.

‘You’ve not heard?’ Gill’s eyes danced.

‘Nothing,’ Janet said.

‘We’ve got him,’ Gill said quietly, clearly not wanting anyone to overhear. Before Janet could ask about the kids, Gill said, ‘Just him. Drove his car head-on bang into a wall when he was cornered, but we got him.’

‘Is he saying anything?’

‘Still waiting for him to be declared fit to interview. It’ll be morning at least.’

Another night
. ‘But the kids . . .’

‘We’re still searching.’

‘Needle, haystack,’ said Janet, suddenly angry at the impossible odds.

Gill stiffened then and Janet followed her gaze and saw Rachel at the end of the room. Rachel looking uncomfortable.

‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Gill got up. ‘Let me know, yeah?’

‘I will. Thanks.’

Gill walked out past Rachel without any communication.

Rachel came and took Gill’s seat. Janet saw her face and her hands, cuts and blisters and angry marks. ‘What on earth happened to you?’

‘How’s your mum?’ Rachel said, ignoring the question.

Janet told her. ‘So what’s going on?’ she said. ‘The state of you, and you and Gill?’

‘She’s got her knickers in a twist,’ Rachel said dismissively. ‘You don’t need to worry about it.’

‘You say that and of course I’m going to worry about it. Is it serious?’

‘You’ve got enough on your plate.’

‘It
is
serious! What have you done, Rachel?’

Rachel opened her mouth as if she was about to protest and then shut it again, did some facial contortions. ‘Reckless endangerment. She says I was reckless.’

‘Gill?’ Janet checked.

‘Yeah, the Queen of Sheba – and the local officers,’ she said,
sounding mutinous. ‘I wanted to catch the bastard. So I went for it. Then he piles into a brick wall. I’m supposed to let him lie there and go up in a fireball? Yeah, right!’

‘The car was on fire?’ Janet said. She could just imagine it.

‘Not then, after.’ Rachel shrugged. ‘So I got him out and then some of the lads came and pulled us back away from the car. And
then
,’ she stressed the word, ‘the car blew up.’

Janet didn’t know what to say.

‘So I’m getting earache off Her Majesty but what everyone’s forgetting is that if I hadn’t got the bastard out he’d be toast and we’d have no chance at all of finding out what he’s done with the kids. I saved his life.’

‘And put everyone else at risk,’ Janet said.

‘Now you sound like her,’ Rachel grumbled.

Janet began to laugh. In spite of herself, in spite of everything that was going on. Laughing with a feeling of hysteria bubbling in her chest. Laughing with tears leaking out of the sides of her eyes.

‘What?’ said Rachel. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘You,’ Janet said, gasping, ‘you, you stupid fruitloop. You could have been killed.’ Thinking, then what would I have done? What would I do without you?

Close to ten o’clock, the doctor came to find her. Her throat closed as she tried to guess what was coming, to judge from his posture and body language whether it was good news or bad.

‘The operation’s been a success,’ he said. ‘We’ll want to monitor her for a couple of days, make sure everything is as it should be.’

‘She’ll recover okay?’

‘All being well,’ he said. ‘Good job she got here when she did.’

Janet nodded. ‘Can I see her?’

‘Just for a minute. She’s in post-op – very groggy.’

Her mother looked both familiar and strange. Hair hidden under a protective cap, face slack, the wrinkles around her eyes and under her chin etched deep in the artificial light. Janet took her hand. ‘Mum,’ she said quietly.

Dorothy’s eyelids fluttered and the blanket rose and fell as she took a full breath.

‘Mum? Hello.’

Dorothy opened her eyes and gave a small smile, though the frown on her forehead deepened.

‘You’ve had an operation,’ Janet said, ‘to remove your appendix. You gave us quite a scare. How do you feel?’

‘I’m tired,’ she said, slurring the words.

‘You rest,’ Janet said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Her mum closed her eyes, but the frown remained. Janet gently withdrew her hand and turned to go, thanking a nurse waiting close by.

‘You know your way out,’ the nurse said.

‘Yes. Oh, what ward will she be on?’

‘Acute medical, either A or B.’

‘Thanks,’ Janet said.

‘No worries.’

Janet made her way to the car park. Bone weary, she still had to drive the works car back to the station and pick up her own before going home. ‘That’s all right,’ she said aloud. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’ And she started the engine and wound down the window so the chill on the night air would help keep her awake.

Police officers had guarded Cottam’s hospital bed overnight. Gill spoke to the doctor who was treating him, who told her that Cottam was fit to be questioned. Given that he hadn’t been wearing a seat belt and had piled into a brick wall at forty miles an hour, he had had a miraculous escape. The impact of the crash had arrested his heart. Initial blood results had been indicative of heart failure and further tests detected arrhythmia. He might well have not been aware of the condition, if the story of his never seeing a GP was true.

Gill sent Lee and Mitch to make the arrest. Cottam was moved at seven in the morning in a high security vehicle. The custody officer had done a risk assessment and flagged Cottam as a suicide risk. That surprised no one. While in his cell Cottam would be visited every fifteen minutes. His clothes and shoes had been collected in an evidence bag at the hospital and sent straight to the forensic science lab. One of his shoelaces was missing; it hadn’t been found yet at the retail park. At the police station he was provided with a disposable paper suit and flip-flops.

Gill made sure the family liaison officers assigned to both Margaret Milne, now staying with her daughter’s friend Lynn, and Dennis and Barry Cottam were fully briefed and could
inform the family of the latest development. Gill also told the FLOs that detectives would be talking again to the family to try to unearth any significance for Cottam in the Wigan area. Had he been there before, and why? A brief press release would state that police were questioning a forty-five-year-old man on suspicion of murder at an undisclosed location in Manchester.

Questioning could begin as soon as Cottam had been booked in. Gill wasn’t sure yet who would begin the interview. She would have liked to use Janet but thought that Janet might well be off work with her mum in hospital. A solicitor was en route. Gill had almost everything in place by eight thirty, when Janet turned up.

‘How are you?’ Gill asked. She didn’t look great; face puffy as if she’d not had enough sleep, no doubt awake all night fretting about her mother. But Gill knew Janet had a resilience that served her well in times of crisis.

‘I’m okay,’ Janet said. ‘I’m better keeping busy, but I want to take an hour after lunch to visit the hospital. If that’s going to be a problem—’

‘It’s not a problem. We’ve got Cottam downstairs. I can always ask Lee to take it.’

‘I’ll take it,’ Janet said. ‘Really, I’d like to.’

Gill smiled. Janet shied away from promotion whenever Gill raised the question, but she had as much ambition as anyone else in the syndicate when it came to interviews. Interviews were the nuts and bolts of the work, and Janet was highly skilled.

‘Okay,’ Gill said, ‘if you’re sure. I’ll put Lee in with you.’

‘What about Rachel?’ Janet said.

‘No,’ Gill said. She wasn’t sure how much Janet knew about Rachel’s antics the day before but was not about to discuss it. And she certainly wasn’t going to reward Rachel by
letting her in on the interview. Besides, this was tricky territory and it could be muddied by Rachel’s previous encounter with Owen Cottam. ‘The doctor says Cottam is pretty withdrawn. It’s not going to be easy getting him to talk. I think it would be good for you and Lee to sit down with the hostage negotiator to plan the approach.’

‘Fine,’ Janet said. ‘Anything from the search?’

Gill shook her head. ‘We’ve finished at Gallows Wood. Nothing. The vehicle was stolen in Lundfell and Cottam was finally seized at the retail park in Porlow, which is ten miles away, near Wigan. We’re now patrolling the area in between and asking householders county-wide to check their premises. Can’t do any more searching on foot until we know where to look.’

Once the solicitor, Hazel Pullman, arrived, Gill went through to brief her, making it clear what the grounds for arrest were and that the police were treating the situation as life threatening. Given that the preservation of life was their highest priority, the initial interviews would focus on the whereabouts of the children.