Lost Lives (Emily Swanson Mystery Thriller Series Book 1) (21 page)

Terrified but determined, Emily turned the handle. The door slowly opened.

The stench hit her first—a nauseating mix of faeces, urine and chemicals. Ignoring her gag reflex, she peered into the blackness of the room. Here and there she saw little lights winking like cats eyes. The electronic sounds she’d heard were louder now, dispersed between the hiss and sighs of pumped air. Reaching along the wall, Emily found a panel of light switches and flipped them on.

Cold red light blinked and flickered. She was inside a large, windowless room, with a sloping high ceiling bordered by elegantly patterned cornice; echoes of the building’s historic origins. What the room contained, however, was far from elegant.

There were hospital beds lined up on both sides, eight in total, curtains pulled around all but one.

Lying on this bed was the naked shell of a woman of indeterminable age. Sheets were pulled back, revealing a body so emaciated that her skin wrapped around bones like paper. Bed sores wept on the woman’s limbs. She had soiled herself. The sheets had been left unchanged. Various tubes and wires attached to clips and electrodes protruded from her skin. Beside the bed, machines churned out various readings. At first, Emily thought she might be dead, but then she saw the weak rise and fall of her chest.

Horrified, Emily lunged forwards and pulled the sheet over the woman’s body, until only her head and shoulders were exposed. Then, she dragged herself to the adjacent bed and pulled back the curtain.

A similar sight greeted her, only this time the woman was identifiably older. Most of her hair was gone. What was left grew in thin white clumps across her scalp. Emily couldn’t tell exactly when the woman had died, but judging from the tepidness of her skin, it couldn’t have been more than a few hours ago. Her body had been freed of needles and electrodes. Beside the bed, the monitor lay dormant.

Backing away from the dead woman, Emily found herself in the centre of the room, turning in circles. Terror had taken hold of her body and now it danced with her, spinning her around and around in a feverish frenzy. She moved from curtain to curtain, tearing each one open to reveal horror after horror. Patients, withered and ravaged, and in a state of naked unconsciousness. Some were older, some younger. One other was dead, the rest would soon follow.

Emily could not comprehend what she was seeing. Switching her phone to camera mode, she lifted an unsteady hand and began to take pictures, each image more grotesque than the last, the camera flash illuminating flesh and bone in lightning strikes. She moved from bed to bed, weeping as she documented each patient, both dead and alive, until she had catalogued every sickening, horrible instance.

Here was the evidence she needed. Now, she could go to the police, knowing they would not disregard her story. The doctors would be arrested. They would spend what was left of their lives wasting away in prison cells. All of these people around her, whoever they were, whatever had been done to them—this is how she would help them, how she would set them free.

Her search for Alina had led her to terrible places, to experience terrible ordeals. And although she had not found her, she had found what Alina, along with Reina Tammerworth, had been trying to expose.

Emily turned away from the room of dying people. She had seen and documented enough. She was about to leave, to head back towards the lift, when intuition pulled her back. She had missed something. But what?

She looked around the room, forcing herself to stare at the gaunt faces, their sunken cheeks, their exposed teeth. What was she not seeing?

Then, in the shadows at the far end of the room, she saw a door.

She stepped towards it and pulled down on the handle.

Inside, was a much smaller room containing two more beds. The first was empty and stripped of sheets.

The second bed was occupied.

Lying on the mattress, her naked body half-covered, tubes running into holes in her throat and stomach, lay a blonde-haired woman in her forties. Emily recognised her instantly. She had seen her face countless times, staring out from the canvas. She had memorised every line and wrinkle, every curve of her bone structure. Lying in the bed, her skin pale in the red light, her eyes rolling beneath her lids as she dreamed, was Alina Engel.

Here was the woman whose picture Emily had found all those months ago, hidden away, lost and forgotten by the world. It seemed inconceivable that she could still be alive. Taking Alina’s hand in her own, she pressed it against her cheek. Her skin was soft and warm, and fragrant with soap.

For a moment, Emily lost herself. Although she had never met Alina, it felt like a blissful reunion, two friends coming together after spending years apart.

“She’s really quite beautiful,” a voice said in the darkness.

Emily nodded.

“And strong. The strongest of them all.”

It was then that she realised the voice was not coming from her mind but from somewhere in the room.

An elderly man dressed in a tailored black suit stood in the doorway. He was tall, but time had ruined his once strong back so that he now relied on a cane for balance. He had a gentle face, with a soft smile, and deep, glistening blue eyes. It was the kindness exuding from him which Emily feared most; like a sedative it was immediately disarming.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” the man said, and for a second, the soothing tones of his voice almost convinced her that he spoke the truth. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure. I’m Doctor Williams. And you must be Emily.”

“What have you done to her?” Emily asked, standing between the doctor and Alina’s bed.

“Nothing that she did not ask for. What you need to understand is Alina was a deeply unhappy woman. She came to me in her hour of need. I gave her the peace that she so desperately craved.”

“Peace?” Emily repeated. “See what you’ve done to her! How can you call this peace?”

Doctor Williams hobbled into the room. He leaned in to study Alina’s face. “I see no lines. No creases, no frowns. She no longer lives in fear of an abusive husband, or feels the guilt of leaving her elderly parents to care for themselves. She no longer has the worry of watching herself age in the bathroom mirror, knowing the only aspect of her life she has to look forward to is its inevitable end. You see, Alina was weak. She had given up a long time ago, allowing her life to drown in misery. But freed from her daily grind, she’s flourished. She’s become strong. And you know what that tells me? It tells me, my dear, that Alina wants to live.”

Emily stared in disbelief at the doctor. “Then wake her up. Wake them all up.”

“Not yet, my dear. To wake them all now would be to throw them to the lions. As for Alina, the last time we woke her, she was much more compliant. But there were still creases to iron out. And we must be careful of how to move forward. One slip and all the good work we’ve done will come undone. Do you see our predicament, Emily?”

Emily shook her head. “You’ve no right. You’re keeping her against her will. All of them.”

“Actually, that’s where you’re quite wrong.” The doctor shuffled out of the room, his cane tapping against the tiled floor. Holding the door open he said, “Come along.”

Keeping her distance, Emily followed him.

“All these people you see here,” Doctor Williams said, waving an arm, “they’re all here by choice.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Let me ask you a question, Emily. How did it feel to watch your mother die?”

The question was unexpected. At first, it stunned her. Then, it made her angry. “My mother’s death has nothing to do with what you’re doing to these people.”

“Oh it has everything to do with it,” Doctor Williams said. “Please, indulge me. What was it like to watch her die?”

Unwanted memories filled her head. She was back there again, sat on the bedside, staring at the remnants of what used to be her mother.

“It was unbearable.”

Doctor Williams nodded. “Of course it was. Day after day of watching the person who gave you life simply disappear, while all you can do is bear witness. It’s simply excruciating. All those emotions—grief, anger, resentment, fear. Cancer is a cruel mistress who deals out pain without a flicker of remorse. She will never allow an easy death. She may sometimes make it quick but she will never forego the pain. So we sit by beds, watching her devour the people we love. We hear their cries of pain, their moans of torment and yet we do nothing. We feel helpless.”

A tear escaped Emily’s eye. “That’s because there is nothing we can do.”

“Nonsense. Of course there’s something we can do—that is our duty to do.”

“What?”

“End their pain. You see, Emily, we’ll quite happily sit and watch our loved ones suffer, even though it hurts us to watch them. And why? Because if they still suffer it means they still cling to life. For us, it means we ward off death, we still get to have a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a child for that little bit longer. We become selfish in their suffering. We let them continue to feel pain. Good, we say because it’s another day, another hour of not having to face this world alone. We let them suffer, Emily, because we are afraid of our own mortality. And for that, we are as cruel and malignant as the cancer itself.”

“You’re wrong,” Emily said, her body shaking with anger. “I did everything I could to help my mother! Everything!”

Doctor Williams sighed. “Am I so wrong? Tell me then why, when our animals become sick, when they are old and their everyday living has been irreparably affected, we take them to a veterinarian, who ends their suffering with a swift jab of a needle. All that pain is instantly gone. They are at peace. If we can do it for our pets, why can’t we afford that dignity for our own flesh and blood? All these people you see here, I offered them peace. A swift jab of a needle to send them to sleep. Now, they have no more pain. No more unbearable suffering. I offered it to them and they accepted freely. Graciously. These people were not burdened with friends and family, who were using their suffering to escape the clutches of their own demise. They had spent a lifetime alone in this world, suffering long before cancer came and took them in her claws. I offered them a way out. I enabled them to go sailing into the night, silent and graceful like swans.”

Emily stared at the decaying bodies lying on soiled sheets, needles stuck in them like skewers.

“These people are still alive!” she cried.

Doctor Williams moved up beside her.

“For now,” he said. “Unfortunately, our country is rather backwards in its thinking. The law is unbalanced and unjust. Until it changes, the best I can do for these people is to let them sleep through until there is nothing left for cancer to take. It may look insufferable from the outside, Emily, but inside they sleep and they dream.”

“What do you get in return? Why would you risk your career, imprisonment for people you don’t even know?”

Doctor Williams was quiet for a moment.

“There is some remuneration. A donation, shall we say, to the Foundation.”

Emily’s eye grew wide. Now it all made a terrible sense.

“You take their money and you let them die in the dark, alone, lying in their own waste. This isn’t about being humane, it’s about making you wealthy!”

“Then wake them!” the doctor suddenly cried, any trace of benevolence gone. “Pull out their needles and wake them. See how grateful they’ll be, how thankful. And when they feel the pain again, when they beg for you to put the needle back in, you’ll do it. Just like Alina.”

For a moment, Doctor Williams looked like a defeated man. His shoulders sagged. He lowered his head.

“It was my mistake. I found her crying one morning. She had bruises on her arms. At first she told me it had been an accident, but eventually she confessed that her married life with Karl was ... challenging. She spoke of how unhappy she was, how utterly alone she felt. In my compassion, I made an error of judgement. We needed someone to care for our patients up here and at first, Alina seemed only too pleased to help. She understood, you see, how cruel life could be, regardless of your good deeds. In some ways, being charge to her new patients gave back to her what Karl had taken away—control. After a while, however, she succumbed to fear. She told Karl about our patients, about what she’d been doing. But that oaf of a man was easily bought. As a matter of fact, he came in rather handy. Someone needed to keep the ward clean after all. But Alina became a problem. One day, she woke one of the patients. The shock killed them. After that, Alina wasn’t the same. Even Karl had lost control of her. There was concern she would do something rash, so steps were taken.”

“Alina and Reina Tammerworth were going to expose you,” Emily said.

Doctor Williams smiled. “Someone has been doing their homework. I do like you, Emily. For a little mouse from the countryside you have the tenacity of a lion.”

“Where is Reina?”

The doctor raised an eyebrow. “You’ll have to ask Mr Henry about that.”

“What about Doctor Chelmsford? What did he do to me?”

Doctor Williams tapped his stick against the floor. “My dear, I don’t think you understand what we’re trying to do here. One of the best remedies for any ailment, as research tells us time and time again, is sleep. Sleep allows your mind to rest, your body to repair and restore itself, or it can help you to escape the shackles of pain. All we’re trying to do, all we’ve ever tried to do, is harness that power for the greater good, in our own distinct ways.”