Sisters of Mercy (21 page)

‘
Exactly.’

‘
Yes, I think you’re right. I remember now how the deaths stopped when Susan went on leave for two weeks, and then Mrs Sutton died the day after she came back. But the timing …? Mrs Sutton died at about half-past twelve in the morning.’

‘
What time does Susan leave in the afternoon?’

‘
Around five, usually.’

‘
An hour later than the nursing shift. And five until twelve is only seven hours, which is within your time range for PZI. Would she be able to get hold of it?’

‘
Yes, I’m afraid she would.’ I looked up. ‘But what about the brakes on my car? How did she know we were looking for a killer?’

He
drummed with his fingers on the table top. ‘I’ve got it. Remember when your printer went down — the fuse? The patient record came out in the Duty Room, and she was in there. She’d have seen it.’

‘
Especially as Viv brought everyone’s attention to it. But would that have been enough for her to —?’

‘
Yes, I think it would. It was the first victim, or at least, the first one you spotted. He died nearly two months ago. Why print that out now? And especially just after a Man from the Department has arrived.’

‘
But how did she know where my car would be?’

Again,
he thought.

‘
Yesterday afternoon. I left at about four — remember? And told you in a loud clear voice that I’d see you at Miss Shenstone’s lecture.’

‘
All right, you’ve convinced me,’ I said. ‘But what are we going to do? We’ve got to stop her before she kills anyone else.’

‘
We have to go to the police, obviously. Which means coming clean about the mortuary.’ He picked up the phone again.

‘
Marcus?’ His boss. ‘It’s Tom. I think we’ve found our killer, but there’s a problem …’ He told him what had happened and asked him to clear the mortuary break-in with the police.

An
hour later, we were with a rather irritated Inspector Anslow.

‘
I wish you’d told us earlier you were here, Mr Jones.’

‘
Would you have taken it seriously? In the circumstances?’

‘
Perhaps,’ he said, although I didn’t believe him. ‘You could at least have told us about the break-in to the mortuary.’

‘
Well, I’m telling you now, aren’t I?’ Another example of the unfortunate manner, I supposed.

‘
Yeah, after we’ve already spent umpteen man hours on it.’ He sighed. ‘All right, Mr Jones, you’ve persuaded me, but there’s nothing like enough evidence for a conviction on what we’ve got.’ He paused. ‘I suppose she might break down under interrogation … what do you think, Miss Farewell?’

‘
I wouldn’t bank on it,’ I said, thinking of Susan’s set and determined expression.

‘
So what do we do?’

‘
We could set a trap,’ said Tom. ‘We could set it up tomorrow and spring it on Monday.’

Anslow
looked at him suspiciously. ‘What kind of a trap?’

Tom
told him.

18

Monday morning. The trap was set. We waited.

It
’s the hardest part, the waiting; at least, so runs the cliché, but as is so often the case, the cliché’s right. That’s why they become clichés, I supposed … My mind tumbled with thoughts and suppositions, most of them as irrelevant as that.

It
seemed incredible that the plan could have been set up so quickly. Mr Chorley had had to be told of course; also, Miss Whittington. She’d been deeply shocked and had not wanted to be directly involved. But Mr Chorley was made of different stuff, and as he conducted the ward round that morning, there was no perceptible change in his demeanour.

Oh,
and James. He had to be told as well. No one else knew.

As
morning became afternoon, the final piece was put into place. We waited …

The
police had wanted to wait a few days before setting the trap, to lull any suspicions Susan might have had, but Mr Chorley wouldn’t countenance it.

‘
Who knows whom she will take it into her head to kill next?’ he’d demanded. ‘We simply can’t afford to take that risk. She
must
be arrested tomorrow …

And
Mr Chorley had friends in high places, so the trap was set …

That
Sunday evening, we’d been driving back from the police station. There was a rich autumn sunset and the Ladies of the Vale stood out black against it.

‘
I’ve never seen a cathedral with three spires before,’ Tom said, breaking the silence.

‘
The Ladies of the Vale.’

‘
Beg your pardon?’

I
repeated it. ‘That’s what they’re called.’

He
looked in his mirror and indicated to the right. ‘Let’s have a closer look.’

I
glanced at him. ‘Are you a religious freak, too?’

He
laughed. ‘No. I do like old churches and cathedrals, though. They’re a link with the past. They … they define a town somehow.’

‘
Take the next left.’

A
few minutes later, he pulled up under the west front.

‘
It’s strange,’ I said, looking up at the rows of saints and holy men, ‘I’ve never really thought much about this building, until recently.’

‘
What brought it on?’

‘
I don’t know. I’ve just had this feeling of the spires, the Ladies, keeping watch over the city, brooding over the centuries.’

He
smiled. ‘You’re a romantic. Shall we have a look inside?’

‘
It’s Sunday — there might be a service or something,’ I protested. ‘After all, it is what they’re there for.’ He’d already opened his door, though. I followed him. A trio of pigeons clattered away.

The
huge wooden doors in the middle of the front were obviously bolted shut. He found a smaller door to one side which he pushed open. We heard singing.

‘
There is a service,’ I said.

‘
We can still have a quick look.’

Rather
reluctantly, I followed him in. The purity of the choral voices shimmered around the stone columns and arches and up into the vault. There was a congregation of perhaps three or four dozen. Brasswork gleamed dully in the stained light. The organ trembled.

‘
Tom, let’s go,’ I whispered.

‘
Why?’ He smiled. ‘Are you about to turn into dust or something?’

‘
I just don’t feel comfortable.’

He
shrugged and we went out. He said, ‘I thought it was rather lovely.’

‘
Oh, it was; it was beautiful. But we were intruding.’

Back
in the car, I said, ‘What a strange place for us to be. Considering the … perversity of what we’ve been doing.’

He
was staring up at the spires. ‘Ladies of the Vale,’ he mused. ‘Well, there’s been you, Susan …’

‘
Oh, thanks!’

‘
So who’s the third?’

‘
Miss Whittington?’ I said, catching his mood.

‘
No …’

‘
Miss Shenstone, then? But as I said in the beginning, she’s a near saint.’

‘
I don’t believe in saints,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘People do what they do because they want to.’ He looked around warily. ‘Although perhaps this isn’t the best of places to say so.’

He
started the car and we got home without being struck by any thunderbolts. I made a meal. He had still been very thoughtful, for some reason …

*

Monday, twelve-fifteen. Susan came into the Duty Room, picked up the pathology request forms from the basket and looked through them before going to the cupboard to replenish her tray.

Helen
Armitage asked Mary some fool question and got a dusty answer. Gail came in complaining: ‘That Mr Bridges, he’s the limit …’

‘
Why, what’s he done now?’

‘
Oh, it’s the way he turns everything you say into a sexual innuendo …’

All
their voices were unreal.

Quietly,
unobtrusively, Susan picked up her tray and went out.

*

Earlier that morning, James had come into the Duty Room just after Susan.

‘
No boyfriend today then, Jo? I thought something was missing.’

‘
If it’s Mr Jones you’re referring to, he went home on Saturday,’ I said in a bored voice.

‘
And good riddance,’ muttered Debbie Hillard from the corner.

‘
Why?’ James demanded. ‘I didn’t think he was that bad.’

‘
I don’t suppose he dropped you in it the way he did me.’

But
would Susan take the bait so soon after Tom’s departure …?

*

It had been decided that I shouldn’t be on the ward when Susan went in, in case my presence put her off, so I got the story from James later.

He
was sitting with Mr Dunn at the time, an RTA who’d apparently been drunk when he’d crashed his car. Susan came in, glanced at her forms and approached a bed.

‘
Mr Bridges?’ she said softly.

‘
That’s right,’ said Gail, an edge to her voice.

Susan
set out the sample bottles and punctured Bridges’s vein (‘Ooh, that’s a nasty prick you got there, miss.’ Gail rolled her eyes).

Next
came Mrs West, then Mr Dunn …

‘
Am I in your way, love?’ asked James.

‘
If you wouldn’t mind, just for a minute.’ Her quiet voice was as assured as ever.

‘
The lady’s going to take a sample of your blood,’ James said to Dunn, then eased his way past her. Dunn mumbled something unintelligible. His head was so heavily bandaged that only his eyes were visible, and one arm was encased in plaster.

James
wandered over to the nurses’ station, said something to Armitage, then wandered back as Susan was setting out her sample bottles. He watched her for a moment, then nodded once in Dunn’s direction. She put a bottle in the barrel of the vacutainer assembly. As she went to puncture Dunn’s arm, his hand appeared from beneath the bedclothes (the plaster was a blind) and fastened on to her wrist …

‘
Susan King, I am arresting you for attempted —’

In
a flash, she twisted her hand away and rammed the needle into his biceps … he roared and tried to pull it out …

James
went to grab her, but she picked up her tray and flung it at him, its edge catching his forehead before crashing on to the floor, then she bolted for the left-hand patient transfer air-lock, where she propped the outer door open (so that the inner door was locked).

The
policeman outside had been fooled by her plain appearance and had a knee in the groin and fingernails in his eyes before he knew it, and by the time Anslow and Co had reached him, she’d completely disappeared.

Anslow
quickly organized the hunt before venting his spleen on the unfortunate Dunn (his real name) and his colleague outside (whose eyes were still watering).

The
hospital was painstakingly searched and road blocks set up before someone thought to tell him that Susan always travelled by push-bike. Her flat was broken into, but there was no sign of her.

Then,
two hours after she escaped, it was reported that someone answering her description had boarded a Birmingham train with a bicycle. The headquarters of her religious sect — Disciples of the One True God — was based in Birmingham, so the search was concentrated there.

‘
At least her guilt’s beyond doubt now,’ Tom said to me. ‘I was worried that she’d just flatly deny everything. Even with this’ — he indicated the pressurized bottle of insulin in its plastic bag — ‘they might have had a job convicting her.’

Dunn
had been admitted the evening before with the word
Atheist
firmly planted in his record (Tom had discovered that Susan looked through the new patient records on the computer every day, using the password of one of the lab workers). The word had been put round that he had been driving while drunk and that a child had been killed in the accident.

Tom
had been reported to have left at last and a request for blood samples from Dunn put into the basket at midday. James had sat with him until Susan appeared. After moving away, he’d waited until he’d seen her take a bottle from her pocket, then nodded at Dunn. The rest, as they say, was history.