Slated for Death (7 page)

Penny looked at Jimmy, silently asking a question.

“They have those cupboards outside the rooms,” Jimmy explained. “They put familiar things in them so you know it's your room. It helps people with memory loss.” He shrugged. “Well, that's the theory, anyway.”

“Right, well, you wait here. I'll see how she's doing. She's probably putting on her lipstick or might even have fallen asleep after lunch.”

Penny knocked on the door and when there was no answer, turned the handle and pushed it slightly open. “Doreen?” she called. “You in here? Is everything all right?” She pushed the door further and saw Doreen, fully dressed, lying on the bed. Penny turned to Jimmy. “I think she's asleep. Wait here.” She closed the door and entered the room. A wave of an intense floral fragrance enveloped her. She put a hand on Doreen's shoulder and gave her a gentle nudge. “Doreen? They're waiting for you. Want to wake up and go to your birthday party?”

Doreen did not move. Her wispy white hair was slightly tousled and her mouth formed a small, frozen O. Her eyes were closed.

Penny touched her hand. It was warm, but limp. And the stillness of Doreen's body was alarming. The chest was not rising. Penny backed slowly away and then turned and opened the door. “I think she's dead,” she said to Jimmy in a low voice. “We've got to get the nurse.” She grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and pushed Jimmy down the hall. Just as they approached the nursing station loud voices coming from the reception desk made them stop and look back.

“What do you mean she hasn't shown up for her birthday party?” a woman demanded. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

The receptionist held up her hands in what was meant to be a soothing gesture but it had the opposite effect. “What the hell kind of place is this? Why didn't someone go and get her before now?” the woman shouted. She turned and said something to the boy beside her.

“Who's that woman?” Penny asked. “Is that the other daughter?”

“Yes, that's Rebeccah,” Jimmy said. “The younger one. She and Doreen didn't get on too well. Hardly ever saw her here. Sells stuff off a stall down the market, so they say. And the lad, that's Doreen's grandson. He helps out at the stall.”

He gave Penny a sheepish look. “There's not much to do here. So we pass the time minding everyone else's business.”

“There was a really strong smell of some kind of fragrance in Doreen's room,” Penny said, with her head lowered. “Maybe some cheap scent from the market, then, that the daughter gave her. Market goods aren't always of the highest quality.”

“And most of it off the back of a lorry.”

By now, they had reached the nurses' station and Penny told her she had been unable to wake Doreen up for her birthday party. The nurse jumped up and started down the hall at the same time as Rebeccah left the reception desk and charged toward her mother's room.

“Oh, no,” said Jimmy. “Looks like she's really going to kick off now.”

 

Eleven

Unsure what to do next, Penny and Jimmy waited in the hall while the nurse had a few hurried words with Doreen's daughter and then the two entered the room. The shouting did not come. Everything was quiet and then the daughter, Rebeccah, emerged from the room, her hand over her mouth and her eyes fixed on the floor.

She glanced at Penny and Jimmy and then sped past the reception desk, pushed open the door and left the building. Peris followed her a moment later.

“What will happen next?” Penny asked the nurse.

“As her death wasn't what we call expected, her GP will have to call in as soon as he can, hopefully this afternoon, and have a look at her. He'll then decide whether or not the coroner needs to be informed. But I'm sure it'll all be very straightforward.” She motioned toward the nursing station. “And now, I've got to get started on the paperwork. I'll send someone to the lounge to let her friends know. The residents at the birthday party.” She gave Jimmy a light smile. “Shame about that. They were looking forward to it.”

Penny and Jimmy joined the little group just as a care aide arrived to speak to them. She was wearing a pair of dark purple cotton trousers with a matching short-sleeved top and her hair was scraped back into a ponytail. She spoke quickly and several residents leaned forward and then exchanged puzzled looks.

“Did she say Doreen's died?” one woman asked the man beside her. “Is that what she said? Is Doreen dead?” As the news rippled through the group, their faces became etched with shock and sadness; the loss of a member of their little band was keenly felt.

“Now, then,” said the care aide with false brightness. “Who's for some cake?”

One woman held up her hand. “Shouldn't we wait for Doreen?” She turned to her neighbour and said cheerfully, “It's her birthday today, you know.”

Jimmy shifted in his chair and leaned toward Penny. “All right?” he asked.

“Thinking,” said Penny.

“Yeah, I know. Me, too. Seems a little too…”

Penny nodded. “Exactly. A little too…”

“Connected?” said Jimmy. “Is that the word we're looking for?”

“Mother and daughter both dead so close together?”

“Makes you wonder, doesn't it?” Jimmy said. “Are you going to call him?”

Penny knew immediately whom he meant. Jimmy and DCI Gareth Davies went back a long way, albeit on opposite sides of the law. “Yes, I am. It might just be a sad coincidence, but he should know. Definitely.” She stood up. “Excuse me. I'm going to step out to make the call.” As she walked toward reception a woman in what looked like a blue uniform, similar to the purple ones worn by staff, was letting herself out the front door, pulling on a jacket as she went.

“Did you see who that was?” she asked the receptionist.

The woman got up from her desk and approached the counter.

“Sorry?”

“That woman who just left. Did you see her? The caregiver in the blue uniform. Do you know who she is?”

“A blue uniform? Our caregivers wear purple ones. Oh, wait, blue. Yes, that might be housekeeping or laundry. But she shouldn't be leaving by the front door. Employees are required to use the staff entrance.”

“Well, thank you.”

Penny left a message for Davies that Doreen Roberts had died and the doctor had been called, and then returned to the lounge. The little birthday group had broken up and only Jimmy remained, rubbing his eyes as Penny approached.

“You're tired,” she said. “Shall I help you back to your room?”

“I am a little tired,” Jimmy admitted. “Although how you can get so tired doing nothing all day beats me.”

“Right. We'll go in a minute. First, though, let's take down these balloons. I thought a staff person would have done this, but I guess they've got better things to do. But leaving them here doesn't seem right, after what happened.”

 

Twelve

Filled with disbelief, Rebeccah Roberts closed the door of the High Pastures nursing home behind her and stepped into a dismal afternoon of freezing rain. She pulled the hood of her anorak over her head as far as it would go and bent her head against the icy onslaught. She'd sent her nephew, Peris, on his way and stayed behind to ask the nurse a few questions and tidy up her mother's room.

My mother died today.

She whispered the words to herself and then repeated them, louder this time, as if she were trying to get used to the idea or practicing in case she had to tell someone. My mother died today. She felt confused and shocked; the nurse had told her that her mother's death was unexpected. But beneath the disbelief was a swirling undercurrent of other, darker emotions. She had known all her life that she could never please her mother, nothing she ever did would be good enough. Why couldn't she have nicely shaped eyebrows like Glenda, her mother would ask, with a disapproving frown. Couldn't she at least try to lose a little weight? Do something about her hair? Throughout her teen years her mother had been so disappointed in her looks. As she moved through her twenties and thirties the disappointment had given way to outright contempt and finally, a painful indifference. Her mother had given up on her. And then, like a glimmer of light breaking through clouds, Rebeccah realized that what she was feeling was the beginning of relief. She was finally free to be herself and now she could give up on her mother.

She turned the corner into the town square and remembering that Peris was stopping with her, decided to get in a few supplies. She didn't know much about teenage boys, but she did know they had huge appetites. Grateful to be out of the rain, she pushed open the door of the little supermarket and picked up a shopping basket, which she soon filled with a loaf of bread, a litre of milk, a couple of bananas, some sliced chicken, a pizza, and a couple of pasta ready meals. With one last look in her basket, she turned toward the checkout. “Watch where you're going, love,” said a woman's voice, in a calm, low tone. “Oh, I'm sorry,” said Rebeccah, adding silently, my mother died today. I'm a little distracted.

The woman moved on as Rebeccah's eyes followed her. Something about her looked familiar, but she couldn't place her. Of course, she saw all sorts of people at her stall, so it could be someone she'd had a brief exchange with at the market. She paid for her items and once again headed out into the driving rain.

As she hurried along Watley Street, she heard footsteps behind her. She slowed down, glanced behind her, and saw the woman she had bumped into in the supermarket. Although it was only mid afternoon, the sky was dark and she could sense, if not see, the gathering dusk. Droplets of rain stood out in stark contrast against the warm glow of lights from the shop windows. The pavement was slick beneath her feet and she could feel the rain trickle under her hood and into her hair. She pushed on, turning up a small side street, past small grey houses with withered, wintery gardens, then down a set of slippery stone stairs to the door of her basement flat. There were no lights on. She opened the door and entered a small, cold sitting room. She set down her shopping bag, closed the door behind her, and from the light that filtered through a small window, lit the gas fire. She switched on a lamp and went through to the tiny kitchen. She put the groceries away and then filled the kettle. The best thing to do when someone dies, she thought, is make a cup of tea. It gives you something to do. Takes your mind off things.

The knock on the door startled her. She opened it and seeing it was her nephew, reached out to him and pulled him toward her.

“Come in out of the rain, Peris,” she said. “Give me your wet things and go on through. I've just put the kettle on.”

“Are you hungry?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “I'll make us an early tea. Or late lunch. Whatever you want to call it. There's beef with barley soup and bread and cheese. Will that do?”

The boy nodded again and then took out his phone and started scrolling.

A few minutes later he looked up and watched while she opened a tin, poured the contents into a pot, and set it on the cooker to heat. She sliced some bread into neat slices and arranged them on a plate. And then the boy spoke.

“I've been thinking about
Mam.
”

“Of course you have, love.”

“No, not like that. About something that happened last week.”

Rebeccah raised an eyebrow and waited, still holding the bread knife. “Last week, you know, that day you were off to the chiropractor and
Mam
stood in for you for a couple hours.” Rebeccah indicated she remembered and he continued. “Well, a man come up to the stall and started yelling at her. Really shouting, he were.”

“Why?”

“Something about a dodgey air freshener that his wife bought at the stall and it made his kid sick. Went on about how the kid has asthma and how he couldn't breathe on account of the air freshener and they had to take him to A and E.”

“We don't sell air freshener on our stall.”

“Well, you know that and I know that, but apparently he didn't. His wife bought air freshener at the market and he assumed it was from us, I guess.”

Rebeccah bit her lower lip and frowned.

“I hope he didn't report us to the trading-standards people.”

“But the funny thing is, I think they knew each other. Because when he left,
Mam
said something like, ‘See you tomorrow.'”

“And tomorrow was…”

“The day she died.”

The two said nothing and Rebeccah carried on with the meal preparation. She quartered a small tomato and picked up a wedge of cheddar cheese.

Peris looked up from his phone. “How much do you think we'll get?”

She set down the knife and faced him. The wind rattled the windowpane and fat raindrops, barely visible through the condensation, raced in rivulets down the glass.

“‘Get'?”

“Well, yeah. First
Mam
and now
Nain
. They must have left something between them and it'll come to us now, won't it? How much do you think we'll get?”

“Do you know, Peris, I haven't given that a thought. I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that my mother died today.”

 

Thirteen

“Right, well, thanks for letting me know. Yes, I'll tell him.” Sgt. Bethan Morgan pressed the button to end the call and looked at her supervisor, DCI Gareth Davies.

“Sir,” she said. “We may have a problem.”

He waited.

“The GP went to the nursing home, examined Doreen's body, and saw nothing that indicated further investigation would be necessary. He's signed the death certificate and notified the coroner.”

Davies raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“And whilst he was examining her, he found a small piece of slate in her left hand. Of course, he didn't think anything of it. Why would he? Just thought it was something she was holding when she died. He often sees people clutching something that meant something to them—rosaries, or a photo, even a bit of clothing.”