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Authors: Cath Staincliffe
Desperate Measures
DESPERATE MEASURES
Cath Staincliffe
DESPERATE MEASURES
This eBook edition published in 2015 by the author.
Cover design by Tim Preston, photo by David Staincliffe.
Copyright © 2015 by Cath Staincliffe
The moral right of the author has been asserted. This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Dedication
In memory of my uncle Peter Parish – a lovely man and a brilliant pioneer who worked to increase knowledge and understanding for everyone in the prescribing and use of drugs.
‘No one is killing anyone,’ Janine said.
Eleanor and Tom began objecting but Janine raised her hands. ‘We finish the meal like civilized human beings, without squabbling or fighting, or you two can go upstairs – no pudding and no screen time.’
‘God.’ Eleanor made a show of rolling her eyes and Tom scowled.
Charlotte, aged four, clapped her hands.
‘That really isn’t helping,’ Janine said to Charlotte.
Janine seemed to spend half her life as a referee. Eleanor at fifteen was prickly and volatile and dripped misery like every other teenager while Tom, five years her junior, was either winding his sister up or bearing the brunt of her crushing putdowns.
‘I want pudding,’ Charlotte said.
‘Please,’ Janine prompted.
‘Please.’ Charlotte beamed. Happy little soul. Who knows where she’d found that equilibrium. Her life had been the most unsettled to date, born into the immediate aftermath of the marriage break-up, her dad Pete living elsewhere with Tina and now their new baby. Charlotte had been looked after by a succession of nannies with the help of Janine’s eldest child Michael while Janine worked. Now Michael had left home, a man of the world, and Janine was still adjusting to the change.
Janine got the ice cream out of the freezer. Running the hot water over a spoon, she caught Eleanor’s reflection in the window, mouthing something at Tom. Nothing pleasant, Janine was sure.
‘I can see you, Eleanor,’ Janine said.
‘Well, he’s a saddo. I’m sick of it. Loser.’ Eleanor lunged forward towards her brother.
‘What did I say?’ Janine turned round.
I don’t want any, anyway,’ Eleanor said, ‘I hate manky ice cream.’ She shoved back her chair and thundered out of the room.
‘Hah!’ Charlotte said.
‘Indeed,’ Janine said.
Tom was still brooding, mouth set, brow furrowed.
‘You want a flake in it?’ Janine said.
‘Have we got some?’ Tom said.
‘We just might have.’
‘I couldn’t see any,’ Tom said.
‘Because I have got a new hiding place,’ Janine said. If she didn’t stash the sweets away the kids attacked them like a plague of locusts.
‘You dish this up.’ She put the tub of ice cream and the spoon on the table near to Tom.
Out in the hallway, once the door had swung shut behind her, she got the old shopping bag down from the coat rack and picked out three flakes.
She was just helping Charlotte stick one into her ice cream when her phone rang. Richard Mayne, her Detective Inspector.
‘You do it.’ Janine handed the flake to Charlotte.
‘Richard?’ Janine moved back into the hall as she answered the call.
‘Dead body,’ he said, ‘just been called in.’
‘Suspicious?’
‘I’d say – shot three times.’
‘OK. I’ll see you there.’
Richard gave her the address, on the Chorlton/Whalley Range border, and rang off.
Janine took a breath and went upstairs and knocked on Eleanor’s door.
‘Go away,’ said a muffled voice from inside.
‘Eleanor—’
‘I don’t want any ice cream and I don’t want another stupid, boring lecture.’
‘I need you to babysit,’ Janine said.
A strangled groan from Eleanor.
‘I’ve been called into work,’ Janine said.
‘I hate your job.’
‘Eleanor, I need to go.’
‘Why can’t you take them to Dad’s?’ Eleanor said.
‘You know why. We’ve not arranged it and while Alfie’s so small it’s not fair. You’re here and I need you to be responsible.’
‘You could ring Sylvie.’
Sylvie was the babysitter cum nanny. ‘She’s not back till tomorrow,’ Janine said. ‘I’ll pay you.’
Janine was aware of the time, anxious to leave.
‘Will you?’ A change of tone from Eleanor.
‘Yes – and that means I expect you to do it professionally. No being mean to Tom. A bath and bedtime story for Charlotte.’
There was the sound of movement from inside the room. Then Eleanor opened the door. ‘How much?’ she said.
‘The going rate,’ Janine said.
‘OK.’
‘I’ll tell them I’m off,’ Janine said.
In the kitchen Janine explained about work and stressed to Tom that he had to cooperate with his big sister and no more bickering.
‘Can I have your ice cream?’ he said.
‘All right then but not this.’ She grabbed the flake and bent to kiss him, he dodged, ‘Ewww! Get off.’
Janine kissed Charlotte on the top of her head, less ice cream there than anywhere else, and then set off.
In the car, she keyed the postcode into the satnav and saw that the address was only a couple of miles to the west. It was still light, just before seven, on an early autumn day.
I hate your job, Eleanor had said. And I love it, Janine thought. It was always challenging and there were times when it was exhausting, when it was hard to stomach, times when it could break your heart if you let it. But she was experienced and skilled, she had to be to reach the level of Detective Chief Inspector, and the work was compelling. Most of all, it mattered – to her and her team and to the people who were left behind.
When the coroner announced the verdict, Adele Young felt as if someone had reached into her chest and torn the heart from her. After all this, the weeks of grieving, the long dark nights with the walls closing in and all she could feel was an absence, Marcie missing, after the battle to try and get someone to listen, to take her seriously and understand that her daughter’s death could have been prevented. After all that to be told this.
The clerk was calling for order. Adele’s eyes flew across the courtroom to the public gallery where he sat, Dr Halliwell, and she saw relief in the twitch of his mouth, then he looked straight at her, some sort of sick triumph in his eyes.
Accidental death.
She staggered and felt Howard grab her, heard him shout, ‘Travesty, a bloody travesty!’
Adele bit down hard on her tongue, determined not to weep. She could bawl her eyes out later, in private, but in public she would not give them that satisfaction.
She wondered again how it would’ve been if Marcie had been some rich white kid instead of a poor black girl. If Marcie had been the GP’s daughter or the daughter of the coroner sat up there in his fancy carved chair. Would it have been accidental death then?
People were filing out. She turned to Howard; his eyes burned with outrage.
‘The papers will be outside,’ she said, ‘the telly.’ Marcie’s inquest had attracted plenty of media attention already. Adele’s belief that Dr Halliwell had treated Marcie wrongly and that medical neglect had led to her death made for a human interest story. It had attracted sharks too. Legal firms (at least that’s what they called themselves) had hounded her, touting for business, eager to bring suits against the GP. It wasn’t money she was interested in, it was recognition, acknowledgment, apology. It was making people see that doctors should listen to their patients, to family and not play God. She didn’t want her efforts to be tainted with the smell of chasing money, no matter how hard up they were. And times were hard. Harder than they’d ever been.
‘It doesn’t stop here,’ she said to Howard. ‘We carry on.’
He gave a shake of his head. She saw the muscles in his face move, his jaw set tight, too angry to speak. He had been with Adele every step of the way even though Marcie wasn’t his by birth. He’d moved in six years back and come to love Adele’s daughter as his own. He had been at Adele’s side day and night. They’d taken out a loan recently so he could buy a decent suit to wear to the court, and smart shoes. This morning he’d shaved his face and oiled his hair and put on a clean shirt with the suit and she was so proud of him, proud and thankful. He was a fine-looking man, a good man, skin the colour of dark chocolate, almond eyes, a slow smile which still made her stomach turn even after all these years. Not that there had been anything to smile about in these last months.
She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on.’
Their appearance outside was stage managed by someone from the court press office. All the main players, the doctor and herself, had to be ready and in place. Adele would be able to speak first, if she wished, then Dr Halliwell. She did wish.
The scrum of photographers and reporters hummed and surged like a swarm of bees.
Adele felt a moment’s dizziness and reached for Howard’s arm. A microphone was thrust into her face. ‘Mrs Young how do you feel about today’s verdict?’
‘Devastated,’ she said with a crack in her voice but she reined in her nerves and spoke louder. ‘We are not giving up. We will keep fighting for justice for Marcie until we win.’
‘You’re not satisfied with the jury’s verdict?’
‘Satisfied?’ Howard shouted, ‘This isn’t justice, this is a mockery.’
Don’t.
‘Wait!’ She spoke over Howard, squeezing his hand to silence him. If he lost his temper here who knew what he might say or do and then they’d be labelled troublemakers, lowlife scum, the same as Marcie had been by the worst of gutter press.
She turned back to face the cameras. ‘We’ll get an independent review for Marcie and if that doesn’t work we’ll go to the ombudsman. These professionals need to start listening to us, to the families. And we need to stand up for ourselves and for the ones that are vulnerable, like Marcie, because no-one listens to them. We still believe that her care fell well short of what was required. We are especially concerned that our wishes were ignored, our concerns dismissed by her GP and we believe that led directly to her death. If we had been listened to, Marcie would still be with us today.’
Inside her something broke. She felt tears in her throat, and pain in her chest. She fought to breathe. At some signal, a final round of photographs was captured before Adele and Howard were edged away and Dr Halliwell took centre stage. He looked sober, dignified, with his greying hair and his smart camel coat.
Silver spoon
, that’s what her mother would’ve said,
nursed on a silver spoon
.
Dr Halliwell made all the right noises;
Relieved … very sad case of Marcie Young … sanity prevailed
. As though Adele with her quest was insane, mental, off the wall.
She watched him talk, the man who had been her family GP all her life, who had seen her through her pregnancy and given Marcie her first jabs, the man who prescribed anti-depressants when Adele went to him in tears, at her wit’s end with her daughter’s antics. The man who, in the last prescriptions he had written for Marcie Young, signed her death warrant as far as Adele was concerned.
She watched him speak, that mock sincerity, slick tongue and clever words. And she hated him. For his arrogance and his lies. For what he had done. She hated him and she wished him dead.
‘You have to keep calm,’ Adele said to Howard in the taxi home.
He shot her a glance, his eyes still bright with anger. ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ he said, ‘it’s all a sham, a fucking sham.’
‘It’s all there is,’ she said.
‘People like us, the system is stacked against us.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ She was suddenly angry at him. ‘But there’s nothing else we can do.’
He looked away from her, out of the window at the rain. ‘He needs teaching a lesson.’
Adele just caught his words. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said quietly, anxious that the taxi driver might overhear. ‘Don’t you start thinking like that. That’s no answer.’
He didn’t reply. They sat in silence. She listened to the beat of the windscreen wipers and the drone of the traffic and closed her eyes. Inside she was trembling, her stomach knotted, her chest aching. She had clung to the hope that today would bring some resolution. Instead they’d been kicked in the teeth.