Ken McClure - Wildcard

Kate was drinking coffee from a chipped mug with a teddy bear on it when Steven arrived at St Jude’s. She gave him an uneasy grin when he walked in and said, ‘Hello.’

‘Hi, how are you?’ Kate asked with plain meaning.

‘Fine. How are things?’

‘Much better now that we know the source of the outbreak’s been identified. Well done.’

The other nurses in the room added their congratulations.

‘I’m perfectly well aware of who the real heroes are in this affair,’ said Steven. ‘And they’re heroines, not heroes. Frankly, I don’t know how you all do it, day in, day out.’

‘It’s ’cos we’re too stupid to know any better, sir,’ said one of the nurses in a burlesque country-bumpkin accent.

‘No, Mavis,’ said the other in the same accent. ‘As I see it, shit-shovelling’s an art and we’re sort of artists, like-’

‘Cut it out, you two,’ said Kate.

All three nurses broke into laughter and Steven joined them.

‘Well, this unworthy man has come to offer his unworthy services for the evening if you can use them,’ said Steven.

‘We never turn down an extra shovel,’ said Kate.

He was pleased to find that the church was only three-quarters full, proof that the newspaper story had substance. Kate indicated where he should start work and he set about doing his bit, working his way along the line of patients, ensuring that they were clean and comfortable. But when he came to the second to last patient in the line, a shiver of horror ran down his spine: it was Trudi, the Spicers’ au pair.

He looked long and hard at her, hoping he was mistaken but knowing in his heart that he wasn’t. She was only semi-conscious, her hair was lank and she had lost a lot of weight, but she was the girl who had opened the door to him on his first visit to Spicer. He thought back to the look on Spicer’s face, when Steven had warned him about the possibility of having given the virus to his wife. Now it made sense. Spicer had shown no relief when he said he and his wife hadn’t made love, and this was why. He’d been having a fling with Trudi and knew he’d put her at risk. Maybe this was also the real reason why he’d dropped Ann Danby: he’d simply moved on.

‘Bastard!’ Steven whispered under his breath. ‘Slimy little bastard.’

At the end of their shift, Kate and Steven left the building together. Kate remarked that he seemed preoccupied and asked why. He told her about Trudi and got the reaction he expected: ‘The little shit!’

‘About sums him up,’ said Steven.

‘You know, I hold him personally responsible for what happened to Caroline,’ said Kate quietly. ‘She just wouldn’t take any proper rest and, whatever she said, it was because that man blamed her for the spread of the outbreak. She felt driven to atone for something that wasn’t her fault.’

Steven nodded his agreement.

‘The word is they’ve reduced the charges against him,’ said Kate.

‘ What? ’ exclaimed Steven, unwilling to believe his ears.

‘There’s a rumour going round that they’re reducing it to manslaughter.’

‘It was murder,’ he insisted.

‘Maybe not when you’re an MP with a powerful daddy and friends in high places.’

Steven had a restless night but when he awoke to see the sun shining in through the windows he decided to follow his original plan and drive up to Cumbria to have his day out on the hills in crisp, clear conditions. The mountains, as he knew they would, made him feel very small, and thoughts of the timescale involved in their formation made his own lifetime seem like a mere breath in the cosmos. He was as unimportant as a single grain of sand on the face of the earth, and that was exactly the feeling he wanted. It always brought with it absolution.

In all, he walked for five hours, pausing only once, high above Windermere, to sit on a rock and eat the sandwiches that he’d bought earlier. He didn’t rest for long, though, because he felt his body cooling rapidly and his fingers becoming numb in the subzero temperatures. Darkness was already falling by the time he got back to the car, and his calf and thigh muscles were telling him that they’d had a hard day.

On impulse, he decided to make a detour on the way back and drive through Glenridding, the village where he had been brought up. He drove slowly through it but didn’t stop. His folks were long dead and there was no one there he wanted to see again. Ullswater, however, on whose shore the village sat, was unchanged, and he took comfort from that as he followed its north shore. The place triggered memories of a happy childhood and the friends he’d known when the summer days went on for ever.

Although his day out had helped him relax, Steven’s thoughts turned to what Kate had said about the charges against Spicer being reduced. Despite his best efforts, her words played on his mind all the way back to Manchester. The man had stabbed Pelota with a kitchen knife in his own restaurant, and had admitted doing it. How could the Crown Prosecution Service possibly consider a reduced charge?

Steven tried hard to cling to his anger, but it was all too easy to see how clever lawyers might present Spicer’s case. Pelota had been blackmailing him, and that would be the key to the defence. No one would contest that fact, so there would be no argument about it in court and certainly not much sympathy for Pelota by the time defence counsel had laboured the point. Spicer’s lawyer would maintain that his client had decided to do the right thing and go to the police. He would say that he had gone first to the Magnolia to tell Pelota just that, and Pelota, no longer able to wield the threat of exposure, had threatened him with a knife. A struggle had ensued, and during it Pelota had been accidentally stabbed. Ye gods, Spicer might even get off with a light sentence instead of the life term Steven had been counting on. He might even come out of it on a wave of public sympathy!

Recurring thoughts of Spicer and his role in Caroline’s death haunted Steven all evening, so much so that he came to a decision about what he would do with his second day off. It might not be the most sensible thing in the world, but he would try to see Spicer in prison. Spicer was the only man who could put right the wrong done to Caroline’s reputation. There was also a chance that the little shit might not know what he’d done to Trudi. He should know about that. He definitely should.

Tiredness was catching up as Steven logged on to his computer before bed and found that the first result had come in from Porton. The lab had carried out a tissue-compatibility test on the mitral valve taken from Mary Xavier and found it was a very good match — almost perfect, in fact.

‘Nice to know,’ murmured Steven.

‘Spicer might want his lawyer present,’ warned the prison governor when Steven made his request.

‘It’s completely unofficial,’ said Steven. ‘There’s no question of interviewing him under police caution, so there’s no chance of him incriminating himself any further. I just want a chat.’

‘A chat,’ repeated the governor with a knowing smile. ‘He may well refuse to see you, in that case,’ he said.

‘He may. But there’d be no harm in letting him think there might be some official basis for the request…?’

The governor’s smile broadened. He said, ‘All right, we’ll play it your way and give it a try, but if he asks for a lawyer he gets one. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

Leaning over the desk, the governor said, ‘There’s actually a very good chance he won’t. Our Mr Spicer has been experiencing a resurgence of self-confidence, shall we say, ever since the charges were reduced.’

‘Then it’s true?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the governor. ‘It’s what happens when your pals in high places retain the services of the best silk in the country and the local Crown prosecutor starts spending a lot of time in the lavatory.’