Flynn Berry - Under the Harrow

“Was Rachel at the coroner’s inquest in October?” I ask.

“No,” she says.

A line of rippling birds flies low over the trees.

“Was she one of his nurses?”

“Yes.”

I close my eyes and wrap my hand over my forehead.

“I don’t remember all the particulars,” says Joanna. “Can I call you back when I have it in front of me?”

“Have what in front of you?”

“The transcript from the inquest.”

“Is that a public document?”

“Yes.”

“I’m on my way to the hospital now, will you make a copy for me?”

“All right. I’m going to be in rounds, but I’ll leave it at the nurses’ station for you.”

“Can you tell me anything you remember?”

“It was a good result. The cause of death wasn’t negligence.”

The sounds around me sharpen and separate. “Who was the patient?”

“Callum Hold.”

“How did he die?”

“The latch on his intravenous drip broke. He overdosed.”

“Does he have any family?”

“Yes, he had a brother.”

“What was his name?”

“Martin Hold.”

• • •

The inquest transcript begins with a précis from the coroner. The patient was brought to the John Radcliffe after a road accident on 22 September. The consultant surgeon recommended reconstructive work to repair internal bleeding. The surgery was successful. On the morning following the surgery, the patient was awake and in stable condition. Shortly after six that night he was pronounced dead.

The cause of death was not complications from surgery, as originally suspected. He died from an overdose of fentanyl, a medical heroin. The drip was meant to give him a painkiller at regular intervals. When its latch broke, the fluid flooded his veins.

An expert witness testified on faulty medical equipment. He believed the hospital staff did nothing wrong. Despite all precautions, equipment sometimes fails. Faulty equipment is the cause of one-fourth of all deaths in hospital.

Never, never, never, never. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.

• • •

Martin Hold. She told me his first name so I would remember it. So I would recognize it if anything happened to her.

If nothing did happen, if she made it to St. Ives, I doubt she would have ever confessed. But maybe it would have weighed on her too much, and one day she would have called me and said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”

• • •

I find the important part halfway through the transcript, hunched on the bench across from Casualty. Martin visited his brother in hospital. He was alert at the time, and they had a long conversation.

I cover my face with my hands. Rachel must have asked Callum about Louise’s injuries, or threatened him, and he told his brother.

• • •

In A&E Louise is wheeled past Rachel and into a room. Rachel starts to examine her. She presents like someone who has been in a road accident, but the strange thing is some of her wounds appear to have started to heal, and some of them already have bandages.

• • •

Rachel limps in and out of pubs and betting shops in Hull. Where would a violent man go, where would a monster go.

• • •

She had a way, sometimes. When she wanted to. I can hear her voice, burry and low, and she says, “When I was seventeen a man beat me up.” She waits. She says, “Do you want to tell me what happened to you?”

• • •

Even if the detectives read the inquest transcript, Martin doesn’t stand out. He doesn’t accuse her and he doesn’t sound aggrieved. Or he does, but not with her. He says there should be consequences for the manufacturer, so other families don’t go through what he has gone through. The coroner advises him to seek the advice of a solicitor for damages.

The transcript is a public document, like a trial record, but surely some of it would have been redacted if the coroner’s office were giving it to a member of the public instead of back to the hospital. Like Callum’s medical records, and all the contact information for his next of kin.

• • •

“I need your help,” I say. The service station café is empty and Louise looks at me, with a dishcloth in one hand. “My name’s Nora Lawrence.”

“I know who you are,” she says. This whole time, I thought I was the one watching her.

“Did you tell Rachel how you got your injuries?”

“Yes.”

She regards me with her small, calm face.

“Rachel broke the latch on his drip.”

Louise closes her eyes. “I know,” she says.

• • •

First we drive to Cirencester and Martha’s family’s estate. A long gravel drive, a row of poplars. Louise waits in the car. Martha’s mum answers the door, and when she sees me her hand covers her mouth.

“Hello, Lily. Is Martha here?”

“No, darling, she isn’t.”

“Oh, I must be supposed to meet her in town. Do you mind if I use the loo before I go?”

Her mum goes into the kitchen, to call Martha, I imagine. I slip into the hall. The cabinet is downstairs, and unlocked. I remember that Martha shrugged. No small children in the house.

I call good-bye to Lily on my way out. On the doorstep, she grasps both my shoulders and kisses me. I return to the car and settle my bag between my seat and the door. Louise looks at it, but doesn’t ask.

• • •

Sixty Rutland Street, Stoke-on-Trent.

I call the second of the two telephone numbers and ask for Martin.

“No, he’s not here,” says a young man. “He isn’t here until four.”

“Thanks. Can you remind me of your address?”

“Five thirty Waterloo.”

It is a paint shop, also in Stoke, around the corner from his home.

• • •

We drive north on the M5. Louise tests the recorder on her phone, and we listen to our voices from a few moments ago. Her voice sounds high and youthful, and mine sounds clear and taut. “So it works, then,” she says.

• • •

Past Bishop’s Cleeve. Past Redditch. It’s unfamiliar countryside. I think that’s a good thing. I think the strangeness of this might paralyze me if I were on a familiar route.

The road to Stoke is broad and nearly empty, but I drive like I am traveling across central London in the rain. I study each road sign as though I’ve just missed an exit, and my heart pounds when a driver merges well ahead of me.

“He said if I left he was going to kill me,” says Louise. “I didn’t ask Rachel to do it, but I told her about him.”

They grew up in Stoke, I learned from Callum’s obituary. They had a sister, Kirsty, but the obituary didn’t say what happened to her. Were they bad then? Can you learn to do what they did to Rachel and Louise? If their dad beat them I wish he had finished the job.

Past Birmingham. Past Stafford. The nervousness fades and is replaced with a low and solid dread. Neither of us speaks.

• • •

Louise will talk to him first and record the conversation. The recording won’t be admissible in court, but her account of what he tells her will be. And the police can listen to it, and the jury can be made aware that a tape exists. We park on Waterloo Road a block from the paint shop.

“Are you sure?” I ask her again.

“He likes me,” she says. “We never talked about what Callum did. He has no reason to be suspicious.”

“You didn’t go to the funeral,” I say, remembering.

“My best friend went. She told Martin I was still too distraught to leave the house.” I shake my head and she says, “I know. Quite clever,” and climbs out of the car.

• • •

I put my hood up. Martin lives in a terrace of brick houses. Most of the houses in the terrace are empty. Some have estate agent signs and others do not. The terrace backs onto an alley, and I walk up it, past the low sheds and garages. Strange Victorian buttresses separate each property. One of the bins has been tipped over, and as I step around the stream of rubbish, I hope it is his, I hope the kids here hate him. I count the lots until number sixty. It doesn’t look any different from the others. Stained brick, buttresses, shed.