The Next to Die, page 11
That’s strange. If any of the nurses had seen me, they’d have assumed I was here for a Marion-related reason and let me in, but none of them could have. I was standing to the right of the glass part of the door. Which means someone chose the minimum-effort route, too tired or depressed by her job to check.
I could be anybody.
I doubt the hospital has a huge problem with people who had no business in the cancer ward sneaking in. The smell alone would be enough to put off anyone but a fanatic. If I believed in God, I’d be profoundly grateful to him for the human inability to remember odors. It’s comforting to think that once I’ve left here, my mind won’t be able to re-create the sugary, soapy stink of Ward 10.
If the nurses have been lax about the buzzer once, they must have done it dozens of times. Anyone could have gotten in. Anyone could have walked, as I am now, along the white-walled corridor, past the hand-sterilizing unit on wheels, the kitchen, the always-dark, always-empty TV lounge to the noticeboard opposite the ward’s reception.
Anyone, or someone in particular: the man police are calling Billy Dead Mates. He could easily have gotten as far as the noticeboard with the help of a reassuring I-belong-here smile. He could have pinned up a card or something that, to a novice eye, would look like a card . . .
Checking is a necessary formality, that’s all. I have to check before I go to the police with this, but I know I’m right. I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection straightaway. When you don’t expect to see something in a particular place, you miss it even when it’s right in front of you.
The white card is still pinned up on the noticeboard, with the word “Death” in large handwritten letters—except now I know it’s not a card. It’s a little book, stapled in the middle, containing a line from a poem. Like the one I was given by a stranger at my gig, wherever it was, and the ones Detective Sergeant Sam Kombothekra was describing on the news—the ones Billy Dead Mates gives to his victims before killing them.
There are no nurses or doctors behind the desk. At the far end of the corridor, two men wearing normal clothes are shuffling from foot to foot as if no one’s told them the right way to stand. Patients’ relatives. They won’t get in my way. The conditions are perfect.
I’m about to pull out the thumbtack and take the white book down from the board when I hear an exclamation followed by the sound of a door swinging shut.
“Kim! You’re back.”
It’s Fiona, the only Ward 10 nurse I like, though I’d love to cut off her braid. It’s as annoying as watching a dog running around with its lead still attached and trailing behind it. Fiona must have been in room 6, the one closest to the noticeboard. And now she’s come out of it, reminding me that there are other rooms along the ward corridor besides the kitchen and the always-dark TV lounge—the numbered rooms with lives ending inside them, struggling to hang on or praying for release.
I know some patients get better and leave. While I was waiting for Marion to die, I saw two people pack up their things—slowly, helped by loved ones—and swing through the blue-gray doors in the optimal direction. Still, I didn’t quite fall for it. Once you’ve been in here even briefly, how can you shake off those numbered rooms? They’ve got you, just by letting you see that they’re there and waiting.
I can’t think about any of this now: the horror of Ward 10 or the shame of having only just discovered, at the age of forty-two, that death is unavoidable and so entirely not ideal.
I have to push all that out of my mind and think instead about the lives I can save: mine, hopefully. And maybe someone else’s too—though every time that idea presents itself, I dismiss it as too crazy. I’m looking forward to dumping my suspicions in the lap of the police. Will they laugh and tell me I’m mad?
I’m not part of any kind of pair. I haven’t had a best friend in living memory. How can I be on Billy Dead Mates’s radar? Why would he choose me? It makes no sense. DS Sam Kombothekra said these murders were about pairs of best friends. He sounded sure.
And I’m still alive—that has to mean something. None of the facts can be discounted. Maybe Billy has two lists: pairs of best friends, whom he kills, and people with no friends who get his sinister little books but whom he doesn’t otherwise bother or harm.
“Billy,” for God’s sake. Why am I thinking about him as if he’s a mate and we’re on first-name terms?
“Kim?” Fiona peers into my face, twisting her braid around her index finger. “Who let you in?” She looks around.
I wrestle down a burning desire to tear the little white “Death” book off the noticeboard and make a run for it.
“I’ve no idea. Someone who couldn’t see me and didn’t know who I was. You should probably . . . I mean, not you, but someone should . . .” Shut up, idiot. I don’t want Fiona to think I’m criticizing her. My exchange with her, brief and ludicrous as it was, is the only good memory I have of this ward. I don’t want to ruin it. Still, it should be much harder to get into a hospital cancer ward. No one wants to be in here. The entrance procedure should reflect that, I feel. Symbolically it’s important; we all want to see death banged up in a high-security facility.
“Are you all right, Kim?” Fiona asks. “You don’t look it.”
Good point. I must look odd: sweaty, tongue-tied. Bereaved and traumatized. I perk up a bit when it occurs to me that that’s not a convenient lie. I am bereaved and traumatized. Officially. If I described myself in those terms, no one would say, “Oh, come on, don’t exaggerate.”
Excellent. So how can I use this to get what I want?
I need the card that isn’t a card. I need to get it quickly and painlessly. Then I’m out of here.
Wait. Taking the card wasn’t part of the original plan. Checking you were right and then, if you were, ringing the police—wasn’t that the idea?
I know that’s what I ought to do, but I lack the willpower. Standing around, waiting . . . the passivity would drive me crazy. Where’s the harm in grabbing the white book and taking it straight to the police? I’d have to touch it, but the prints of whoever pinned it to the board would still be there, wouldn’t they?
I should think about saying something to Fiona around about now, or I’ll cross the line from grieving into plain rude. “Sorry,” I say. “It’s just weird being back here, that’s all.”
“Yes, a lot of people say that. I’m surprised to see you back so soon.”
“Well, I couldn’t be bothered to wait till I got cancer myself.”
“What?”
“Joke.”
“I thought you’d be at home, catching up on sleep.”
And then, around a week to two later, you thought I’d reappear with a Tupperware box full of chocolate brownies or macaroons to say thank you for everything you did for my dying relative, like everyone else does. Like all the well-balanced bereavement-to-baking people.
“I came back to visit my favorite medical expert,” I tell Fiona with a smile. Getting out of here with the little book in my bag will be easier if I’m casual about it. “I think your assessment was correct. You know—the ringpull situation? Nothing bad’s happened to me yet. If I was internally perforated, I’m sure I’d know by now.”
Fiona manages an anxious half-smile. “Honestly, Kim, are you okay? Are you sure you wouldn’t like—”
“A leaflet about the hospital’s counseling service? Positive, thanks. And they’d like it even less.”
“Who?” Fiona looks confused.
“Your counseling people.” I mean, Christ, who’d want to meet me?
“I don’t get what you mean.”
“Nothing. Another bad joke. I’ve got an idea: Why don’t I stop making them?” A strange, high-pitched laugh leaks out of me. You’d never guess I was a professional performer; my acting couldn’t be worse if I tried. “I was passing by, so I popped in to . . . I don’t know, to check this place was real, I suppose.” I sound as pathetic to myself as I must to Fiona. “Nothing about the hospital or the ward felt real when I was here before.”
“Lots of people say that.”
I should wait till she moves away, but she’s showing no sign of going anywhere. I’m too impatient to think up a decent lie. My arm’s twitching with the need to grab the white book.
Do it fast. Over and out.
Trying to appear open and confident rather than furtive, I reach up, pull the thumbtack out of the noticeboard and take down the booklet.
“What are you doing?” Fiona says.
“Have you seen this?” I ask her, but I don’t hand it over. Flicking through it, I find its insides empty. There’s just “Death” on the front cover and four other words on the back cover.
Death devours all lovely things.
Thanks to Google, I know it’s the first line of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, an American poet.
Death devours all lovely things;
Lesbia with her sparrow
Shares the darkness,—presently
Every bed is narrow.
It’s the same poem that contains the words in the little white book I was given at a gig in 2014.
The narrow bed is the waiting grave, evidently: the symbol of our ultimate, inevitable isolation. What a cheery thought. No wonder so many of us try to stuff our earthly beds full of as many people as possible while we still can.
This book I’m holding and the one I was given are a pair.
I pass it to Fiona. She looks at it. “People are funny,” she says with a shrug. “Funny peculiar, I mean, not funny ha-ha. Apart from you. You’re funny ha-ha, being a comedian.” She adds this quickly, as if afraid I might be offended otherwise.
“Do you know who it’s from? Or to?”
“Oh, it’s for us—the nurses and doctors here.”
“How do you know?”
“All the cards on the board are for us,” says Fiona. “They’re thank-you cards.”
“It doesn’t say thank you anywhere on it.”
“No, well . . . not everyone’s very good at expressing themselves.”
“But this is a book, not a card. Look. It has several pages.”
Fiona nods. “I’m sure it’s full of meaning for the person who sent it, or brought it in.”
“Do you know who that was? Or which it was—sent or brought?”
“No. I hadn’t noticed it till you showed it to me. Why do you ask?”
Because I think it’s the handiwork of a serial killer. Isn’t that jolly? More exciting than cancer.
“No reason.” I hold out my hand to take the book back.
“Do you want it?” Fiona looks confused. “But . . . it belongs to the ward. It was on our noticeboard.”
“It’s not addressed to you, and you don’t know how it got there. Whereas I . . . Look, I can’t explain, but I think I might know something about this . . . thing, and I need to take it with me. I’ll bring it back, I promise, but can I take it?”
“I don’t think so, Kim. I’m sorry. It’s just that often people who’ve been in here come back—”
“I know. With caramel slices.”
“—and if they’ve brought in a card for us and they see it’s not on the board—”
“This isn’t a card; it’s a book. Trust me: it might be on your noticeboard, but it’s not meant for you. It’s meant for—” I stop myself, remembering I have no proof of anything. It’s a theory, and an outlandish one at that.
“I’m really sorry, but I’m going to need to stick it back up on the board,” Fiona says firmly. “I wouldn’t be allowed to let you take it.”
I could tell her the truth and admit I need to take the book to show the police. Somehow, I doubt she’d hand it over even then. Who in their right mind would hand over possible evidence in a serial murder investigation to a sarcastic comedian who swallows parts of Fruit Rush cans? Fiona would do the right and sensible thing: she’d promise to look after the white book until the police were able to come and collect it.
That’s not good enough. Once it’s out of my sight, I don’t know if it’s safe. I need to take it with me, whatever I have to do.
“Will you do me a favor and let me have a quick last look at it?” I hold out my hand again.
She falls for it. Once the book’s back in my hands and I’m flicking through it again, I say, “I’m sure you’re right, but can you check?”
“Check?”
“Yeah, with whoever’s in charge—the ward sister or whoever. You never know, she might say it’s fine to let me take it.” I smile hopefully.
Fiona looks uncertain. “She’s not here at the moment.”
“Yeah, where is everybody? Buried under piles of cereal bars?”
“I suppose I could try to . . .” Fiona glances at the phone on the desk.
“Please ring her. I know it sounds weird, but this matters to me. I can’t explain why.”
“All right.”
“Thank you! You’re a star. Really, I’m hugely grateful, whatever the result.”
Fiona walks around to the other side of the ward’s reception desk. I wait till she picks up the phone, then make a dash for it, clutching the book. Surprised I can move so fast, I crash through the blue-gray doors, turn left and run. I was planning to take the stairs, but the lift’s doors are open. It’s full of people, one of them horizontal and on a trolley. If this were an action movie, I’d climb under the white sheet covering Trolley Man and hide next to him.
As it turns out, I don’t need to do anything so drastic. I hold my breath, but Fiona doesn’t appear, and I hear no running footsteps before the lift doors slide shut.
Less than twenty seconds later, I’m outside and making my escape.
* * *
If there’s anybody reading this who doesn’t already dislike me, prepare to move over to the other side when I describe the rigmarole associated with my going to the police station to tell them what I knew, or thought I knew, or feared, about their quarry Billy Dead Mates.
It’s the same when I need to go anywhere: the rigmarole goes before me, to see how the land lies. I only follow if I’m given suitable assurances. Yes, even when there’s a murderer to catch and my life might be at risk.
You’re confused. Until now, I haven’t sounded like a prima donna. Let’s face it: anyone who lets a stranger stick his fingers into her after only a cursory introduction—that has to be a down-to-earth person, you’d think.
You’d be right. Deep down, I’m approachable, with no airs or graces. There’s a problem, though: if you let it be known that you’re reasonable, with a normal-size ego, enemies and idiots will try to do terrible things to you, and they’ll succeed more often than they would if you were a monstrous neurotic protected by a six-foot-high blockade of restrictions and requirements.
That’s why I armed myself with a list of rules people have to obey if they want to come anywhere near me. Writing it—knowing I meant every word, however preposterous—was one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done. I kept thinking, This can’t be me, laying out all these conditions—not the same me who once waived her fee to do a charity gig hundreds of miles from home, only to discover on arrival that there was a raffle involved and that one of the prizes was dinner with me at a dismal local restaurant in several weeks’ time—which meant traveling back to the Isle of Wight at my own expense to spend an awkward evening with a pensioner called Shirley.
It would be remiss of me to abandon this anecdote without mentioning the photographer, who was supposed to turn up during our dinner and take photographs for the local paper but who was caught in traffic, and so arrived only when the prize-winner and I were leaving. We had our coats on and were standing outside on the pavement, about to step into our respective taxis, but the poor photographer! He’d had such a hellish drive, and he was there—late, but hopefully not too late—with all his kit. Of course, since it had snowed that day, the chance of getting some Winter Wonderland shots—me and Shirley trying to keep our fake grins fixed in place while our teeth chattered and further snow fell on our hoodless heads—was too good to miss, the photographer was sure we’d agree. I don’t know what made him so sure; he knew nothing about either of us. Perhaps that was why he was so determined to interview me as he snapped away.
What is it you do again? They never tell me much about who I’m photographing. Oh, a comedienne. You as funny as Morecambe and Wise, are you? I love Morecambe and Wise. They say women aren’t as funny as men, but I can’t see why that should be the case, personally. Are you funny? What sort of funny are you? Go on, try to make me laugh. I’ll give you an objective assessment, I promise—a mark out of ten. Ten for hilarious, zero for didn’t crack a smile. I don’t flatter people; me—I tell it straight.
That incident should have been my last straw. Bizarrely, it wasn’t. Clearly there’s a huge part of me that has no self-respect whatsoever. That’s why I need the protection of a multi-clause terms-and-conditions document.
My breaking point came when a PR firm for a comedy festival sent a car to collect me from home one day at four thirty A.M. The driver rang the doorbell, waking Gabe and me. Luckily, it wasn’t a Liam night, but it easily could have been. “What . . . ?” I demanded, bleary-eyed. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m here to collect Kim Tribbeck and take her to an interview,” the driver told me.
I was confused. I had interviews scheduled for later that day in London, to help promote an up-and-coming comedy festival, but the first one wasn’t until two P.M. I’d been planning to get the ten thirty train from Rawndesley. When I sought clarification, I was told by a sleep-fugged PR person (to whom I greatly enjoyed giving a taste of her own rest-wrecking medicine) that she was sorry it was such short notice but an amazing opportunity had come up: a TV interview! On some obscure Sky channel that nobody watched! Had no one told me?
No. No one had asked me either.
I dismissed the driver as politely as I could and went back to bed, after a brief conversation with Gabe. He said, “Why are you so polite? Why don’t you tell all these people to fuck off? Not just the ones who send cabs at four thirty in the morning—all of them. You’re great at telling me to fuck off, and you enjoy it so much. Why not branch out to other people?”
