Flora’s death had cast a long shadow, not just over Drew’s childhood, but the entire family. He missed her even now; she’d understood him in a way that no one else had ever seemed to do, before or since. He wanted to be able to contribute to a greater comprehension of not just the illness that had killed her, but every illness that took someone away from the people they loved. The desire to contribute to the field of forensics had come later; the result of his mother’s death, a second family tragedy he still wasn’t sure had ever really been resolved, even more than a decade after it had happened.
Hospital pathologists split their time over a range of pathology services, but the breadth of Drew’s training and expertise made him the natural choice to undertake postmortems, answering questions that couldn’t be answered in any other way. When he’d joined St Piran’s, he’d been told he’d be expected to develop a specialism which complemented those of others within his team. Despite all the pathologists on the team being given the option to carry out hospital postmortems and some of the non-suspicious deaths referred by the coroner’s office, Drew’s unique range of skills and experience meant that undertaking postmortems had naturally come to take up more of his time and they’d fast become his specialism. The diversity of his role meant that no two days were ever the same, which might seem an odd choice for someone who valued order and certainty as much as he did, but he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to do anything else.
‘We’re going to be busy today.’ Saskia, his assistant, pulled a face as he came into the mortuary. ‘One of the consultants from the emergency department has asked if we can review a patient who died in the early hours of this morning. He was on ACE inhibitors, and they suspect it’s a stroke that took him, but despite him being on treatment for high blood pressure some of the family seem very shocked by his death. His blood pressure was raised, but only just enough to have the lowest level of medication prescribed. They want to rule out any adverse reaction to the medication, and make sure there was nothing else at play. It would be really interesting if we didn’t find any of the ACE inhibitors in his system, but found something else instead…’
Sometimes Saskia had far too much imagination, but that was no bad thing in their line of work. She’d be well suited to forensics, and occasionally he worried that she might move on from the hospital. He relied on Saskia and he could trust her, but most of all they were used to one another. She didn’t try to engage him in chatter about their personal lives, probably because she’d worked out that he didn’t really have one, and that he found it hard to know what to say in response to any updates she might give on hers. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, or even that he wasn’t interested, he just didn’t know what to say in response. They’d quickly come to understand one another and form a good working relationship, despite the lack of small talk. Saskia’s official title was anatomical pathology technologist, but Drew preferred to think of her as invaluable. She did so much of the preparatory work that made his job easier and a lot of the liaison with other staff and departments.
‘We’re also waiting on a decision from the coroner’s office about a potentially unexplained death in Port Tremellien.’ Drew didn’t miss the rise of Saskia’s eyebrows as he spoke; his words had already piqued her interest. ‘She was brought in overnight and they’re reviewing her medical records, but it looks likely we’ll have to add her to the list too.’
‘I would say we might need coffee, but I know you better than that, and I’ve got no doubt you have a packet of wine gums ready to help you through the day.’ Saskia smiled and Drew shrugged in response. He couldn’t help wondering what Saskia made of him. They rubbed along well together, and she always seemed as happy to work alongside him as he was to have her assisting. They both had the option to work with other people, but Saskia never chose to do so. She didn’t look the way someone would expect a mortuary assistant to look; he knew the stereotypes better than anyone, and Saskia didn’t fit any of them. She was young and pretty, and clearly cared a lot about her appearance. It wasn’t that Drew didn’t care about the way he looked, but no one could have accused him of following the latest fashions. He didn’t care about clothes, but he dressed in the kind of classical way that would have been impossible to assign to any particular trend. The things he wore were well made and expensive, but he only ever updated his wardrobe when things needed replacing.
‘You know me, I’m easily pleased.’ Drew’s voice gave away the hint of a Scottish accent, but a private education had softened it to a point where his roots weren’t obvious. That was something else he was glad about. It resulted in far fewer questions about how his life had taken him from one end of the UK to the other. He didn’t want to get into the story with complete strangers; he didn’t want to get into the story with anyone.
‘Listen, I’m not knocking your addiction to wine gums.’ Saskia’s smile was broad and genuine. ‘If a few more people were addicted to them instead of other substances, we wouldn’t be nearly so busy.’
‘That’s true.’ Drew nodded, his thoughts turning to the postmortem he’d performed over the weekend. The man’s addictions had cost him his life, the state of his liver confirming that drink had been a problem for him for a very long time. Somewhere along the line the man had become reliant on alcohol, needing it to get through the day, and addiction was something Drew had witnessed at close quarters. There was nothing he could do directly to help a deceased person by the time he was examining them, but he hoped the work he did might eventually contribute to finding solutions for all kinds of diseases, including addiction. It was a thought that allowed him to continue keeping his own demons at bay.
3
Eden’s next shift at the hospital was an early one. She’d started at seven in the morning and was due to finish at 4p.m., so her parents had taken Teddie to nursery. His Thursday sessions ran between 1-5p.m., and it meant she’d be finished in time to pick him up, even if her working day overran a bit, as it so often did. He’d settled well at Little Sunbeams, but his face still lit up whenever she or one of her parents picked him up. It was a smile that said he was happy to see them, even if he didn’t have the words. She looked forward to seeing that smile every time she had the opportunity to collect him, and after the day she’d had, she needed to see it more than ever.
Eden had been on her feet all day, and the waiting room in the emergency department had got busier and busier as the shift progressed. It was a recipe for frayed nerves and when a fight had eventually broken out between two of the patients it had been no surprise, except that they’d been a married couple in their sixties. The two of them had come in after an accident in the garden, when they’d tried to take down the branch of an old tree. Eden had triaged both of them and although their injuries weren’t serious, nothing more than a few cuts and bruises, it had been clear from the start that the husband was blaming his wife for what had happened.
‘Silly cow. I told her to keep the rope taut, but she got distracted like she always does.’ Michael’s assessment of his wife had been less than flattering, and Eden got the impression that it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken about her like that. She’d tried to smooth the waters, although a big part of her had wanted to tell him that he ought to have a bit more respect for the woman he was supposed to love.
‘You’d be amazed by how often accidents like this happen. DIY injuries keep us in business.’
‘She needs to learn to listen.’ There was a curl of his lip that made Eden really uneasy, and she’d decided that the assessment of his wife should be more than physical.
‘Are you in pain?’ Eden had looked at Isabel when she asked the question, and the older woman had nodded. ‘Whereabouts is the pain?’
‘In my bum, and I’ve been married to him for forty years.’ Isabel had tried to smile, but it went all wobbly. ‘Other than that, it’s on my right-hand side; the end of the branch hit me like a whip, but I don’t think anything’s broken.’
After examining Isabel, Eden suspected she was right, but what she was most concerned about was whether Isabel’s spirit might be broken. The feisty comment about Michael had given her hope, but then she’d started parroting what she must have heard him say on the way in to the hospital.
‘It was my fault, I should have held the rope tighter, but when he cut through the branch I couldn’t seem to hold on. I should have tried harder, I shouldn’t be so weak.’
‘I don’t think many people could hold on to branch like that, and I doubt very much it’s the technique a tree surgeon would use.’ Eden had softened her tone after that, not wanting Isabel to think she was berating her too. ‘Was it your idea or your husband’s to take that approach?’
‘It was Michael’s. Everything we do is his idea.’ Isabel’s response had made Eden’s heart sink, but it was enough to tell her that it might not just be her physical injuries they needed to focus on. Eden had recognised herself in Isabel’s words; the same lack of autonomy over her actions because her partner dictated everything. Jesse had controlled their whole lives and she’d had a horrible feeling that Isabel was a victim of some form of coercion, but getting her to admit it could be next to impossible.
‘Do you get any say in things?’ Eden had been in this situation often enough to know that sometimes the best approach was to tread carefully, not just on a professional basis but in her own life too. Back when she’d been with Jesse, if anyone tried to suggest he was controlling her, she’d shut them down. Part of the reason had been because she didn’t want to admit she was being manipulated, but she’d been terrified of the consequences too. She was scared that Jesse might follow through on the threats he’d made about hurting himself, but there was something else that frightened her. After so long together, she’d had no idea who she was without Jesse any more and whether she even had the ability to make her own decisions. It had felt as if he’d stripped away the old Eden bit by bit and she’d almost become robotic, operating only on his command. In the end, her love for Teddie had been what had made her realise the old Eden was still in there somewhere. She’d had no way of knowing whether Isabel felt the same, but pushing the other woman too hard would almost certainly have made her clam up altogether. For a moment, Isabel had held her gaze and, she’d thought her patient was going to confide in her, but then the other woman shrugged.
‘It’s fine, he knows best about these things.’ Isabel’s expression hadn’t matched her words, and Eden had decided not to let it drop that easily.
‘If you feel like you’re being pushed into things you wouldn’t choose to do, or that you don’t have the right to say no, then it really isn’t fine.’
‘It’s not that bad, I’m exaggerating.’ Isabel’s face had looked like a mask, and Eden had a horrible feeling she spent most of her life wearing that same mask. It was something else she’d recognised only too well, after years of pretending to be okay when all she’d really wanted was to find a way to escape.
‘There are organisations that could help and I could give you some information.’
‘No!’ Isabel’s response had left no room for misinterpretation, as she cut Eden off. In the end, all Eden could do was record her concerns on Isabel’s notes. When she was seen by another member of the team, there would be a second opportunity for Isabel to open up, although Eden suspected she never would. The last thing she’d expected was for Isabel to suddenly find her voice and a whole lot more, as she and Michael waited to be seen. Eden had heard him continuing to make comments to his wife about how stupid she was, when she’d called other patients in to be triaged. Despite the busyness of the waiting room, the space around Michael and Isabel was an indicator of how uncomfortable his behaviour was making other people feel, too.
Eden had just decided she needed to speak to someone else on the team, despite what Isabel had said to her about not needing help, when the older woman had suddenly got to her feet and swung her handbag like a baseball bat before launching it at her husband’s head and shouting at him at the top of her voice to ‘shut the eff up’. He’d reacted instantly, by grabbing hold of her hair. Eden had shot forward to try and separate them, but one of the porters and a couple of other patients got there first. The couple were separated and Isabel was taken to another part of the department, while Michael shouted that he wanted the police called and that he was going to have her arrested.
Eden hadn’t been able to see Isabel again, because there’d been other patients who needed triaging, but Esther, the head of the nursing team, had come to find her afterwards, for a debrief. She’d told Eden that Isabel’s sister was coming to the hospital to pick her up, and that her sister had been urging her to leave Michael for years, after four decades of coercive control. He’d never actually hit her, which was why she tried to convince herself that his behaviour wasn’t that bad, but all those years of belittling and controlling her, and lashing out with insults and demands had ground her down. In the end, it was the fact that it had driven her to physically lash out at him, that had made her want to take action. Isabel had told Esther she was frightened of what she might do next otherwise and had asked her to pass her thanks on to Eden, because she’d shown her that there were still people who cared. It was something she’d almost stopped believing after so much abuse from Michael. They couldn’t be sure whether Isabel would stick with her intention to finally leave him, but at least she was safe for now.
It was days like this that reminded Eden how much better off she was on her own. It had taken her far too long to break away from Jesse. He’d been able to manipulate her into believing that he couldn’t live without her, and that she’d be responsible for what happened to him if she left. The first time she’d tried to go, he’d rung his sister, Sadie, telling her he couldn’t go on without Eden. Sadie had arrived begging Eden not to leave, and to hold on just long enough for him to get stronger. Jesse and his sister had lost their parents by the time they were both in secondary school, as a result of addiction and suicide, and they were all each other had. Eden had understood that bond only too well, because of what she and her brother had been through together growing up; their mother’s addiction had blighted their lives too, if not to the same extent. Sadie had been the only constant in Jesse’s life, and somehow she’d managed to break the family curse, in a way that he hadn’t. She desperately wanted to save her brother from the fate their parents had faced, and when she’d stood in front of Eden, pleading for her not to risk Jesse’s life by leaving, Eden had realised that by agreeing to stay there was a chance she might never be able to leave. She was effectively handing down her own prison sentence, but in that moment, she hadn’t been able to see any other way forward.
