She liked Emily, and she sympathised over this terrible ordeal that she was going through. But the best-case scenario was that Emily had fabricated this whole story, and if she had, Geraldine would come down hard on her, mental health issues or not. It was an offence to waste police time.
Chapter Eighteen
The woman who opened the door looked Geraldine up and down, inspecting her thoroughly. ‘Oh,’ she said.
She looked harassed, her movements jerky. Her red hair was scraped up in a loose bun, revealing her fine-boned features. She had one shoe on.
‘Is everything alright?’ Geraldine asked.
The woman waved her into the hallway. ‘No, no, everything is fine. I was just expecting someone younger. The agency called you a girl.’
The woman opened a shoe box and hunted through it. ‘For god’s sake, I can’t find anything. The house is a mess. I’ve had to cancel a dental appointment. Isobel hasn’t even had her breakfast yet. I’m sorry, but she’s really playing up this morning.’
‘And you’re . . . ?’ Geraldine prompted.
The woman looked confused. ‘Jemma Dalloway. Did they not tell you my name? God, this is such a mess. Please tell me they told you this wasn’t just a day job. I don’t see any cases with you. If so, I’ll ring them now.’
Geraldine realised Jemma Dalloway had mistaken her for someone else. She would hang fire a little longer before she revealed who she was. ‘No, they didn’t tell me that.’
Jemma stood straight and planted her hands on her hips. ‘Well, that just takes the biscuit. What am I supposed to do when you go home? I’ve got the horses to mind. This house. Isobel. And, of course . . . ’
She stopped speaking and hung her head.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t stay,’ Geraldine answered truthfully.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Jemma replied. She closed her eyes briefly and sighed in frustration. ‘Maria going home couldn’t have come at a worse time.’
‘Maria?’
‘Isobel’s nanny. My lifeline. My saviour.’ She bit her lip and tried to smile. ‘God, I’m selfish. The poor woman has gone home desperate.’
Geraldine opened her eyes wider to encourage her to keep talking.
Jemma suddenly seemed to realise she was telling some complete stranger her personal business. She tilted her head and her eyes swept over Geraldine again, taking in the business suit, the pale lilac shirt, her confidence, her direct eye contact.
‘You didn’t give your name?’
‘Detective Inspector Geraldine Sutton from Avon and Somerset Police.’ Geraldine pulled out her warrant card to show Jemma.
Her mouth opened. The penny dropped.
‘Oh my god, I’ve been rattling on and you’re not here from the agency at all. You’ve come to see Maria, haven’t you?’
Geraldine gave a sound of disappointment.
‘She’s gone home. She said she was going to call the police. I didn’t realise she had. Rupert feels so damned guilty. He should have driven her to the airport and put her on the plane. We both feel guilty.’
‘Maria didn’t tell us anything.’ Again, Geraldine decided to stick with the truth.
‘Oh dear, her English gets worse when she’s stressed. And she’s worse again on the phone. Her niece Katka didn’t get on her flight. Rupert was going to take her to the airport. He was going to finish work early. Katka went shopping in Bath and then met him at the hospital, but then he had an emergency to deal with. He’s a surgeon. He called her a taxi instead and left her to make her own way. We feel so bad because her English is non-existent. And she’s so young. We should have let Maria take her. We’re waiting to hear from Maria to see that she got home alright. She should have called by now.’
Geraldine was becoming more interested by the minute. Maybe there was something to Emily’s story after all. It seemed that there was indeed a missing young woman.
‘What was Katka doing here?’ she asked.
Jemma dragged her fingers through her hair. ‘She was mainly here to visit her aunt. But probably to see if she liked it here. We told Maria she should learn to speak English.’
Geraldine was now thinking she would have to speak to Rupert Dalloway. Get him to give his account of the situation.
The phone on the hall table suddenly let out a piercing ring. A young girl came running into the hallway, her hair tangled and loose, wearing her pyjamas.
Jemma stopped the girl just in time before she picked up the handset. She admonished her silently by pressing a firm finger to her own lips.
‘Hello, Jemma Dalloway speaking.’
From where she stood Geraldine could hear the excited voice of a woman speaking rapidly.
‘Slow down,’ Jemma said. ‘Speak slowly.’
The voice became softer, the dialogue slowed down. A serious expression covered Jemma’s face. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry to hear that, Maria. The police are here now asking about Katka.’ Jemma looked over at Geraldine and raised a finger. ‘Katka’s still missing. Would you like to talk to Maria?’
Geraldine shook her head. ‘No, that’s fine. You talk to her.’
Jemma carried on talking, nodding a few times as if her caller could see her. ‘I understand. Well, we’ll just have to make do until you can come back.’
The child was jumping up and down, agitated, clearly understanding the gist of the conversation. She was older than Tommy by at least two years; Tommy had just turned four but the girl’s behaviour reminded Geraldine of his when he was unhappy. In fact, her behaviour was not so different to Danny, her two-year-old, though he behaved better than his older brother.
‘Calm down, Isobel,’ Jemma said, as the call ended. ‘Maria will be back soon.’
The doorbell rang and as Geraldine was nearer to the door, she opened it. A young, pretty woman stood there; smiling. She wore a fawn dress with a white collar, brown laced shoes, white gloves and a brown hat on her head, Mary Poppins-style, with the letter N crested on a hat badge. A Norland Nanny. She had a suitcase at her side. ‘Hello, I believe you’re expecting me. I’m Felicity.’
Geraldine waved goodbye to Jemma Dalloway, perturbed that the matter now had to be dealt with seriously. It had not been a wild goose chase, and now she had to consider if there was more truth to Emily’s story. She fervently hoped not and that this niece was merely missing. She hoped Emily had taken this nanny’s concern over her missing niece and had fitted it to something she only thought she had witnessed. The only way to prove what had happened was to find the niece. And find her fast. Otherwise Geraldine was going to have an investigation on her hands that was the stuff of nightmares. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she said under her breath as she made her way to her car. Emily certainly kept her busy.
Chapter Nineteen
Emily slept poorly. All night her mind had been going over the interview with Geraldine. She had walked out of the police station feeling fragile, exposed, out on a limb. Geraldine had offered no reassurance that she had done the right thing by speaking to the police. She had acted officially, giving no hint of what she thought of the situation. Emily felt sick with nerves.
At work she felt worse. At every corner she turned she had expected to see Dalloway or Barrows. Having spoken about the two of them to Geraldine last night, she felt sure the secret was stamped on her face. But she made herself go to work for one reason – she had to find proof that Katka had been a patient there. Maria’s testimony that she’d come to the hospital, and Emily having seen her, was not going to be enough evidence that something had happened to her. Proof had to be found.
She had come in earlier hoping to look at the operating lists for the day she herself was a patient, hoping to find Katka recorded as one, but there were too many staff around, even at that hour, to risk looking. She wondered why Katka had been a patient in the first place. Had she become ill while waiting to go to the airport? Had she been brought into the hospital, even though it was private, because it was the nearest one? And if so, why hadn
’t anyone informed Dalloway? Had a different doctor attended to her? She had no answers to these questions. She felt wrung out. Her shift was nearly ending and she was yet to come up with an idea about where she would find this proof.
The emergency call bell sounded and she froze momentarily before pelting out of the treatment room, her eyes scanning the corridor. The light outside Neil Jeffries’ room was flashing. Mrs Jeffries was standing in the doorway, frantic. ‘What’s happened? He was asleep when I left him.’ She grabbed Emily’s arm to get an answer.
‘Move out of the way, Mrs Jeffries. I need to get to your husband.’
‘I had only been gone for five minutes,’ she screeched.
Shelly was already in the room, moving locker and visitor’s chair away from the bed. Neil Jeffries’ lips were swollen and his tongue protruded from his mouth. He was wheezing as he tried to draw in air.
‘Shelly, Grab the crash trolley, he needs adrenaline now, and put out an arrest call,’ said Emily.
While she waited she placed an oxygen mask over his face and turned the flow up high. She pressed the start button on the monitor to get his vital signs. His lips were blue and she worried they wouldn’t get an airway in with so much swelling. The skin of his eyelids had ballooned. A rash had spread across his face and chest. Behind her she could hear Mrs Jeffries yelling for Mr Dalloway. ‘Mr Dalloway. Anyone? I want someone here who knows what they’re doing!’
As Shelly wheeled in the trolley, Emily gave orders. ‘Put defib pads on his chest, Shelly. Do you know how?’
Shelly nodded.
Emily had already looked at the man’s bare chest. He needed some of the hair gone to allow the skin to make contact with the pads. ‘Shave his hair, you’ve seen it done. No messing. Just do it quick.’
Shelly got on with the tasks efficiently. There was no sign of the crash team and he was about to stop breathing. Emily prepared to insert an airway. She switched on the overhead lamp and shone it directly into the man’s face. Pulling his lower jaw open, she immediately saw the back of his throat was occluded. She was not going to get an airway in. She heard the sound of running feet and looked up gratefully. Dalloway and Meredith rushed into the room.
‘Anaphylaxis. His airway is occluded. I’m not sure whether inserting a tube is going to be possible.’ She said this last thing to Meredith as it would be her who would be managing his airway.
‘What’s happening to him?’ Mrs Jeffries wailed.
‘Something has caused him to have a severe reaction.’ Dalloway answered. ‘We’re going to treat him now.’
‘What did you give him?’ Her tone was accusing and Emily didn’t need to look at the woman to know the question was directed at her.
Instead she spoke to Shelly. ‘Shelly, take Mrs Jeffries to the waiting room. Make her some tea and stay with her, please.’
‘I’m not leaving. I don’t trust you,’ the woman protested.
Shelly intervened and cajoled the woman away. Meredith had already inspected the airway. Dalloway had just given intravenous adrenaline. ‘I’m going to have to do a tracheotomy,’ Meredith said.
Dalloway and Emily immediately prepared a station. After removing items from the top of the bedside locker and placing them on the floor, they used the surface to open a sterile dressing pack. Emily opened size six sterile gloves. Dalloway opened a sterile scalpel, sterile forceps and a narrow airway. In the bottom drawer a small bottle of iodine was found and he trickled brown liquid directly onto the patient’s skin. Speed was of the essence. There was no time for correct procedure. Meredith doused her hand with alcohol rub before pulling on the gloves. She tutted. ‘Could have picked a bigger size.’
Dalloway donned a pair also. He placed a finger on the man’s throat, feeling for the place where he would cut. ‘Emily, can you change that suction tube to a Yankauer and get ready to apply suction.’ Emily pulled one from the crash trolley and went to the wall behind the bed and changed the flexible catheter for a more rigid, wider tube that would suck fluid faster.
‘You want me to cut and you insert the airway?’ he asked Meredith.
‘Good plan. Ready when you are.’
The three stood together as close as they could get without hindering each other’s part in the procedure.
Dalloway picked up the scalpel and sliced the blade an inch down the man’s throat. He took the forceps and spread the first layers of skin. He drew the blade back though the bloody line, making a hole in the man’s throat and said, ‘Suction.’
Emily cleared the blood fast and Meredith inserted the narrow tube. Cut, suction, insert. It was done.
Emily breathed a sigh of relief. Neil Jeffries’ eyes flickered open and she spoke to him. ‘You’re doing fine. You have a small tube in your throat temporarily to help you breathe. Don’t speak. Just rest now.’
He blinked and tears trickled down his temples. He had been afraid. Emily gave a small nod to let him know she understood.
Over the next hour his condition stabilised. He was given more drugs: hydrocortisone, chlorpheniramine, salbutamol, which would open up his airway, reduce the swelling and relieve the symptoms and he improved considerably. He would go to theatre to have the opening in his neck sutured closed, but not today.
Mrs Jeffries had not yet come back to the room. Dalloway and Meredith were with her letting her know how her husband was.
Meredith now came back into the room, her expression serious.
‘What’s up?’ Emily asked, thinking she was going to have to speak to Mrs Jeffries. She had no idea why her patient had had a reaction. It was nothing she had given. He had received only his prescribed medications, which he’d been on the last few days and would have reacted to by now if he was allergic to any of them.
‘The police are here.’
Emily stiffened. She didn’t wait to ask Meredith who or what they were there for. She just wanted to hide.
Her heart was pounding as she made her way along the corridor. Geraldine was standing at the end. The door of the waiting room opened and Mrs Jeffries stepped out and immediately saw her. ‘I don’t want you anywhere near my husband. You’re a goddamn liability! First you can’t remember if you gave him his tablets, and then you give him something that almost killed him. I’ve just told Mr Dalloway that you should be struck off. If I see you go near my husband again, I shall remove him from this hospital.’
‘You need to sit down,’ Geraldine said, and from nowhere she produced a plastic chair, right there in the corridor. Emily almost fell onto it.
‘Why have you come here to see me?’ she gasped frantically.
Geraldine shook her head. ‘I haven’t, Emily. I’m here to see Mr Dalloway.’
When her breathing steadied, Emily got up off the chair and excused herself. Slowly she made her way to the waiting room, relieved to see that it was now empty. From the water cooler she took a paper cup, filled it to the brim and drank it back in one go. Her eyes stretched wide, and her mouth opened and closed as she gulped in air. She felt cold and clammy and her stomach was doing somersaults. She only just made it to the plastic wastepaper bin before she threw up. Dalloway was being interviewed and she was terrified he would say that she had made it all up.
Chapter Twenty
The office was blessedly cool and Geraldine felt instant relief at not being clammy. As the surgeon settled behind his desk, Geraldine remarked on the situation she’d witnessed. ‘Looks like you had an unhappy customer on your hands.’
He grimaced. ‘Indeed. Mrs Jeffries can be a tad volatile when she’s displeased. But in fairness she has just witnessed her husband gasping for his life.’
‘She seemed to be blaming the nurse.’
He shrugged. ‘I have no idea what caused it, to be honest. We’ve only just got him out of
the woods and I haven’t yet had a chance to investigate the situation.’
Geraldine gave a guilty look. ‘And now I’m taking up your time.’
‘The receptionist said you’d like to speak to me quite urgently.’
‘Well,’ she shrugged, ‘urgent as in quite quickly. I don’t know whether what I want to speak to you about is an urgent matter or not. That’s why I’m here.’
He settled his elbows on the arms of his chair and clasped his hands, his attention focused.
‘I’ve been out to your home this morning, Mr Dalloway.’
‘My home?’ He looked shocked.
She raised a hand. ‘Yes, nothing to be alarmed about. Your wife and daughter are both fine and Mrs Dalloway was very helpful.’
‘Dr Dalloway,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’
‘My wife, she’s a doctor too.’
Geraldine thought this irrelevant right now, but if he wished to correct her that was fine by her. She wondered if his wife was a GP seeing as he addressed her as Dr Dalloway. She knew that only surgeons, especially senior ones and consultants, were addressed as Mr/Miss/Ms/Mrs. It was because of some centuries-old tradition in the medical world. Until her own obstetrician explained it to her she’d previously wondered why Jac Naylor in Holby City was always addressed as Miss Naylor. ‘Right, well in that case, Dr Dalloway was most helpful in explaining about your nanny’s missing niece.’
He leaned forward, sitting up straight. ‘Sorry, you’ve lost me. You went to my home because of Maria’s niece? Has she been found?’
Geraldine shook her head. ‘Not that I’m aware of. I believe Maria has arrived safely home, but that her niece has still failed to return.’
Dalloway was frowning. ‘That is a worry. So what’s happened, did Maria contact you, or the police from her country?’