Deadly Secrets (Detective Erika Foster #6)(69)

‘I know you do.’

‘And then the heating broke. I tried to get by with the fire. The ‘lectric went. I always pay the bills, Erika. You know that, don’t you?’

She nodded.

‘I’m here now, and I’m going to make sure that everything is fixed,’ she said.

‘You’re a good lass.’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve had a hip replacement?’

‘Yes. They put some pins in there too, the doctor said…’ He swallowed and started to cough. Erika took a cup from the cupboard by the bed and poured him some water from a jug. ‘Thanks, love.’ He drank the whole cup and passed it back to her. ‘I’ll be on the mend before you know it. Although, I’m not sure if I’ll have a bit of a problem in the shops.’

‘Why the shops?’

‘Won’t the pins beep when I go through the security barriers? It’s right embarrassing when it happens in Tesco.’

‘No, it’s not a metal detector in the shops, that’s only in airports.’

‘Oh,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m not planning on going anywhere, so that doesn’t matter. It’s so lovely to see you. Are you staying long?’

‘I’ll stay as long as you need me.’

He waved it away. Isaac appeared at the top of the ward, and Erika nodded and beckoned him over.

‘This is my friend – colleague – Isaac Strong,’ said Erika. Edward looked up and took his hand, and they shook.

‘Very nice to meet you, Mr Foster. Erika’s told me a lot about you.’

‘Bet you think I’m a right fool though.’

Isaac shook his head and smiled.

‘You’re a big lad… Tall.’

‘Er, yes. No good at sports though.’

Edward squinted up at him. ‘Shame, I bet you would have made a cracking high jumper.’

‘Isaac is a doctor, a forensic pathologist.’

‘Is that dead people?’

Isaac smiled. ‘Yes.’

Edward chuckled. ‘I nearly needed your services. Thankfully the postman saw me.’

‘No!’ said Isaac, his eyebrows shooting up in alarm.

‘I’m just kidding, lad, nice to meet you. Any friend of Erika’s is a friend of mine.’

A doctor appeared at the top of the ward and asked to speak to Erika. She left Isaac with Edward, and followed the doctor to the nurses’ station.

‘It was a fairly straightforward operation,’ he said. ‘We’ve already had him up and about. Recovery time is fast.’

‘Good.’

The doctor’s face clouded over. ‘We are, however, concerned by the situation at home. Edward is underweight, and has a vitamin deficiency. He also came in with a nasty urinary tract infection. Normally we wouldn’t risk operating on a man in his condition, but the break was very bad. Luckily, the infection is starting to respond to antibiotics. We can’t discharge him until we know he has a care plan in place. Are you local?’

Erika explained that she lived in London. She recounted the conversation she’d had with Edward on Christmas Day, and how he had been confused. The doctor nodded and listened.

‘Often, one of the symptoms of a urinary tract infection is confusion – or even hallucinations,’ he said, regarding Erika gravely. ‘This doesn’t solve our problem with him living on his own and being vulnerable, though. I’m going to recommend social services pay his house a visit, to see what his living situation is like.’

He left Erika and went off on his rounds, and she stood for a moment in the corridor. Trying to work out how it had come to this. How fast the time had gone. It had come too soon for her to be facing middle age with an elderly father-in-law to look after.

This was why she buried herself in work. Work made her feel alive, and young. Work was constant. There were always bad guys out there to catch. Evil had no age limit. She shook the thought away.

‘That’s fucked up,’ she said to herself. She smoothed down her hair and went back into the ward.





Fifty





Moss felt the Marissa Lewis murder case, complicated by the gas mask attacks, was spinning out of her control – and as the acting SIO, she was still playing catch up. She was used to being a cog; in fact, she prided herself on being a cog in the overall machine: keeping things oiled, providing support and cracking jokes when things seemed to get tense.

Now she was the boss, she felt the pressure of scrutiny, and despite only being the temporary SIO, she felt the shift in the team and the way they behaved towards her. She was called ‘ma’am’. The first time Sergeant Crane had called her ‘ma’am’, she’d thought of a joke –something along the lines of it rhyming with ‘Spam’. But she’d stopped herself, realising she needed to be serious.

The other thing that was hampering her progress was the way Erika worked as an SIO. She didn’t write much down, preferring to work in her head, so Moss had spent most of the day playing catch up. The superintendent had asked her if anyone had re-interviewed Marissa’s mother, Mandy about her sleeping arrangements, and Moss had been clueless, racking her brains and trying to think back to the reports she’d read: did the superintendent mean Mandy’s sleeping arrangements as in the men she shared her bed with, or where she slept? Moss remembered at the last minute Mandy had been sleeping downstairs when Marissa was murdered, but drawing a blank had shaken her up. She couldn’t bear the thought of being demoted back to a Detective Inspector before the case was solved, but she had no clue as to how she was going to solve it, and even whether she could. Erika solved the cases, and she was always there ready to execute orders. Moss realised now how much she enjoyed following orders.