Desperate Measures - страница 2

‘Can I have your ice cream?’ he said.

‘All right then but not this.’ She grabbed the flake and bent to kiss him, he dodged, ‘Ewww! Get off.’

Janine kissed Charlotte on the top of her head, less ice cream there than anywhere else, and then set off.

In the car, she keyed the postcode into the satnav and saw that the address was only a couple of miles to the west. It was still light, just before seven, on an early autumn day.

I hate your job, Eleanor had said. And I love it, Janine thought. It was always challenging and there were times when it was exhausting, when it was hard to stomach, times when it could break your heart if you let it. But she was experienced and skilled, she had to be to reach the level of Detective Chief Inspector, and the work was compelling. Most of all, it mattered – to her and her team and to the people who were left behind.

Monday – 24 hours earlier

When the coroner announced the verdict, Adele Young felt as if someone had reached into her chest and torn the heart from her. After all this, the weeks of grieving, the long dark nights with the walls closing in and all she could feel was an absence, Marcie missing, after the battle to try and get someone to listen, to take her seriously and understand that her daughter’s death could have been prevented. After all that to be told this.

The clerk was calling for order. Adele’s eyes flew across the courtroom to the public gallery where he sat, Dr Halliwell, and she saw relief in the twitch of his mouth, then he looked straight at her, some sort of sick triumph in his eyes.

Accidental death. She staggered and felt Howard grab her, heard him shout, ‘Travesty, a bloody travesty!’

Adele bit down hard on her tongue, determined not to weep. She could bawl her eyes out later, in private, but in public she would not give them that satisfaction.

She wondered again how it would’ve been if Marcie had been some rich white kid instead of a poor black girl. If Marcie had been the GP’s daughter or the daughter of the coroner sat up there in his fancy carved chair. Would it have been accidental death then?

People were filing out. She turned to Howard; his eyes burned with outrage.

‘The papers will be outside,’ she said, ‘the telly.’ Marcie’s inquest had attracted plenty of media attention already. Adele’s belief that Dr Halliwell had treated Marcie wrongly and that medical neglect had led to her death made for a human interest story. It had attracted sharks too. Legal firms (at least that’s what they called themselves) had hounded her, touting for business, eager to bring suits against the GP. It wasn’t money she was interested in, it was recognition, acknowledgment, apology. It was making people see that doctors should listen to their patients, to family and not play God. She didn’t want her efforts to be tainted with the smell of chasing money, no matter how hard up they were. And times were hard. Harder than they’d ever been.

‘It doesn’t stop here,’ she said to Howard. ‘We carry on.’

He gave a shake of his head. She saw the muscles in his face move, his jaw set tight, too angry to speak. He had been with Adele every step of the way even though Marcie wasn’t his by birth. He’d moved in six years back and come to love Adele’s daughter as his own. He had been at Adele’s side day and night. They’d taken out a loan recently so he could buy a decent suit to wear to the court, and smart shoes. This morning he’d shaved his face and oiled his hair and put on a clean shirt with the suit and she was so proud of him, proud and thankful. He was a fine-looking man, a good man, skin the colour of dark chocolate, almond eyes, a slow smile which still made her stomach turn even after all these years. Not that there had been anything to smile about in these last months.

She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on.’

Their appearance outside was stage managed by someone from the court press office. All the main players, the doctor and herself, had to be ready and in place. Adele would be able to speak first, if she wished, then Dr Halliwell. She did wish.