The scrum of photographers and reporters hummed and surged like a swarm of bees.
Adele felt a moment’s dizziness and reached for Howard’s arm. A microphone was thrust into her face. ‘Mrs Young how do you feel about today’s verdict?’
‘Devastated,’ she said with a crack in her voice but she reined in her nerves and spoke louder. ‘We are not giving up. We will keep fighting for justice for Marcie until we win.’
‘You’re not satisfied with the jury’s verdict?’
‘Satisfied?’ Howard shouted, ‘This isn’t justice, this is a mockery.’
Don’t. ‘Wait!’ She spoke over Howard, squeezing his hand to silence him. If he lost his temper here who knew what he might say or do and then they’d be labelled troublemakers, lowlife scum, the same as Marcie had been by the worst of gutter press.
She turned back to face the cameras. ‘We’ll get an independent review for Marcie and if that doesn’t work we’ll go to the ombudsman. These professionals need to start listening to us, to the families. And we need to stand up for ourselves and for the ones that are vulnerable, like Marcie, because no-one listens to them. We still believe that her care fell well short of what was required. We are especially concerned that our wishes were ignored, our concerns dismissed by her GP and we believe that led directly to her death. If we had been listened to, Marcie would still be with us today.’
Inside her something broke. She felt tears in her throat, and pain in her chest. She fought to breathe. At some signal, a final round of photographs was captured before Adele and Howard were edged away and Dr Halliwell took centre stage. He looked sober, dignified, with his greying hair and his smart camel coat. Silver spoon, that’s what her mother would’ve said, nursed on a silver spoon.
Dr Halliwell made all the right noises; Relieved… very sad case of Marcie Young… sanity prevailed. As though Adele with her quest was insane, mental, off the wall.
She watched him talk, the man who had been her family GP all her life, who had seen her through her pregnancy and given Marcie her first jabs, the man who prescribed anti-depressants when Adele went to him in tears, at her wit’s end with her daughter’s antics. The man who, in the last prescriptions he had written for Marcie Young, signed her death warrant as far as Adele was concerned.
She watched him speak, that mock sincerity, slick tongue and clever words. And she hated him. For his arrogance and his lies. For what he had done. She hated him and she wished him dead.
‘You have to keep calm,’ Adele said to Howard in the taxi home.
He shot her a glance, his eyes still bright with anger. ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ he said, ‘it’s all a sham, a fucking sham.’
‘It’s all there is,’ she said.
‘People like us, the system is stacked against us.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ She was suddenly angry at him. ‘But there’s nothing else we can do.’
He looked away from her, out of the window at the rain. ‘He needs teaching a lesson.’
Adele just caught his words. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said quietly, anxious that the taxi driver might overhear. ‘Don’t you start thinking like that. That’s no answer.’
He didn’t reply. They sat in silence. She listened to the beat of the windscreen wipers and the drone of the traffic and closed her eyes. Inside she was trembling, her stomach knotted, her chest aching. She had clung to the hope that today would bring some resolution. Instead they’d been kicked in the teeth.
Peggy’s breathing was worse. Roy checked that the oxygen mask was in the right position and that the cylinder had plenty in reserve.
Peggy was asleep, she’d barely woken in the past few days. The medicine that helped with the pain also made her drowsy.
He wondered if he should send for the priest yet. She was dying. He knew that. Dr Halliwell had explained it clearly, talked to them about hospices, but Peggy wanted to be at home. And Roy wanted her there. Nevertheless calling the priest seemed so final, like throwing in the towel. But if he delayed and she died before having the last rites she’d never forgive him. No, that wasn’t true, he thought, Peggy had always been a forgiving sort, a peacemaker, a good Catholic. It was more that Roy would feel bad for letting her down if he misjudged the timing.
