Stay Dead by Jessie Keane

Author:Jessie Keane [Keane, Jessie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781447254324
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

58

The brunette was right; next day, Annie felt a little better. The night had been bad. When she turned over, the pain woke her and then there was too much noise to get back to sleep, people talking and laughing, people crying out, some mad old lady trying to get into bed with one of the other women in the ward and the nurses having to come running. Annie didn’t know what time that happened, maybe three; and then when things died down again, when they’d ushered the old dear back to her own bed and finally she did sleep, there was another nurse, at six in the bloody morning, nudging her awake to take a painkiller.

Christ, I’ve got to get out of here.

She was given a brisk bed bath at nine, and then breakfast was wheeled in. She didn’t touch it. Felt sick to her stomach to even look at food, to even think about it. And then at eleven, DCI Hunter and DS Sandra Duggan came to see her.

‘Oh Gawd, look what the cat’s dragged in,’ she moaned, closing her eyes. When she opened them, they were still there; Hunter looking solemn, DS Duggan looking suspiciously pleased to see her come to this.

‘What happened, Mrs Carter?’ asked Hunter, ignoring her remark. ‘Ask too many questions or something?’

Or something, thought Annie.

‘The nurse tells me that you have bad bruising and a cracked rib,’ he said.

‘Give that boy a coconut,’ said Annie, propping herself up a bit, wincing.

‘Who did it?’

‘Two men. Don’t know their names.’

‘Could you describe them?’

‘No.’ A vision of Eyebrows and Baldy flashed into her brain. She could describe them perfectly well, but she didn’t have to. ‘I couldn’t. It all happened too fast.’

‘The nurse said you were left in the hospital car park.’

‘I got nothing to tell you,’ said Annie tiredly.

‘Hm,’ said Hunter. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive,’ she said, and closed her eyes.

‘You want us to notify anyone for you? Any relatives?’

Annie thought of Ruthie and shook her head. Whatever was going on, it had already brought grief down on Ellie’s head, and her own. She didn’t want Ruthie getting dragged into the mix too.

‘You can tell Mrs Brown at the Shalimar. If she’s interested. And the hotel I’m staying at, they must be wondering what the fuck’s going on.’

She gave him the hotel’s name and address and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Hunter and Duggan were gone. And she needed to get to the loo; no way was she using a fucking bedpan again. She levered herself to the side of the bed and her head started swimming like a bastard. She tottered to her feet, grabbed at the metal headboard and just about stopped herself going sprawling to the floor.

‘You want to take it easy, love,’ said the gummy elderly woman in the next bed. Her teeth grinned from a glass on the bedside table. ‘Call the nurse, she’ll help you.’

Or sit me on that ruddy contraption again.

Annie ignored the advice and somehow got to the foot of the bed.

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