Lost Lives (Emily Swanson Mystery Thriller Series Book 1) (22 page)

“For good?” Emily said, choking back angry tears. “You’re experimenting on people. You’re killing them!”

“Come now, Ms Swanson,” a voice sang out from across the room. “In spite of what my good friend would have you believe, and as I have told you before, we are in the business of saving lives. In the same way we chose not to end your life but to save it, so too did we extend that privilege to Ms Engel.”

Doctor Chelmsford stood in front of the door that led back to the lift. Karl Henry stood on his left, dressed in janitor overalls. The nurse that Grace had attacked at St. Dymphna’s stood on his right. Emily stared from doctor to doctor. Her heart raced.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” Doctor Williams said to Doctor Chelmsford.

“What can I say? A little bird told me we had a very special guest.”

“And where is that little bird now?”

“She flew far, far away.”

“Rosa,” Emily breathed, suddenly aware that the girl had betrayed her. She had been a fool. Rosa had repeatedly worried about her son’s safety. Doctor Williams had known of her previous interactions with Emily. It would have been easy to convince Rosa to lead her straight to them.

“It’s so nice to see you again, Ms Swanson,” Doctor Chelmsford said. “I was beginning to worry that we’d lost you for good, and just when we’d begun get to the root of your problems.”

Emily’s eyes whipped around the room. The only exit was blocked by Chelmsford, Karl, and the nurse. She was trapped.

“Doctor Chelmsford, what are we going to do with this slippery little fish?”

“I for one, Doctor Williams, would be happy to take her off your hands and return to St. Dymphna’s. I do so hate it when treatment isn’t seen through to the end. All of that good work coming undone. And it means having to repeat the whole process all over again. It’s very tedious, don’t you think?”

Doctor Williams bowed his head.

“We’ve missed you at St. Dymphna’s, Ms Swanson,” Doctor Chelmsford said. “Young Grace, especially. She’ll be most pleased to see you return.”

Karl Henry advanced, circling the room, making his way towards her. The nurse remained beside the doctor, guarding the exit.

Emily retreated.

“I’m not going back,” she said.

“I’m afraid you’re left with little choice,” Doctor Chelmsford said. “What will you do? Go the police? What will they believe? The ravings of a convicted lunatic or the wise words of a respected doctor?”

She felt the wall press up against her back. Karl Henry moved straight towards her.

“People who came to you for help are dead,” she said to Doctor Chelmsford, sliding along the wall. “Vulnerable people who put their trust in you, their faith in you, are dead.”

Doctor Chelmsford shrugged his shoulders. “For all diseases the path to a cure is paved with trial and error. It’s a regrettable but necessary evil.”

Karl Henry was dangerously close.

“Look what you let them do to your wife,” she said to him. “You’ll go to prison for it.”

Karl Henry smiled.

“I think our patient is becoming a little upset,” Doctor Chelmsford said. “Doctor Williams, perhaps something to calm her down?”

A sharp jab in Emily’s arm made her cry out. Doctor Williams pulled away, syringe in hand.

“Soon you’ll be calm,” he said, “and then you’ll have a nice, long sleep.”

Emily stared in horror. Karl Henry lunged towards her.

She bolted forwards, knocking the doctor into the wall. His cane clattered to the floor and she swept it up, just as Karl Henry fell upon her. His hand was around her throat, choking her, forcing her down onto her knees. With a strangled scream, she swung the cane up and smashed it into his jaw. He toppled backwards, blood spurting from his lips. Emily scrambled to her feet.

Doctor Chelmsford and the nurse remained where they were, blocking the only way out. Karl Henry pulled himself up onto his hands and knees. Emily swung the cane again, taking out his legs. She leapt away, racing into the smaller room, towards Alina.

There were bolts at the top and bottom of the door. She slid them across. Next, she grabbed the empty hospital bed and pushed it across the door, snapping the wheel locks into place.

She heard voices on the other side, muttering to each other.

The handle moved up and down. Karl Henry threw his weight against the door.

Emily backed away. Her breaths shot in and out of her lungs as hot as fire. She spun around. There was no way out, not even a window to climb through. She was trapped. And now dizziness took her head in its hands and spun her around.

Karl Henry thundered against the door. There was a deafening crack as the top lock flew away.

Emily pulled her phone from her pocket, dropped it, and fell to her knees. Her vision blurred, then corrected itself. She grabbed the phone again and fumbled through the settings. The second lock came away from the door and clattered onto the floor tiles.

Her limbs were turning to lead, her fingers paralysing as they worked on the screen. The room swam away from her, then circled back.

Karl Henry would be through that door in a matter of seconds. They would take her, probably kill her, and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

Leaving her phone, Emily stumbled towards Alina’s bed.

Time seemed to slow down. Air became treacle.

“I’m sorry,” she said, stroking Alina’s hand. Alina’s eyes continued to move under her lids. “Stay asleep. Don’t wake up.”

Emily’s body froze. She fell, slipping away from the bed, hitting the floor.

Rolling onto her back, she looked up at the ceiling. Shadows reached towards her. Sounds came and went. From the periphery of her vision, she saw darkened forms lean over her. Voices spoke but she could no longer hear their words. From the darkness, Phillip’s face appeared.

“Sleep,” he whispered. “Let it all be a dream.”

Then Emily was afloat in a blackened pool. She sailed away, silently and gracefully, like a swan.

“You’ve been playing in the dirt again, haven’t you? Look, you’ve gotten it all over your nice, clean dress. What a mess! Sometimes I think you should have been born a boy! Boys play with cars and girls play with dolls. It’s the way it’s always been. Where did you find that anyway? Look at it! It’s covered in filth and the wheels are missing. Give it to Mummy so she can throw it away. Oh now look what you’ve done! You’ve made Mummy’s hand all dirty. Now we’ll both have to scrub ourselves clean until the dirt has all gone. Yes, it does hurt but that’s because we have to scrub very hard to get rid of all the nasty bacteria. And we must be clean. We must be tidy. Because cleanliness is next to Godliness and being dirty is a sin. Come along now, stop complaining. If you don’t stand still, Mummy will slip just like last time, and that hurt, didn’t it? It bled for a long time. That’s a good girl, nice and still. We both look so pretty now. Pretty as a picture and as clean as a whistle. Won’t you put a smile on your face and stop looking so glum? We must always smile, Emily, even when the world is falling down around us. Because if we can smile, it means that everything will be just fine. That’s right, just like that. Let’s pretend that sadness is just a silly little game.”

Emily opened her eyes. She was in a bed, tucked in with white sheets and a blue blanket. An intravenous drip hung from a pole and a cannula was inserted into the crook of her arm. Sugary globules glistened as they dripped down the tube and travelled towards her veins.

She was in a square room with white walls and a white ceiling. There was a single window, its blinds pulled down.

She tried to sit but it was as if an invisible force pinned her to the bed. She waited, then tried again, finding the strength to pull herself up onto her elbows. The door to the room was open and bright fluorescent lighting came in like an uninvited guest.

Memories returned to her. Fragments of images. Distorted faces. A terrifying sensation of being suffocated. She sat for a minute, swaying in the remnants of deep sleep. Underneath the haze, anxiety grew. Something terrible had happened. To her.

Like a magician’s black cloth, the protective veneer of sleep was ripped away and the memories of what had happened at the Ever After Care Foundation revealed themselves. Emily realised where she was.

Terror surged through her body. Pulling back the sheets, she attempted to swing her legs over the side of the bed. The sedative in her bloodstream held onto her limbs in a vice-like grip. She fought against it, grunting loudly, then fell back onto the mattress. She pushed herself up again and this time, managed to turn herself over. Her legs slipped to the floor, followed by the rest of her body.

Someone was coming. She could heard their footsteps echoing along the corridor.

Some feeling returned to her toes. She looked down at them, concentrating, willing them to move. At first there were only twitches, but then she curled them into a ball and splayed them out in a fan. An itching sensation climbed along her ankles and up to her calves. With tremendous effort, Emily manoeuvred her feet onto the floor and felt the cold of the tiles on her skin. Then, using the IV pole for support she pulled herself up and hobbled away from the bed.

Out in the corridor, the footsteps approached at a steady, determined pace.

A cry escaped Emily’s mouth. Lurching across the room on half-paralysed feet, she reached the window. The chord of the blind swung into view. She caught it in her hands and pulled. Golden light washed over her like a tidal wave, taking her breath away.

She opened the window and looked out. The ground was far below her. Vehicles in the car park were small toys.

She looked back into the hospital room. A shadow in the doorway called her name. Emily turned away. She would not stay here, trapped like a bird in a cage. She would not allow them to violate her mind again.

Using the last of her strength, she hauled herself up onto the window ledge. The sky was infinite above her. Images of her mother lit up her mind. Memories from her life, of happier times. She let them all go sailing out of the window.

Then, with her eyes closed, she released her grip on the window frame and let herself fall. Light caught her in its hands. It cradled her like a child, wrapping her in a blanket of warmth. And then she was laughing. She was free.

“It’s all right now. You’re safe.”

The light dispersed. Emily opened her eyes. She stared up at Jerome’s frightened face as he cradled her in front of the window.

“They can’t hurt you now,” he said.

They sat on the floor until the nurses came, and when they arrived Emily screamed in terror. And then she wept uncontrollably, until the sedative lulled her into dark, dreamless sleep.

***

A week later, detectives were still piecing together the full account of what had taken place at the Ever After Care Foundation and at St. Dymphna’s Private Hospital.

As soon as Jerome had received Emily’s photographs that night, he had taken them straight to the nearest police station. Officers dispatched to the hospice were met by Nurse Bates, who, when questioned, burst into tears, confessed her knowledge of Doctor William’s activities, and led them to the horrors of the attic room.

Doctor Williams didn’t give the police the satisfaction of an arrest. At the first sight of a uniformed officer, he injected himself with a lethal dose of the same barbiturates that kept his subjects in a state of catatonic sleep.

In a bid to escape, Karl Henry ran for his car. It took three officers and a Taser to bring him down.

A squad was then deployed to St. Dymphna’s, where they found Emily unconscious and restrained. Doctor Chelmsford, who had been in the middle of subjecting her to dangerous levels of electric convulsive therapy, was apprehended and taken into custody.

A search of the premises revealed a secure room where nineteen-year-old Helen Avery and twenty-seven-year-old Lan Nguyen were discovered in comatose states. Doctors had managed to wake both women several days ago and were now performing tests to determine exactly what had been done to them.

The nurse who had been in attendance claimed to believe that Doctor Chelmsford’s use of deep sleep therapy was not only legal but beneficial to patients. Further investigations revealed that the doctor had been linked to a number of unresolved patient deaths in Australia several years earlier.

Both hospital and hospice had been quickly shut down, their patients transferred or sent home. Grace had been separated from the other women but had remained unharmed. Her father, it turned out, was both a prominent politician and generous patron of St. Dymphna’s.

Emily had slept through much of the drama. Now that she was awake, she scoured the swathe of television and newspaper reports. Headlines were typically provocative: DOCTORS OF DOOM—A LEGACY OF EVIL! TERMINAL PATIENTS STARVED TO DEATH AT HORROR HOSPICE! DOCTORS ACCUSED OF PATIENT ABUSE—CELEBRITY REHAB TO CLOSE!

Most stories revelled in the grim details of the police findings. To her relief, Emily found no mention of her name. The press, it seemed, had yet to learn how the doctors had been exposed. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before her involvement was revealed, and then she would have scores of journalists knocking on her door. That thought brought back old memories and she shook them off. She would deal with the journalists when the day arrived. Until then, all she wanted was time to heal.

The police had no more questions for now. The doctors were happy to let her return home, albeit with a long prescription of medication, a follow up appointment with a GP the next week, and a referral for counselling.

Jerome picked her up mid-morning on a Monday.

“Ready to go?” he asked, hovering in the doorway.

Emily’s shoulders heaved. “If I never see another hospital again it will be too soon.”

She sat in the back of the taxi, watching pedestrians fill the pavements and listening to the honks of horns as traffic ground to a halt. Jerome glanced at her, then looked away. He had been doing that for the last ten minutes.

“I’m fine,” Emily said.

Jerome nodded, more to himself. The traffic lights turned green.

“How’s Alina doing? Any change?”

“They don’t know if she’ll wake up. Even if she does, the likelihood of her recovering isn’t looking so good.”

The hum of the engine filled the silence.

“That’s awful. What about Reina? And poor Rosa?”

“They’re still looking.”

They pulled up in front of The Holmeswood and Jerome helped Emily out of the car. A light squall of grey clouds hung over the building.

Inside Emily’s apartment, Jerome made coffee and set the pot down on the table. He had made himself quite at home.

“You know, you still haven’t answered my question,” he said, watching Emily with a concerned eye.

“What’s that?”

“About what you’re going to do next.”

Emily thought about it as she stared into her coffee. “I’m not sure I can stay here anymore.”

“You mean this apartment?”

“I mean London.”

Jerome couldn’t hide his disappointment. “Well, I think it would be a shame if you left.”

“You do?”

“Yes, now that you’ve risked your life to uncover a festering bed of crime and untold horrors, living anywhere apart from London’s going to seem positively dull. Besides, what would you do without me?”

His smile was infectious.

“You know what you should do, don’t you?” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Become a private investigator.”

Emily laughed. “My sleuthing days are over.”

Jerome was right about one thing though. She would have to do something with her life sooner or later.

Outside, a light drizzle began to fall.

Emily’s thoughts turned to the events of the last months. The damage that had been done to her would take time to heal, but perhaps there really was a way out of it all, a path that led to a happier, more stable state of mind.

“When I was in that room,” she said, “surrounded by all those bodies—you know what I kept thinking? I kept thinking, what if Doctor Williams was right? What if I could have done something to stop my mother’s pain? What if I’d—”

Jerome took her hand.

“Doctor Williams was a lunatic,” he said. “He and Chelmsford, they experimented on their patients, they left vulnerable people to die like animals in their own filth. I don’t care what they said or believed, their actions had nothing to do with the greater good. They were bad people, Emily. Bad people who did terrible things. You did everything within your power to help your mother. You were there—the only person who was there—when she needed you the most. What more could you have done?”

Emily was quiet. Perhaps Jerome was right. Perhaps not. Time would tell, she supposed.

Outside, the drizzle turned to rain and splashed against the windows. Down in the street, the people of the city grumbled as they put up their umbrellas. Cars and buses drove by, blasting their horns at each other in angry exchanges.

“You should get some sleep,” Jerome said, resting his head on her shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

As she watched the rain come down, as she thought about what she might do with the days that lay ahead of her like empty pages waiting to be filled, Emily took in a deep breath, held it for the longest time, then exhaled.