‘They won’t, Mum. I’m just interested, that’s all.’
‘Mmm, not falling for that, but anyway – he’s difficult to work out. No one mentioned a girlfriend to me.’
‘Did you learn anything about him at all? Was there talk about Toffee – the man in hospital?’
‘The other volunteers can understand why he’s spending so much time at the hospital. According to Sheila and Lyndsey, Simon and Toffee spent a lot of time in his office and they seem to have a special bond.’
‘Did you meet any of the other regulars to the hostel? Did you meet a young woman called Martine?’
‘I heard her name mentioned.’
‘If you get the chance to talk to the people who come in – just listen out for anything that seems worth remembering.’
‘I told you, I’m not spying for you.’
‘Just helping people, that’s all. Not spying.’
‘There is something – nothing really but when I left there I went to say goodbye and there was a woman in his office.’
‘Who was it?’
‘I didn’t ask. But she wasn’t one of the clients in the hostel. She was smartly dressed. She was crying her eyes out when I went in there and he clearly didn’t want to talk to me. She hid her face in a hanky.’
‘When are you going back in, Mum?’
‘I was thinking of going in tomorrow, to help out in the day, if they need me; I can make tea, talk to people. I think that’s what I’ll enjoy doing the most, just listening. But Simon is going to ring me first.’
‘Be good to go in as much as possible.’
‘Trying to get rid of me?’
Zoe smiled. ‘When you’ve finished your duties here, that is.’
‘Simon can’t be intending to go into the hospital tonight, can he? Maybe he knows that you’re not going in.’
‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up of having a vicar as a son-in-law, Mum. I don’t think we’re suited, do you?’
‘Who knows? But you couldn’t help out at the hostel – you’d probably have everyone strip-searched just to get a cup of tea. And you certainly wouldn’t believe anything they said to you – you’d be like, why did you say you did that but then you said the other…?’
‘I’m not that bad.’
‘Mmm. You don’t notice it. I saw you interrogating the postman the other day. What made you leave your trolley outside number 36 while you delivered letters to 44?’
‘Now you’re exaggerating.’ Zoe laughed.
Chapter 29
The next morning, Willis got up at six and went for a shower before breakfast. It was dark in the house. She put the light on in the kitchen and the windows were black. She walked around with a bowl of cereal in her hands. She drank tea. She stood for minutes just staring out of the kitchen window at nothing and mentally preparing for the day. Normally, the scene from the window was a mash-up of lit bathroom windows with bevelled glass, back doors – today it was a snow-capped scene.
She picked up her bag and slipped out of the house at 7.15. She walked across to her sky-blue Polo. It had a hat of snow and she slid her hand across it, breaking it off in chunks. The snow was not going to stay, according to the weather forecast. It was almost too cold for it.
Willis didn’t often drive. She didn’t enjoy it; but today she was pleased to be warm and dry inside her car. She had arranged to meet her mother’s doctor in charge of her treatment. She headed north on the A1 to Nottinghamshire. She hit the edge of the town and followed the signs for the hospital.
Dr Lydia Reese was waiting for her in the sitting area outside her mother’s ward.
‘Sorry, am I late?’
‘Not at all – you just caught me catching up on some work. Please have a seat. Or we could grab a coffee, if you like?’
‘Yes, that would be great.’
‘I’ll show you where the café is.’
They walked back towards the entrance of the hospital and turned into the café area.
‘I’ll get it – what would you like?’ Dr Reese offered.
‘Hot chocolate, thanks very much.’
Willis went to find a table. The place was recovering from breakfast going by the tables littered with plates. Willis cleared a table for them. Dr Reese approached and set the tray of drinks down, before sitting opposite her.
‘Thanks for agreeing to see me, Doctor. I need to talk to you about something Bella wants from me, before I go in and see her. I need to know if it’s something you would recommend me doing or not.’
‘Of course, I appreciate you running it by me. I will give you my professional opinion.’
‘Bella says she has photos of my natural father to show me. She wants me to find him. There can only be one reason. She is up to something and she must think it will help her get out of prison in some way. I don’t know whether I should even try to find him or leave him well alone. I don’t think it’s fair to involve him.’
‘If you do find him, will you tell him everything?’
Willis sighed, staring at her cup. ‘If I do – I think I have no chance of ever meeting him. Who is going to want to know either of us?’
‘What your mother did should not reflect on you.’
‘Oh, but it does – tarred with the same brush.’
‘You were there when it happened?’
‘And I arrested her at the scene.’ Willis played with her cup as she talked. She steeled herself; she’d been building up to telling Dr Reese her side of the story for a while – now seemed the right time to do it. She wouldn’t have told her unless she had to. She never told anyone exactly how it felt that day. But, if there was one person who should know it was Dr Reese.
Dr Reese put her hand on Willis’s and for some reason it brought a lump to Willis’s throat. She smiled at the doctor and removed her hand from the table.
‘Take your time,’ Dr Reese said. ‘Tell me what happened that day.’
‘I’d just joined the police force. She wanted to see me. I didn’t see her often. I agreed to go to her flat. She lived in a housing association flat. Bella never managed to hold down a job, never managed to accept her family’s generosity and do something good with the money. She gave wild parties, she took drugs. She wrecked marriages and lives. She always has done – she goes through life like a tornado. Everything spins around her. She feels nothing for anyone else unless it will achieve her aims. She uses us all.
‘When I got there the door was open. I called out my mother’s name and I heard the softest voice reply. It wasn’t a word, it was a breath.
‘I saw the blood as soon as I stepped inside. There were handprints in the hallway, smears all over the walls, smudges of blood and flesh where someone had fallen against the wall and struggled forward, trying to get away. The blood led towards the kitchen. I called her name. She hated me calling her Mother. I called out to her: “Bella?” I heard a whimpering, someone else trying to breathe coming from in front of me, from the kitchen. I walked forward and I saw the man’s legs first. He was sitting on the floor. His blood was pooled around him. He looked at me for help. His breathing was coming out in squeals. He clutched his chest and bright red blood pumped over his hand. His eyes flicked to the other side of the door. Bella was standing with a big kitchen knife in her hand; she was drenched in blood. She was shaking violently. She was looking at me with the eyes of someone who believes they can do whatever they like and there will be no consequences. There was a look of triumph in her eyes as she lunged forward and planted the knife into his chest. I tried to save him but he was dead in seconds.’
‘Who was he?’
‘He was a twenty-one-year-old. He was studying medicine. He was planning to go back to his home in Somalia and help his community when he qualified.’