The black monitor blinked into life, and the operating table in front of Maggie appeared on the screen. Soon, the screen would show Mr Thornton’s chest cavity being penetrated by numerous needles and tubes, making him look like a cyborg. It never ceased to amaze Maggie what the human body could endure, and still keep going.
Mr Wetlock entered the operating theatre and the male scrub nurse behind Maggie audibly swallowed at the sight of him. ‘Good morning, Mr Wetlock. It’s an honour to be working alongside you. I’m grateful for the opportunity.’ Maggie had been practising speaking out loud in his presence, so she didn’t stutter, or run out of breath, or do that inexplicable thing of choking on her own spit. Maggie beamed with childlike pride at her ability to open a conversation with the greatest heart surgeon in London.
Wetlock, however, was not impressed. ‘It’s 1.30. Morning has been and gone.’
Surgery took seven hours. Wetlock didn’t take a break, so neither did anybody else. By the time they were ready to scrub out, Maggie’s pale blue scrubs were patterned with sweat patches around her neck, under her armpits, down her spine and, most embarrassingly, beneath one breast where the material had become trapped. Wetlock’s scrubs, being dark blue, didn’t look sweaty at all. He still looked angelic.
As they stripped off their PPE and binned it, Wetlock spoke to Maggie for the first time about something other than heart surgery. ‘Your husband’s a policeman, isn’t he?’
Maggie hid her disappointment. She’d just done seven hours in an operating theatre, in the cardiac field, which was not her speciality, and she’d not put a foot wrong... and Wetlock was more interested in whether or not Jack was a policeman.
‘Can I rely on your discretion, please, Maggie?’
Maggie’s attitude shifted from offended to serious. Wetlock sounded troubled. He perched on the large windowsill of the scrub room, folded his arms and considered how to start. ‘My daughter has potentially got herself into a little trouble. She’s 17 and has her heart set on being a movie star. Not a television actress, you understand, an actual movie star.’ Wetlock smiled and his perfect crow’s feet appeared. ‘There’s been this talent scout on the scene for the past few months. He’s promised her the world and, because she’s so young, she believes he can deliver it.’ Wetlock dropped his gaze and rubbed his forehead as he prepared himself to open up further. ‘She has her own flat as well as a bedroom in my home. I’m a little closer to town, so she stays over sometimes.’ When he looked up again, he had two new lines in between his eyes that Maggie had never noticed before which instantly made him look his age. ‘I hardly see or hear from her anymore and, when our paths do cross, we don’t speak. Not properly. I feel like I’m losing her. Bit by bit. And I’m concerned that I might be losing her to a man who hasn’t got her best interests at heart.’
‘If you know the man’s name, I can ask Jack to check into him for you.’
As soon as Maggie had spoken, the two deep furrows vanished, and the crow’s feet returned.
During her run home, Maggie felt a mixture of emotions. Wetlock had been embarrassed not to know the name of the so-called talent scout, so she would not only have to ask Jack to look into something that was currently not a crime, she’d also have to ask him to try and persuade Tania Wetlock to give up the name of a man she clearly cared for and trusted. But Maggie’s overriding emotion was one of contentment at the last thing Wetlock had said to her before they parted company: ‘Thank you, Maggie. I realise it’s an imposition. And well done on your performance in theatre today. I’d like you to consider a six-month rotation onto my surgical team. Let me know by the end of the week.’
Maggie didn’t need until the end of the week to decide — it would mean she would be learning from one of the most brilliant cardiac surgeons in the country. It was an easy ‘yes’. But she decided to take at least three days to tell Wetlock that. As for persuading Jack to help her new mentor with his wayward daughter, Maggie was certain he’d say ‘yes’, too.
‘No! Of course, no. What were you thinking?!’ Jack wasn’t angry. It was worse. He was laughing. ‘Every time I log into HOLMES, it’s recorded. So, it has to relate to something.’ Jack quickly spoke again before Maggie could interrupt and argue her case. ‘Something other than your boss not liking his daughter’s new boyfriend. And why doesn’t he know the bloke’s name anyway? I’ll make it my business to know everything about everyone Hannah meets.’ Maggie tried to be indignant, but Jack was right. And when her look changed to self-pity, he knew exactly what she’d done. ‘You’ve already said “yes”, haven’t you?’
Jack was in the middle of making a chicken curry with leftover meat from the Sunday roast. He’d thrown in a pack of sausages to bulk it out and was now at the stage of measuring the rice. He did this in silence. Maggie knew she’d annoyed him and so, whilst she waited for him to be ready to speak again, she opened the most expensive bottle of red wine they had, a San Martino Toscana.
As the rice began to simmer, Jack turned down the flame and refocussed on Maggie. ‘How worried is he?’
‘I think he’s out of his depth. He’s a single dad with a teenage girl. Imagine working the hours you do and having no one else to constantly reassure Hannah of how loved she is. I think their relationship is severely damaged and Mr Wetlock’s only just seeing it. He’s terrified he may have lost her already.’
‘I could ask Laura to go and speak to... what’s her name?’ Maggie smiled in relief as she reminded Jack that Wetlock’s daughter was called Tania. ‘Laura used to work in Juvie and, way back, she also did a stint in Victim Support. It’ll have to be logged as something, though, Mags. And of course, when Laura turns up to talk to Tania, she’ll immediately know it’s her dad who’s sent us. There’ll be domestic fallout for him.’
Maggie said she was sure it was a risk that Wetlock was willing to take, because the alternative was far worse: the thought that his daughter was being groomed by an older man.
Jack let out a long, heavy sigh. ‘I’m dreading Hannah growing up.’
Jack stood by the overworked, knackered old coffee machine in the corner of the squad room, listening to it make a noise like someone dragging phlegm from the back of their throat. Then he watched it dribble out a flat white as he re-tuned his ears to Laura, who had finally started speaking again. She was on the phone to Wetlock and, for the past five minutes, had been silent apart from the odd ‘mmm’ and ‘I see’.
‘I can promise discretion for now, Mr Wetlock, but if it turns out that your daughter is in any danger, this will escalate beyond me... OK... yes, sir. You have a good day too.’
DS Laura Wade hung up the phone and looked at Jack, eyes wide, mouth open. ‘He sounds gorgeous!’ Jack handed his partner the flat white and broke the news that Wetlock was, in fact, short, fat and old. Laura grinned. ‘Maggie tell you that, did she? I’ve got his home address. Today, he’s expecting Tania to be there at five, ’cos at six she’s having her hair bleached by a mobile hairdresser friend and she hates her small flat stinking of ammonia. She likes to look like Marilyn Monroe.’ Laura rolled her eyes. ‘The silly kid can’t even know who Monroe is. Anyway, I’ll get there for a quarter past six. Once she’s got the bleach on her hair, she’ll be going nowhere for a good forty-five minutes, so she’ll have to speak to me, won’t she?’ Laura asked Jack what his afternoon looked like.
‘I’m off to see an elderly lady who claims she’s being threatened by her ex-lodger. Kingston nick has had fourteen reports in total, with insufficient evidence to support any of her claims. But she’s just made an official complaint about them, so her case has come to us. They want it closed one way or the other.’