Hot fury swelled inside her.This was her home!A home is somewhere you’re meant to feel safe.Instead she felt misunderstood.Ashamed.Riddled with guilt for something she didn’t do.She thought about leaving, just getting in her car and driving out of town, but she’d tried that.It wouldn’t work.
She stood up, energised by her anger.It felt like electricity was zipping through her veins.Enough was enough.The only way to fix this was to uncover the truth.
She took a shaky breath, impatient to get started.Where though?Her eyes landed on the filing cabinets in the corner of the room.What was in there?Patient files?The spark of an idea took hold as Viv appeared at the door with her bag on her shoulder.
‘You okay?’
Nel gave her a nod.
‘It’ll blow over,’ Viv added, although she didn’t sound convinced.
‘I guess.’
Viv turned to go.
Nel wasn’t convinced either, but it didn’t matter anymore.She was taking matters into her own hands.‘Hey, Viv?’
She reappeared at the door.
‘I just had a question about the patient records.’She tried to keep her tone casual.‘We’ll need to have them in order for the sale.When did Dad switch to digital files?’
‘Gosh.’Viv scratched her head and made a thinking face.‘Must have been around 2015.He resisted it for years.I had to drag him kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.’
Nel smiled.
‘Anyway, we got there eventually.Better late than never!Have a nice night, doll.Don’t stay too long.’
As soon as she heard the front door close, Nel opened the filing cabinet, but it was full of stationery, pathology forms, spare rolls for the fax machine.She went out to reception and scanned the cluttered desk.It seemed Viv was just as disorganised as Rob.Her in-tray contained a large collection of documents.Faded Post-it notes adorned the monitor, curling at the edges.The top drawer was a jumbled mess of pens, paperclips, highlighters, batteries, hair ties and breath mints.
She pushed open a sliding door to reveal a small storeroom.On her left, open shelves were lined with boxes of swabs, blue sheets, syringes.A tall metal cabinet stood on the opposite wall.She pulled out the squeaky drawers, hoping to see manila files, but it was full of forms that looked years out of date.
She closed the drawers and sighed.Where would the paper files be?She bit her nail as a thought occurred to her.Legally, they were only required to keep adult patient files for seven years.Children’s files had to be retained until the patient turned twenty-five, but Maddie would have passed that milestone years before, if she had lived that long.It was possible that her file had been destroyed.
Possible, but unlikely, Nel decided, based on the borderline hoarding tendencies she’d observed in her father’s consult room.The paper files that pre-dated 2015 must be somewhere.Where though?She thought of a closed door down the hallway, past the kitchen.Could they be there?
Dust tickled her nose and she sneezed twice as she opened the door.It had the stale smell of a room that didn’t get used much.Promising.She felt the wall by the door for the light switch.A fluorescent light flashed overhead, then again, then strong white light illuminated the space.
Yes!The walls were lined with metal shelves that reached the ceiling, filled with hundreds of manila folders labelled with coloured tags.On the top shelf were a dozen cardboard archive boxes.If Maddie’s file still existed, surely it would be here somewhere.
There were thousands of files.Where to start?She pulled a few off at random to work out the system.After a few minutes she located the M’s and flicked through them, silently thanking Viv for painstakingly alphabetising the files.
Marriott.Marsden.Marsh.Marshall.Yes!She held her breath.David Marshall.Faye Marshall.Gemma Marshall.Geoffrey Marshall.Madeline Marshall.There it was!She pulled it out, marvelling at it as though it was a precious artefact.
She knelt down on the dusty carpet and opened the file on the floor.She picked up each piece of paper in turn, studied it, then placed it face down on the left side of the open folder.Vaccination records.Prescriptions for penicillin, amoxicillin.Handwritten notes in her father’s hand.All typical of a child’s medical file.Nothing of interest.Her optimism was fading when she reached a page dated 18 October 2010.Two days before Maddie disappeared!Her father had scrawled a few words that she struggled to decipher:Fatiguesomething somethingmothersomethingviral.Glandular?
The next page was fax paper.Nel’s heart pounded as she realised what she was looking at.These were blood test results, dated 22 October 2010.The day before Maddie’s body was found.She skimmed the page, not sure what she was looking for, but then she found it.Maddie’s hCG was 176,589 mIU/ml.She was pregnant.
‘Shit,’ Nel whispered, her mind racing.Beta hCG was an imprecise measure of weeks of gestation, but Maddie’s hormone level meant she was most likely between ten and fourteen weeks pregnant when the test was done.That put conception sometime between mid-July and early August.
Nel leaned back against the shelf, reeling.All these years she’d suspected there was more to Maddie’s death.Now she had proof.
She reached for her phone and typed a message:Can we meet up?I need to talk to you asap.
Chapter 18
Sophie leaned on the kitchen bench, listening to the hum of the kettle and voices in the lounge room where Ryan and the boys were watching the Raiders game.Jasmine was drawing at the kitchen table.Another dragon.Her forehead was creased with intense concentration as she outlined its scales with a gold pen.Her teacher, Miss Clyde, had called that afternoon to discuss what she referred to as ‘Jasmine’s increasing isolation’.Apparently she was spending her lunchtimes alone in the library.
‘How’s school, Jazzie?’Sophie asked.Light.Casual.
