Chapter Seventeen
Stevie was irate – and only with herself for a change. She’d been in reception in Exeter’s main hospital, in a long queue, waiting to tell the person working solo at the counter that she had an appointment with the burns specialist, when she thought again about Edward’s puzzlement – ‘on a weekend?’ – and checked the appointment card. She had misread the date somehow, and the actual appointment was on a weekday in July. God, really? Why did she have to be so disorganized? Her check-ups were constantly being rescheduled, but this mistake was on her. She opened her mobile phone, found the calendar app and changed the date.
When she stood up and looked around, huffing, wondering how often the Saturday bus ran back to Sidmouth, Stevie saw a familiar figure beyond the doors of the hospital. DS Callintree, from the pizza parlour. He looked neither on duty nor off, climbing out quickly of a police car, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Her first thought was a selfish one. Might he be heading back to Sidmouth soon?
She started to move slowly towards him when he jerked his head up, attention caught elsewhere. She followed his gaze left and saw an obviously pregnant woman rushing towards him,waving in a way that suggested extreme distress. Stevie could not help herself. She started to walk towards them.
When the hospital doors slid open, she began to hear the single word the woman was repeating. Her skin was Mediterranean, her hair was dark, and she spoke with an Italian or Spanish accent. The same word was being said again and again: ‘Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!’ Jordan Callintree was raising his hands defensively.
Other people might have thought to avoid an exchange so obviously fraught, but not Stevie. When she appeared beside the woman, the policeman looked at Stevie and blinked rapidly several times, as if his brain was shuttering on a sequence of photos to find a match.
‘Do you even know about the capsules?’ asked the woman frantically.
‘It’s why I’m here,’ said the police officer. ‘The hospital are on watch to report anything that—’
The angry lady cut in, waving her smartphone at Stevie. ‘The police have done nothing! You see? This is all I can do to tell people.’ Stevie leant in closer – it was a post on Instagram with a picture of a very small, pale child, hooked up to wires and monitors in a hospital bed. The writing underneath said, ‘PRAY FOR MY DAUGHTER. SHE WAS IN THE PIZZA PARLOUR ATTACK.’
Stevie felt it like a punch to the gut. She hadn’t thought anyone else had been seriously injured! How had she missed this when she was at the scene? Andattack?Wasn’t it an accident?
A post like this might cause panic – no one had said the word ‘attack’ before – but this woman was so distressed, her whole arm shook as she held the smartphone.
‘Mrs Lopez—’ Jordan started.
‘Nothing!’ she shrieked again, turning back to the officer and waving the phone.
‘Mrs Lopez,’ interjected Stevie, trying to take some heat outof the exchange, ‘I was in the pizza place too. This officer will tell you. I ran in the back to help him. What makes you think it was an attack? It wasn’t, was it, Jordan?’
Rather than reassuring this poor woman, Stevie’s blood ran cold when he shook his head.
‘While I wouldn’t say it’s an attack, since last night I’ve been trying to trace the people in the restaurant, and so far you are the only ones we’ve found.’ Jordan Callintree added stiffly: ‘I’m not sure this is a conversation you can help with, Miss Mason.’
‘Not help! She tried to helpyou!’ Mrs Lopez looked astounded. She addressed Stevie. ‘My daughter is in there with my husband in a terrible condition because of something she picked off the floor at the pizza place, and we get told nothing!’ She turned back to Callintree. ‘Nothing!When were you going to come find us?’
‘Mrs Lopez, I was called by the hospital, Iwascoming to find you. Please, take this post down,’ he said gently. ‘Look, we know who the driver was now, we moved very fast to locate his property, and I promise we will find out what has happened to your daughter. We do not yet know what’s in those damned ampoules.’
‘Have you found who he was then?’ demanded Mrs Lopez.
‘I’m a police officer. I can’t start a press conference here with you.’
‘She’s a mother!’ implored Stevie. ‘Not the general public.’
‘I know,’ said Callintree. ‘But it’s a press conference if everything I say gets posted.’
Andrea Lopez waved her phone at Jordan and then stalked to the police car. She flung open the driver’s door and threw the phone into the vehicle.
She returned, breathless, the pregnancy bump heaving. ‘There. You have my phone. I can’t tell my one hundred and twenty followers what you tell me, officer. Are you happy? Put the phone in a river for all I care. But please, I beg you, I begyou on the body and blood of Christ, tell me.Tell me.Say what I am dealing with as a mother.’
Jordan Callintree stared at his squad car, and for a moment Stevie thought he was about to fetch the phone. But as he looked away from them he spoke in a monotone. ‘This truly mustn’t go any further, Ms Lopez. But yes, we were able to trace the chassis number on his bike—’
‘I am not interested in no chassis number!’
He pressed on. ‘When we got to the flat, there was nothing in it. He seemed to live with absolutely nothing. His passport was hidden in the lining of a chair which is how we know his name.’ He paused. ‘There was also drugs paraphernalia. We think he may have been a user, or a dealer, or both.’
‘Oh my God,’ Andrea gasped. She looked like she was about to faint. ‘My daughter took street drugs?’
‘I can’t tell yet but it’s possible.’ He pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘I shouldn’t be showing you this, but it’s all we found.’
‘What am I looking at?’
