I hung up. I’d done it. Made our life more secure.
My mother was unable to go to the funeral of her beloved husband. I had asked the undertakers to keep it simple… aka as cheap as possible. There was no hint of criticism, they were completely respectful and supportive all the way through.
Haycombe Crematorium is on the far side of Bath in Englishcombe. When the day of the funeral came, I searched Mother’s wardrobe for something suitable for me to wear. She was my height and build, but I’d lost more weight and the black shirt and trousers I chose were too big. I hooked a belt around my waist. That was as much effort as I was willing to make for my lying, cheating father.
Jason Brooks had offered to pick me up, but I told him I’d prefer to make my own way. Perhaps he thought I was going to go by a limousine provided by the undertaker. They’d offered, but at a crazy price. The bus suited me just fine.
The celebrant did his best to say some kind words. He didn’t get them from me. When he asked me, I told him about the bigamy, how my father had lied and cheated. He’d backed away from me as if bitten, an effect I increasingly had on people. They shouldn’t ask if they can’t handle the truth.
He must have spoken to someone more willing… Dr Brennan or Mr Brooks perhaps… because the kind words that he did say reminded me of the father I had loved, and they brought a lump to my throat.
If anyone was surprised by the poor turnout, nobody said. No neighbours came because I hadn’t informed them it was taking place. I probably would have told the Higgins had they been around and not enjoying their stay in Canada.
My mind drifted during the short service. I stared out the window at the view over the valley below where a buzzard was circling, using thermals of rising air to climb higher and higher, wings barely flapping. I’d read somewhere that they can spot a moving target from over a mile away, then they launch a surprise attack before their prey is aware of their presence.
We had much in common. Neither Jemma nor Olivia had been aware I’d had them in my sights. I had hoped that in avoiding Olivia’s eyes in that moment before her death I would escape being haunted by her as I had been by Jemma. It hadn’t worked and now both women appeared in the oddest moments. Sometimes when I slept, more often when I was awake, like now. I shut my eyes to make them disappear and brought my attention back to the celebrant.
And then it was over, the curtain sliding across my father’s coffin. Without music, the swish of the curtain and the whirr of the mechanics as the coffin was moved backward were audible.
I’d liked to have heard the crackle of flames, the sound of the cheap wooden coffin breaking, the sizzle as his body caught fire. Damn it, I’d liked to have lit the match.
Too fragile to cope, my mother never did recover. Luckily, the clinic had a long-term care facility, and she was moved to a private room there with a view over the grounds. It was impossible to know if she ever noticed. She might, and that was sufficient.
Because it was in a better area than our bungalow, the sale of the Thornbury house brought in sufficient equity to pay off the arrears and the outstanding mortgage on the bungalow. What remained would pay for the care home for a few years.
‘It’s not going to last forever,’ Brooks said when he’d invited me to a meeting to discuss our situation. ‘You’re classed as a dependant so you are entitled to stay in the family home until you’re eighteen but then, I’m afraid, the house will need to be sold.’
I’d already done some research so the news didn’t come out of the blue. It didn’t, however, make it any more palatable. ‘I see.’
‘Even the money from the sale of the bungalow won’t last forever. When it runs out, the state will pay, but only a certain amount. It won’t meet the full cost of the home she’s in. The alternative would be to move her into a home where the fees are completely covered.’
Move her? Into somewhere affordable, where the care might not be as good, where she might have a small pokey room without a view, or where she might have to share? I shook my head. ‘Absolutely not, they look after her well. My mother deserves the best. I don’t want to move her.’
He nodded as if my answer was the one he expected. ‘When the money runs out, you’re going to need to pay the difference between what the state pays and what the clinic asks. It’s called a top-up fee, and you’re probably going to be looking at three or four hundred a month.’
Three or four hundred a month – I shrugged it off, young enough not to worry too much about the future.
Anyway, she was my mother. I’d have done anything for her.
I’d already proved that.
And if I needed to, I’d do it again.
PART II
18
When I’d read all those anatomy and physiology books prior to killing Jemma, I’d become fascinated by the workings of the human body. Studying how to kill someone possibly wasn’t a good reason to think of nursing as a career, but I think it set a seed that germinated as I watched the nurses looking after my mother with such kindness and patience.
Maybe I decided to train to prove to myself that I was more than just a killer.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take me long to realise I’d made a mistake and that nursing wasn’t for me. Perhaps it was because my fascination with the human body lay more in how to kill it rather than how to save it.
With my mother’s funds dwindling, I needed to be earning, so despite my misgivings I stuck with it, qualified and accepted a staff nurse’s position in the Bath United. It was a job, it paid the bills, but I never learned to love it.
My fascination persisted with the human body, however, and I did enjoy parts of the job. I didn’t take risks: I never went as far as to kill anyone, after all I had no reason to, despite how truly obnoxious some of the people I had to deal with were, but now and then I experimented.
‘This should take the pain away,’ I’d say to one of the patients in my care after I’d administered an injection for pain relief. And sometimes it was exactly as they’d been prescribed. But other times, it was sterile water. It never ceased to amaze me that one often worked as well as the other. I wasn’t cruel though; I always monitored the situation and ensured the patient was cared for. Unless of course they were one of the truly obnoxious ones – I let them suffer.
Whereas I didn’t actively hate the job, I wasn’t interested in it enough to want to apply for promotion, so eight years later, I was still a staff nurse on the same surgical ward and answering to younger ward managers.
I became weary of it all and began to take regular sick days, or complained of backache that forced them to put me on restricted duties, mostly sitting down doing paperwork, and I stretched every coffee and lunch break to breaking point. Not mine, the ward manager’s.
A few years younger than I, Pippa Jones became the ward manager when the previous incumbent moved to a more senior role.
I disliked her on sight.
With a new-broom-sweeping-clean mentality, Pippa called a meeting of the staff at the end of her first week and mentioned some changes to improve our practices that she planned to implement over the next couple of weeks. Every change she suggested, I raised a hand and informed her that we’d tried it before, and it hadn’t worked.