Chapter 2.10
Roberta sat in her creaky plastic seat, in the corner of the waiting area, as far away from the other three patients as possible. Frowning down at her phone as she poked out a reply to Davey.
I’m not giving you sod-all until you tell me WHY you want those number plates.
SEND.
The room wasn’t exactly inspiring. Wasn’t really a room either, more a doglegged corridor with a dozen cheapo plastic chairs, some posters about getting vaccinated and not doing drugs and looking out for diabetes and how to spot someone having a stroke .
. . And the obligatory coffee table, covered in ancient magazines and local newspapers.
Most of which seemed to be Aberdeen Examiners from last week.
Their front pages were split between pointing out how crap NE Division was for not solving the Body-In-The-Bin murder, and how crap D Division was for not catching the Tayside Ripper, and how crap N Division was for not arresting whoever it was that kept leaving jobbies under the windscreen wipers of all the councillors in Inverness.
The most recent edition had broken the mould with ‘brAVE BILLIE BEATS SUPERBUG’, featuring a blurry photo of Billie Nesbit sitting up in her hospital bed, looking pale as snow, with heavy purple bags under her eyes – no doubt covertly snapped by some nosy arsehole on their mobile.
An insert pic, taken at the mini-riot, which showed Billie lying on the road with a knife in her guts.
‘STABBING VICTIM “IN GOOD SPIRITS” SAY GRATEFUL PARENTS’.
Which was a relief, after everything the poor—
‘Take Your Mama’ blared out from Roberta’s phone, and there it was, glowing in the middle of the cracked screen: ‘SKETCHY DAVEY’.
The waiting patients all turned to stare at her.
Tempted to answer it, just to spite them.
Still, that would mean talking to the bugger.
She hit ‘DECLINE’, then tic-tic-tic-tic-ticked out a message instead:
Not taking any calls till you lay it out for me.
IN WRITING!
A nurse bustled into the waiting area, clutching a clipboard to his pigeon chest. Long hair pulled back in a pigtail, which made his already sharp features even pointier. Like he’d heard about Roberta’s Birdheads and fancied the look. He checked his clipboard. ‘Victoria Bervie?’
A large woman wearing a damp tweed jacket and sex-free cardigan levered herself out of her chair and was led away into the bowels of the ward.
Ding-buzz.
SKETCHY DAVEY:
You think I’m murdering people or something?
Tick, tick, tic-tic-tic-tic-tick:
OK.
Bye Davey.
SEND.
Should’ve brought a magazine or something – glancing at the coffee table, with its prehistoric copies of Good Housekeeping and Boring Wank Monthly. Or a book. Even that stupid Sci-Fi thing would be better than nothing.
And there was only so much Hedgehog Hodgepodge one woman could play, before—
Ding-buzz.
SKETCHY DAVEY:
It’s a divorce case.
Mrs X thinks Mr X is screwing around behind her back and hiding cash/shares/bank accounts.
These are 3 cars from staking out his business premises. Regular visitors.
Roberta sat back in her seat, lips pursed, chewing on that little revelation.
Tasted kind of fishy.
So, you’re Sam Spade now?
SEND.
A second nurse appeared: short and pencil-thin, with dark hair in a manky-mushroom bob. Another clipboard. ‘Peter Waring? Peter Waring?’
Peter scrambled upright in his baggy skater-dude clothes.
Like the girl in the porter’s chair, his long hair was shaved on one side, only his was growing-in around a twisted curl of pink scar tissue.
His hoodie declared ‘SMASH THE SYSTEM!’, but he trotted after Nurse Mushroom like an obedient puppy.
Ding-buzz.
Only if Sam Spade did nothing but nasty divorces and missing person cases.
No mysterious dames or maltese falcons in ABZ.
Well, well, well . . . Who’d have thought it: Wee Davey McLeod, private eye. Aberdeen’s answer to Humphrey Bogart . . . Only not so much ‘Bogie’ as ‘Snotters’.
Her thumbs got to work:
I’ll do you a deal. We
‘Roberta Thteel?’
She looked up and there was a nurse with dozens of holes in his ears and a couple in his nose too. Add in the pointy black fringe, ink-black hair, and missing eyebrows, and it was a safe bet he was a full-bore Goth, playing it vanilla during work hours.
Roberta put her phone away, wobbled to her feet, and raised her free hand – flashing the horns of the devil.
That got her a big smile, revealing a tongue piercing the size of a midget gem. Which explained the lisp.
‘Dr Turner will thee you now.’
Babs was hunched over a laptop, un-pierced tongue poking out the side of her mouth as she pecked with two fingers at the keyboard.
Her office was a cluttered little room, stacked with files, journals, and reports, plastic models of various brain bits, a map of the nervous system, and a life-sized skeleton-on-a-stand called Gary – currently sporting a Santa hat, even though it was only August. Every shelf was stuffed, the overspill forming towers and piles on the floor.
Leaving just enough space for an examination bed, a small desk, a saddle seat, and yet another cheap-arsed squeaky plastic chair for her patients.
Some of whom featured in polaroid photos mounted on the back of the door. Each one sporting a shaved-patch-and-scar-tissue, a big grin, and two thumbs up.
Roberta knocked on the desk with her stick. ‘Hey, Babs, how’s that eminently chewable arse of yours?’
‘Free of tooth marks, thankfully.’ She shut the laptop. ‘Got a haemorrhoid the size of your fist. Thinking of naming it “Elon” and charging the bugger rent . . .’ Babs winkled a pen-torch from her top pocket. ‘Park yours, and let’s see those eyeballs. You know the drill.’
‘When do I get to drive again?’ Thumping down in the groaning chair.
‘Depends.’ She flicked the light across Roberta’s eyes a few times, making humming noises. ‘Headaches, nausea, dizziness?’
‘Only when I pay attention to the news. So, about driving: three months seems a bit—’
‘Uh-huh. Let’s play follow the finger.’ Moving a digit from side to side. ‘What about the animal-people-hybrid things?’
‘Should never’ve told you about those.’ Eyes left, eyes right, eyes left again. ‘No. No’ since coming off the morphine.’
‘Good.’ The torch went back in her pocket. ‘Right: kit off and get on the exam table. Let’s see if you need your oil changed . . .’
Roberta leaned on her walking stick, propping herself up as she gazed in through the observation window.
Billie Nesbit had graduated from the High Dependency Unit to a private room in the Green Zone’s General Medicine ward.
Unlike the other patients, who maybe had a bottle of Lucozade and a get-well-soon card, Billie’s room was bedecked in fancy floral bouquets, teddy bears, and floaty mylar balloons, with a blizzard of cards pinned up behind the bed. All very bright and cheery.
Which didn’t really go with the pale, thin, semi-corpse sagging back on top of the itchy hospital blankets. Watching some cheesy daytime show. Even her Adventure Time tattoo was washed out.
But at least she was alive.
Hard to know whether to pop in and say hello, or leave her alone and sod off home.
Only really came down here out of curiosity anyway. Being in the neighbourhood and all that.
Maybe it would be better to just—
Billie must’ve felt Roberta’s gaze, because she turned to look.
Frowned.
Then her eyebrows raised, which somehow managed to make her circled eyes look even more sunken. Billie killed the telly, then pulled on a knackered wee smile, and made a droopy ‘come in’ gesture.
Meh, why not.
After all, the wee loon could wait. Serve him right for boring the arse off Roberta with all that Dungeons & Dragons bollocks.
She limped through the open door and over to the bed. ‘Hi.’
Billie wasn’t hooked up to anything that pinged or bleeped or dripped, but she still had a cannula plumbed into the back of one hand.
And instead of stylish woodland-creature jammies, she’d gone for an XXXL ‘DEMOCRACY ROCKS!’ T-shirt which swamped her emaciated body.
Nowhere near the hottie she used to be, but still pretty enough to make Roberta stand a little straighter and pull in her gut.
A pained look twisted those porcelain features. ‘You’re her, aren’t you?’
‘Depends. She owe you money?’
‘From the papers. You got blown-up.’ Sigh. ‘And helped elect that racist, fascist, sexist prick.’
Now wait a sodding minute.
‘Bugger right off. I was investigating your stabbing when it happened!’ Roberta poked the bed.
‘So if you hadn’t got stabbed, I wouldn’t’ve been there, I wouldn’t’ve suffered a traumatic head injury, and that greasy shiteflap wouldn’t’ve got elected.
’ Nose in the air, triumphant. ‘So technically it’s your fault. ’
‘Urgh . . .’ Billie sagged further into her pillows. ‘Suppose that’s fair enough.’ She waved a hand at a bag of sweeties sitting on the cantilevered table. ‘You want a jelly baby? I can’t: they’ve got boiled-up cow bones in them.’
Yummy.
Roberta helped herself to a green one – which everyone knew were the king of jelly babies – and collapsed into the visitor’s seat. Stretching out her left leg with a groan. Because it was still a major trek from the Pink Zone to here.
Got to admit the flowers were pretty impressive. And she’d got a lot more of the things than Roberta had too. Jammy cow.
‘How you getting on?’
Billie shrugged. ‘Hoping I don’t have to poop in a bag for the rest of my life.’
Well, at least Roberta was winning on that front.
She plucked the printed card from a very fancy bouquet.
‘FROM THE OFFICE OF CLAIRE FORDYCE MSP ~ GET BETTER SOON, BILLIE, WE’RE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU!
~ WITH LOVE FROM CLAIRE, SIR NORMAN, AND ALL THE TEAM.
’ The arrangement next to it had a handwritten note from Emma Dornoch.
Billie watched her tuck the card back in among the roses. ‘They’ve been very good about visiting. Think that’s probably why I got a private room.’