White Phantom Chapter thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

‘Come on, admit it, he is cute, isn’t he? I bet you fancy him.’

‘Oh, you’re not on about Colin again, are you? I warn you, you stay well clear of that garage.’

Jennifer was relentless. ‘I can’t see what he ever saw in that trollop Maggie. And that’s another thing, how could she prefer that piss weak drip of a thing that she’s with now after being married to Col?’

‘Well, Colin and Maggie had a lot of problems. He’s not the saint you think he is, you know.’

‘He winked at me last week. I bet I could get him if I wanted to.’

‘Jennifer, he’s thirty years old, what would he have in common with a young girl? And no offence, love, but you’re not exactly the type he’d go for anyway.’

Life had settled a bit in the last few weeks. Beth was coping with what had happened in the best way she knew how. She still had nightmares and during her waking hours she took the outlook that she was under siege and being held hostage by a deranged captor. For the most part she had fallen into the habit of trying to keep Jennifer’s moods sweet and stable. It had been over six months since the night that things had changed forever. She had been living this non-existence for half a year.

Maggie, despairing of the situation and not understanding why Beth had lumped herself with Jennifer, had become an infrequent visitor. Beth never went to see her. Their friendship had become strained and distant. Maggie’s ex-husband, Colin, was a regular topic of conversation and Beth realised that Jennifer was fixated with him. She hoped that it was just a young girl crush that would soon pass. It was the only normal thing that had happened since Jennifer came into her life. Her obsession with Colin was worrying – everything that concerned Jennifer was worrying – but at least fantasising about the opposite sex was exactly what a young girl should be doing and it seemed to have calmed her in recent weeks.

Beth had been stealing drugs from the hospital on an almost daily basis for over two months. She stole them, brought them home and then did her very best to forget about them. She had become adept at her sleight-of-hand dexterity when it came to using only half vials.

Sometimes she was paranoid that Jennifer was going to use them to kill her. She didn’t fear death. She actively wanted to die and would have used them herself long before now if she’d had the guts. But if she was too scared to commit suicide, she was even more terrified that Jennifer would come into her room at night and stick needles of morphine into her. She took to sleeping with the light on. She would eat only food that she had prepared herself and never allowed Jennifer to make her a cup of coffee. This paranoia amused Jennifer and she’d often play up to it. Beth had stolen other things from the hospital, too – catheter kits, dressings, suturing packs, scalpels, nasal gastric tubes and a bottle of chloroform.

Each new request brought a new argument. It didn’t matter how much Beth lamented that she couldn’t just walk into stores and take things, that there were procedures and that everything booked out had to be signed for. Jennifer would be adamant that they had to be produced. She pulled the best friend routine. ‘Beth, just say if you don’t want to be my best friend any more and I’ll be on my way.’ It was her way of saying, ‘If you don’t do what I say I’ll report you to the police for the murder of my brother.’ Friendship with Jennifer was her sentence and it looked like life without any chance of appeal.

Beth had no future. She only had each day as it came and couldn’t see anyway that her life was going to improve. Jennifer seemed happy enough but she often had days where she’d become sullen and attitudinal.

These were the days when Beth’s thoughts most often turned to murder. She’d done it once. What was to stop her doing it again? Surely she’d be in no more trouble having two deaths on her curriculum vitae. She would lie in bed at night thinking about the best way to rid herself of Jennifer forever. Marc hadn’t been discovered yet. She could put Jennifer’s body in the same peaceful grave as her brother and forget about them both. Couldn’t she?

One night Jennifer overheard Beth talking about a patient to her boss on the phone. After she had hung up she made a second call to social services.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Jennifer, feigning disinterest.

‘I have a patient due for release tomorrow but we’re worried about her going home and how she’ll manage. She’s an elderly lady living alone.’

‘So, what’s the problem?’

‘You know I can’t discuss my patients with you.’

‘Oh, like I’m going to go blabbing about some piss-stinky old bag. Come on tell me, I want to know.’

‘Jesus, Phantom, it’s nothing. Just work stuff. You wouldn’t be interested anyway.’

‘If you don’t tell me, Darklord might escape from his viv tonight and make his way into your bedroom when you’re asleep.’

‘Fuck off, Phantom. I’m not in the mood.’

‘Don’t swear. It’s not ladylike. Tell me, I’m waiting.’

‘For Christ sake, it’s an old lady. Her son is in hospital after having a nervous breakdown and she came to us with pneumonia and malnutrition. She lives on a farm along the Coast Road, it’s pretty isolated and we’re worried about her aftercare. She’s having home carers going in to her four times a day for awhile and I was just sorting out what equipment she would need. Orthopaedic bed, hoist and such like.’

‘See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I only wanted a little bit of civilised conversation. So this old lass’ll be all on her own while her son’s in the whack house?’

‘Yes. She’d be far better off in a home but she’s too stubborn to give in. she’s lived on that farm all of her married life and since her husband died it’s just been her and her son. His wife ran off and left him, and then the foot-and-mouth outbreak just about did them in financially. It hasn’t been easy for them.’

‘Tell me about the bed.’

‘What?’

‘The special bed she’s getting, tell me about it.’

This was typical of Jennifer, she’d hone in on the smallest detail and interrogate about it until she felt satisfied. Beth hadn’t noticed that her brow had furrowed in thought or that her eyes had narrowed slyly. She just wanted to shut Jennifer up so that she could get back to writing up some case notes that she needed to have fresh in her mind for the following day. ‘It’s a bed, for God’s sake. Just a bed. It goes up and down and has a pressure-sore prevention mattress. It tilts and has cot sides so that the patient can’t fall out of it.’

‘Or, if needed, to be restrained in?’

‘Well, yes in extreme cases that can happen, but I don’t think it’ll be relevant for Mary.’

‘I want that bed.’

‘What?’

‘The bed, I want it.’

Beth was suddenly very cold. An icy tremor ran the length of her spine but what Jennifer had said was so ridiculous that she laughed.

‘Yeah, right. Of course you do Jennifer.’

‘That’s right. And you’re going to get it for me.’