Alex’s voice raised a decibel. ‘Staples!’ She bit her lip before continuing. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to shout. I thought my head was covered with them. I heard the click-clunk of the stapler. I felt it against my head.’
Caroline slowly leaned over her patient’s head and carefully searched her scalp. ‘You’ve got a couple of scratches,’ she said. ‘But there are no staples in your head.’
Alex sighed. ‘So all of it was playacting? So very clever.’ Her eyes widened as if remembering something. ‘But my bottom and thigh were injected! It must have been done with a dart gun or even a blowgun. I want them photographed. To be checked thoroughly. I obviously wasn’t anaesthetised for long and I don’t know exactly what I was given, but it wasn’t just a muscle relaxant as threatened, otherwise I would remember.’ She paused to take a shaky breath. ‘I assume the police are checking the theatres?’
‘The police are here,’ Caroline answered.
‘And Maggie Fielding? Have they got her yet?’
Caroline stared at her, perplexed, her eyes cagey. ‘Why would they want Dr Fielding? Has something happened to her?’
Alex stared at Caroline, looking right into her eyes, beseeching her to understand. She felt the wail begin somewhere in her chest, twisting its way past the tightness in her throat until it became a shrill. ‘Don’t this to me again! Maggie Fielding is the fuckhead who did this to me! She abducted me because that actor who attacked me last year was her boyfriend and he killed himself. She did all this to me to get back at me. And these other women – Amy Abbott, Lillian Armstrong, the drug error I made – she did it all. She killed them. You have to get the police to arrest her before it’s too fucking late and she gets away.’
‘Alex, you need to listen.’
‘There’s no time, Caroline! Maggie Fielding is a very dangerous woman. She’ll kill again!’
‘Shut up, Alex, just shut up.’ The softly spoken command held a warning.
Alex switched her gaze to Seb and Nathan. ‘Seb! Nathan! You need to find her. You need—’
‘SHUT UP!’ The words ricocheted off the walls and the room silenced. Her eyes pinned Alex to the bed and Caroline took the last few steps towards her.
‘I want you to listen to me carefully, Alex. In your car the police found empty packets of diazepam. In your handbag we found diazepam and ketamine. You have taken an overdose and you came in here very confused. You have no other injuries. No staples in your scalp.’
Alex raised her head in fury and Seb swiftly positioned himself closer. Alex stared at him, dismayed. Surely he didn’t think she was a danger? Her eye almost popping with anger, she swiftly denied the allegation. ‘I never took any overdose! How dare you suggest it? It’s what she gave me.’
Caroline leaned forward, almost touching Alex, and for the first time her voice and eyes held real anger. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you haven’t been taking drugs and that you haven’t been hitting the bottle?’
Alex shook her head fast and her eyes squeezed shut as she desperately yelled: ‘Diazepam! That’s all I’ve been taking. I haven’t touched alcohol for weeks.’
Alex saw Nathan quickly lower his eyes. She saw Caroline witness his action and knew she had to make them understand. ‘I haven’t depended on the stuff, that’s what I’m trying to say.’
Alex closed her eyes, trying to block out the accusations. She needed to calm down and breathe before this situation imploded. Otherwise she would be labelled an alcoholic with mental problems. They clearly didn’t accept what she said had happened to her, which meant Maggie had covered her tracks again. She had to get them to believe her before it was too late and Maggie escaped. Caroline stepped back from the trolley, giving Alex some space. Her voice was now calm.
‘ You need to listen to me, Alex.’
Alex opened her eyes and lay back against the pillow, exhausted. Her gaze locked on Caroline.
Caroline gave a sad smile. ‘When you were rushed in here late last night I had switchboard fast-bleep the trauma team in case it was needed. I also got them to bleep obs and gynae. Maggie Fielding couldn’t come, so one of her colleagues came instead. She couldn’t come because she was still tied up in theatre. She was in the middle of an operation, doing a section, delivering twins. Maggie Fielding did not do this to you, Alex. And you now need to admit that you need help.’
Alex stared frantically at the people around her. ‘None of you believe me. You’re all going to let her get away with it. Maggie Fielding killed those women and you think it was me. She set this whole thing up. She’s taken revenge on me and anyone else that had anything to do with her boyfriend!’
Caroline could no longer control herself and her voice shook with emotion. ‘And what about Fiona, Alex? Did she kill her too?’
Chapter forty-nine
Greg walked along the empty corridor towards the obstetric theatres. As he passed some of the wards he heard the sound of rattling china and guessed that patients were having their first cups of tea of the day.
He had always quite liked hospitals and had never felt the dread of them that a lot of people experienced. He felt comforted at the thought of people being looked after.
At the end of the corridor he turned right and walked up to the locked doors. He pressed the intercom and, after identifying himself, he was buzzed through. He needed to meet Dr Fielding and assess the situation for himself.
Alex Taylor’s accusations, regardless of how insane they sounded, had to be followed up. Greg had heard similar rationalisations, mainly from men, who, when arrested said they were innocent and that someone else had done it, or blamed the voices they heard or the apparitions they saw. When he made DS, he was called to the home of a dead fourteen-year-old girl. Her body had been painted with her own blood and she was covered in parrot feathers. Her father was sitting in an armchair with the bald bird in his lap stroking its pale flesh, and his excuse for cutting his daughter’s throat was that his pet parrot had told him to.
Alex Taylor had told everyone it was a man impersonating a doctor who abducted her, and then said it was the same man who was killing these women. Then last night, back in the A & E department after trying to get them to believe she had been taken to a theatre again and been subjected to muscle relaxants and anaesthetics and staples fired into her skull, she throws this other doctor’s name at them.
It was too far-fetched to be true.
He was directed by a nurse to an open door and found the doctor sitting in an office at a desk with a pen gripped between her teeth as she read notes. She had dark hair and was attractive, and she was obviously busy. She barely looked up when he introduced himself.
She wore theatre clothing and a paper facemask hanging loosely around her neck. He watched her face closely as he revealed why he wished to speak to her. Her head quickly lifted and shock was clear in her features, especially when he mentioned that Dr Taylor believed her to be the real killer.