Fruiting Bodies Read online

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  Contents

  Natasha Cooper

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Natasha Cooper

  Fruiting Bodies

  Natasha Cooper

  Natasha Cooper lives in London and writes for a variety of newspapers and journals. She was Chairman of the Crime Writer’s Association in 2000/01 and regularly speaks at crime-writing conferences on both sides of the Atlantic. N. J. is the author of the Trish Maguire series and has also written psychological suspense novels as Clare Layton.

  Dedication

  For the Monday bridge players

  Chapter One

  Night One The pain relaxed its clawing hold. Willow brushed her damp forehead with the back of her hand, exhaled and tried to smile reassuringly at her husband.

  ‘What’s all that noise?’ she said as the memory of the repeating physical clamour inside her gave way to real sound. ‘Someone’s yelling outside.’

  No one answered and she left Tom’s side to waddle over to the window. She leaned gratefully on the deep white-painted ledge as she felt the next contraction beginning. When it was over she looked out of the window and saw a small crowd of women in the hospital forecourt shouting and waving banners in the face of two security guards dressed in grey-and-yellow uniforms. Another man, whose face she could hardly see but who appeared to be dressed in a plain grey suit, was standing watching the fracas from the shadows cast by the canopy over the main door into the hospital. He emerged into the light as a woman screamed.

  ‘It’s just the demonstrators, dear,’ said a student nurse with kindly patronage. She was easily young enough to be Willow’s daughter. ‘Don’t you worry about anything except your baby.’

  ‘But who are they?’ said Willow crossly just as another contraction grabbed her.

  She groaned, longing to fall back on the floor and beg to be knocked out with drugs – or even a bang on the head – so that someone else could take control and stop her feeling anything at all. But she had read the latest books and was determined to follow their austere instructions to do without drugs and stay upright for as long as possible. She felt Tom’s hands on her back and heard his voice, trembling slightly, saying: ‘Pant, Will. Come on: breathe. Just pant.’ He panted with her in the approved style of their joint antenatal classes and she felt a flicker of amusement even through the extraordinary pain that was beyond anything any of the books had led her to imagine.

  When she could, she said: ‘I’m far too heavy for you to hold.’

  ‘Come back to the bed, Will,’ he said, looking over his shoulder towards the midwife, who nodded. ‘Come on. Before the next one. You don’t have to lie down, but …’

  ‘It’s safer to be there,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I know, Tom.’

  ‘Ah, here’s Mr Ringstead,’ said Tom, greatly relieved to see the most senior of the hospital’s obstetricians.

  At six-foot-four, with a craggily handsome face, powerful shoulders and an unruly shock of greying blond hair, Alexander Ringstead cut a magnificent figure. On the few occasions when she had seen him, Willow had always thought he looked an unlikely inhabitant of a world full of women, but he seemed quite at home with them. He had been amazingly kind to her at one of the antenatal clinics, not only reassuringly knowledgeable about what she was going through but also quite unshocked by everything she said to him. She had attended all the subsequent clinics in the hope of seeing him again, but she had usually had to make do with a junior doctor or one of the midwives.

  Even so, she shared none of Tom’s relief at the sight of Mr Ringstead. He was far too senior to attend any normal birth and his sudden appearance made her think that there must be something very wrong with her – or the baby.

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ he said with a gloriously confidence-building smile before she could ask any questions. ‘Now, lie down for a minute so that I can check that all is going as it should.’

  Willow lay down and waited for bad news. After a brief examination Ringstead let her get up, just in time for the next contraction.

  ‘Here we go again,’ she said, feeling a worse pain than any so far.

  Leaning back against Tom, she could not help remembering stories she had heard of three-day labours. She did not think that she could last much longer without drugs, let alone through the rest of the night. Then the contraction eased and she tried to persuade herself that Ringstead might be worried about nothing more than her age.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Tom.

  ‘I was thinking that if twenty-six-year-olds are “elderly primagravidae”, I must be a positively senile primagravida,’ she said, managing to laugh.

  ‘You and me both,’ he answered, sounding less strained. He wiped her forehead with a refreshingly cool cloth and brushed her hair back from her face with a hand that no longer trembled. ‘Don’t worry. You took the folic acid, had every possible test, ate all the approved foods and none of the wrong ones, gave up drink, did everything. Isn’t that right, Mr Ringstead?’

  ‘Absolutely. You’ll be fine,’ he said, smiling impartially at them both. ‘And forty-four is no age these days. Everything’s going as it should.’

  There was another burst of shouting outside.

  ‘Who is it making all that noise?’ Willow asked breathlessly.

  ‘WOMB,’ said the obstetrician in his driest voice. ‘Women Overtake Male Birthing, or so I understand. Now I’m going to have to go on to my next mum, but you’re not to think that I’m deserting you. Sister Chesil will look after you.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Willow, half-reassured that he saw no need to stay and yet wishing that he was not going to leave her to the dragonlike Sister Chesil.

  Of all the midwives Willow had met during her antenatal visits to the hospital, Sister Chesil was the only one she had never liked. She was efficient and knowledgeable but she had an air of grievance about her that set up all sorts of alarm bells in Willow’s mind, and her mouth was set in lines of bitter anger. In all their meetings, Willow had never once seen her smile at anyone.

  The consultant had hardly gone before the next contraction stopped Willow thinking about anything else.

  ‘It won’t be long now,’ said Tom doggedly, feeling the effect of what was happening to her through his hands. ‘Ringstead said so. Stick with it, Will. Come on. That’s right. You’re doing so well. Come on, old girl.’

  Only about ten minutes later, after she had sworn at him for trying to reassure her when he had no idea what she was feeling, a completely different sensation took hold of Willow. She opened her mouth to say something but could not. Sister Chesil, apparen
tly understanding exactly what was happening, got Willow on to the bed at last.

  Tom wiped her forehead once more and removed some strands of the sweatily lank red hair, which had fallen into her eyes. He looked terrible and she wanted to say something to help, but she needed everything for herself and the violent things that were happening to her body.

  ‘I can see the head,’ said Sister Chesil some time later. ‘There. It’s crowned. It really won’t be long now. You’re doing well. That’s right. Well done.’

  Teeth digging into the tip of her tongue, tears of effort and pain gathering in her eyes, Willow felt her child leave her at last and looked down. She saw movement and heard a gasp.

  ‘Don’t hit it,’ she said through the heavy breaths that were taking her to some kind of recovery.

  ‘Don’t worry, Will. They know what they’re doing,’ said Tom, who had read all the books after she had finished with them and knew what she was talking about.

  With him at her side, Willow watched as their tiny, bloody, waxy daughter was laid very gently on her stomach. She put one hand tentatively on the child’s sticky black hair and then slid it down over the back and legs and slowly pulled her up towards her breast.

  ‘She’s got the right number of arms and legs anyway,’ she said to Tom, trying to sound funny, but her voice broke.

  He put one hand on Willow’s head and the other on her crooked arm as the midwife laid a warm blanket over Willow and the baby. Willow looked at the midwife for a second and to her astonishment saw the woman smile at last. It was not long before her lips snapped back into their familiar discontented lines, but for a moment she had definitely smiled.

  ‘She’s wonderful,’ Tom said, swallowing painfully as he looked down at his daughter. ‘And so are you, Will. I … I don’t …’ He managed a gasping kind of laugh. ‘I can’t quite work out what on earth to say.’

  Willow turned to smile at him. He still looked terrible, but some of the fear had gone from his brown eyes.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘We’re neither of us quite … normal just now.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Later, when the baby had been labelled, washed, weighed and checked, the midwife brought her back to be fed.

  ‘Now it’s perfectly easy,’ she said as she helped Willow to arrange the baby against her breast. All the bracing briskness was back in the midwife’s voice, and there was no longer any evidence that she had ever smiled at all. ‘Come along. Don’t tense up like that.’

  Easier said than done, thought Willow as she did her best to obey the impatient instructions. But she had never been able to relax to order and she soon found it difficult not to join in the baby’s breathless lamentations. Tom stood beside them, looking on in helpless misery.

  ‘It’s normal,’ said Sister Chesil firmly. ‘She’ll learn. You both will. Try again. There.’

  Willow blinked as two hard little gums grabbed her nipple and pulled. It dawned on her with a kind of shock that her mother, too, had been through all this. All sorts of unexpected feelings were washing about in her brain and she did not have the strength left to deal with any of them.

  She gazed down at the baby and paid no attention to anyone or anything else. She did not even notice Sister Chesil nodding in silent approval as the baby began to suck. After a moment she nodded once again and left the room.

  Tom watched his wife and daughter, aware of some very mixed feelings of his own. Relief that it was all over was much the strongest and, recognising it, he let himself sit down at last. Almost at once Willow gasped. The baby, dislodged, let out a sharp wail.

  ‘What is it?’ Tom said, leaping to his feet again as he saw his wife’s terrified expression.

  ‘I’m bleeding.’

  For an instant, which felt like minutes, no one moved or spoke. Then Ben, the medical student who had been watching everything Ringstead and Sister Chesil had done and feeling even more spare than Tom, pulled forward a bucket just as Tom shouted: ‘Fetch Ringstead.’

  The student nurse ran out of the room.

  Sister Chesil returned a few minutes later, breathing fast. She paused for a second in the doorway.

  ‘My god! It looks like a butcher’s shop in here,’ she exclaimed as she moved forward, but she sounded reassuringly unhysterical. Tom and Willow began to breathe again. Calmly pressing her hands on Willow’s abdomen, the midwife added: ‘Ben, take the baby.’

  Nurse Brown peered round the door of the delivery suite a few minutes later. She still looked frightened enough to set Willow’s heart hammering again in spite of Sister Chesil’s reassuring matter-of-factness, and her voice was shrill as she said: ‘I can’t find Mr Ringstead. No one knows where he is. What …?’

  ‘Stop talking at once,’ said Sister Chesil harshly, ‘and go and fetch Doctor Kimmeridge.’ She looked up at Tom and Willow, who were both staring at her as though she were their only saviour, and said more conversationally: ‘He’s the registrar. Have you met him yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Willow, her voice shaking. ‘What’s happening? I mean, why am I bleeding like this? Is it …?’

  ‘It happens sometimes. Don’t fuss.’

  Fuss, thought Willow in a mixture of outrage and supreme anxiety. I’m pouring blood and you tell me I’m making a fuss?

  Then she remembered Mr Ringstead’s surprising appearance in the delivery room and anxiety overcame all her outrage as she realised that the bleeding could have been what he had feared. It must be serious. She wanted to shout out her need for reassurance. But she said nothing and became aware that the midwife was talking to her.

  ‘You’ll like Doctor Kimmeridge,’ Sister Chesil was saying coolly as she continued to press down on Willow’s uterus. ‘He’ll be here in a moment. You did well, you know, to have such a quick labour.’

  ‘Was it quick?’ said Tom, as eager as the midwife to distract Willow from what was happening. He hoped he did not sound as scared as he felt, but he thought it unlikely. He was appalled by all the blood and by what it might mean. He made an effort to control himself and added: ‘It felt enormously long.’

  ‘For a first baby at forty-four it was remarkably quick. Ah, Doctor Kimmeridge, good,’ said Sister Chesil, as the heavy doors to the delivery suite were pushed open. Willow looked up and saw a thin, slight, dark-haired man with a sardonic expression on his sallow face. He seemed to be doing his best to look gentle as he said: ‘We’ll soon have you settled.’

  Eventually they managed to do enough to persuade Willow that she might not after all be bleeding to death.

  Much later, bathed, dried, anointed, padded up and dressed in a celebration nightgown from some enormously luxurious shop Tom had found, she was taken into a bay of six beds in one of the main maternity wards on the floor above the delivery suites. A perspex, wheeled cot was put ready beside the bed. Nurse Brown laid the child carefully in Willow’s arms and left them alone with Tom at last, shutting the checked curtains as she went.

  Willow was surprised to find how much she still hurt, but there was an odd displacement in her brain, as though the torn and wrenched bits of her body were detached from her. She felt as though she and the child were floating together in a private warmth, and she kept looking at Tom to make sure that he was still there and part of it all. It seemed impossible that he should not feel what she felt and yet she knew he could not.

  He looked achingly tired and was obviously still anxious, but even as she watched him his eyelids began to close. He was very pale, too, and Willow was irresistibly reminded of the way he had looked when he had spent a week in a coma after being shot by a gang of frighteningly young drug-dealers.

  As a police officer he had always been at risk, but she had believed that he was much too senior to become involved in the sort of street crime that led to most serious assaults. It was ironic that on that occasion he had been no more than a passer-by, not even investigating the drug-dealers he had been unlucky enough to meet.

  It had taken him a long time to recover comp
letely from what they had done to him and even after he had been pronounced fit for work again he had not been returned to operational duties. Instead he had been given promotion and a desk job at Scotland Yard. He hated it, but Willow felt that there were several compensations.

  His eyes opened as he felt the strength of her attention on him. He saw that she was smiling.

  ‘What’s funny?’ he said, rubbing his forehead as though his head ached.

  ‘Only that you and I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time sitting by each other’s hospital bedsides.’

  His tired eyes brightened for a moment and he laughed quietly.

  ‘True.’ He put one finger very lightly on his daughter’s head. ‘But this stint has been a bit more productive than usual, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it …? No, that’s a stupid question. Sorry. I didn’t mean to …’

  ‘I know. Don’t worry. It was ferocious and I’m glad it’s over.’ She bent her head so that her lips could brush the baby’s hair, no longer sticky. ‘But I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.’

  Tom sank back in his chair and the plastic cover squeaked. Willow sneaked another look at him a few minutes later and saw that he was drifting off to sleep again. A sudden raucous shout from the demonstrators outside the hospital woke both him and the baby. Willow wished she had a bucket of cold water to fling over the banner-wavers as though they were a pack of howling stray cats. It seemed outrageous that they should be disturbing her family at such a moment.

  Sister Chesil came back just then. Seeing that most of the other women in the ward were asleep, she very quietly asked Willow how she was feeling.

  ‘Weak,’ Willow whispered. ‘And it still hurts.’

  ‘That’s normal. But I’ve brought you some tablets.’ She held out a small white plastic cup with two bright capsules in the bottom. ‘You take those, while I put your baby back in her cot.’

  Willow was reluctant to let her daughter go, but it seemed the right thing to do, and so she relaxed her arms and let Sister Chesil take the shawl-wrapped bundle and lay it down in the cot. Willow took the pills and allowed the midwife to push back the sloping bedhead so that there was room for the pillows to lie flat.