The early light of day entered the hospital room. The night shift had just finished and a tea trolley rattled up the corridor; lights were switched on and a young intern was conducting her early morning rounds. It was another day, a day William Phillips had never expected to see. As he lay in his bed, propped up with the help of two plump pillows, he looked out through his private hospital room window at a cold, drizzly day and hoped that the new shift would be more sympathetic to his needs and a lot younger and prettier than the previous lot.
A new face entered his room.
‘Good morning William.’
He could tell by her accent, her green eyes and her thick, short cropped raven hair that Catherine was Irish. She flipped over a page on his medical chart and pulled the trolley with all the gizmos on it over to his hospital bed and began the tedious task of measuring and monitoring his blood pressure, temperature and heart rate. Catherine popped a thermometer under his tongue and held his wrist.
William was relieved when he was told by the emergency registrar, that he’d not suffered a heart attack. What he had experienced in the steam room was an anxiety attack, dehydration, hyperventilation and physical stress caused by extreme temperature, not to mention the concussion he sustained when he collapsed and fell to the floor.
‘So, how are you this morning, William?’ Catherine said in her fine Irish brogue.’ Feel better for a good night’s sleep?’
‘A lot better thanks. At least a lot better than I did this time yesterday morning, to be sure, to be sure.’
She laughed politely at his corny attempt to impersonate her accent. She recorded his blood pressure and wondered why it was that patients always thought they could imitate Irish accents and why they even bothered. After arriving in Australia every second person she met had an Irish ancestor sitting somewhere on a branch in their family tree. At first she thought it was a clever pickup line, but then soon realised as she got to know a few Australian larrikins that there were many similarities between these Aussie males and the lads she had left behind in Wexford.
Catherine left the room and William returned to his cup of coffee. He was unwrapping a packet of plain sweet biscuits when Jill Brennan tapped lightly on the open door to his private hospital room. His hair was ruffled after sleep and he needed a shave. A business show on the television was quietly running in the background and a copy of The Australian and The Financial Review were lying open across his knees. His mobile phone was resting on his stomach.
‘Don’t you ever sleep?’
Jill smiled at his remark and realised she wasn’t the only one to take her job seriously. ‘And don’t you ever relax?’ she said, as she stared at the financial papers in his lap.
William looked at the papers and dropped them to the floor. He turned off the television, switched off his phone and placed it inside the top drawer of his bedside table.
‘How are you William, I was just on my way home to have breakfast. It’s been one of those nights. But you’re looking a lot brighter than what I expected. Constable French filled me in on what happened last night.’
‘I feel a lot better. I’ll probably be out of here tomorrow.’
That’s good news,’ she said.
‘Pull up a chair.’ William indicated to the chair tucked in a corner of the room. ‘Like a biscuit?’
Jill smiled and shook her head. She dragged the grey vinyl armchair up to the side of the bed, sat down next to him and took out her note book and pen from her shoulder bag.
‘That looks official,’ William said, as he looked at the note book in her lap and took a bite of the biscuit.
‘Oh, sorry, force of habit,’ she said as she returned the notepad to her bag. ‘William, I’ve got some more bad news to tell you, I’m afraid.’
The blood from William’s face drained. ‘What’s happened now? It seems that every time I see you, you’ve got bad news to tell me.’ He couldn’t imagine that things could get much worse. A timely knock at the door allowed William a moment to prepare himself for whatever it was he was about to hear from Jill Brennan. They both watched as a young male orderly entered the room and collected William’s completed menu sheet. The orderly placed a bottle of spring water on his bedside table and left. William moved the table tray to one side and hoisted himself into a comfortable position so he was sitting upright. He locked onto Jill’s eyes. ‘Well go on then, tell me. What’s happened now?’
Jill looked back at William and remembered the first day she met him. He looked so different now, a lot softer, more vulnerable somehow. ‘We’ve arrested Tommy Dwyer on two counts of attempted murder and two counts of murder.’
William looked at Jill, puzzled.
‘Rose, and Isabelle Dwyer. He’s confessed to everything,’ she said. Jill waited for William to say something, but he just stared at her. He didn’t say a word. He was processing the information, his biscuit fell from his hand into his coffee cup, dissolving and disappearing without a trace.
‘But you said two attempted murders?’ William was confused. ‘So he tried to kill me right? But who...?’
‘Suellyn,’ Brennan said simply.
William raised his eyebrows in disbelief and held the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger and massaged his nose gently. ‘What happened?’
‘Your wife went to the hotel where Tommy Dwyer was staying and confronted him. She asked him about the contents of the letter his mother had written to Rose. It appears he realised that it was no use lying to her anymore when she accused him of murdering both his mother and Rose and also trying to murder you. When we questioned him, he told us that he planned to marry Suellyn after he killed you. That way he would get his hands on both inheritances at the same time, but Suellyn became suspicious and began to suspect him of murdering Isabelle and Rose and trying to murder you. He knew he couldn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut and that’s when he decided to kill her. I suppose he thought he had already killed two women, another one wouldn’t make any difference. At that point he thought he could still work his way out of the corner he had backed himself into. If he killed Suellyn, disposed of her body with the idea that nobody would really miss her, when questioned over the matter of the incident in the steam room, he was going to point the finger in Suellyn’s direction because he was sure there was no evidence to incriminate him. Dead men or in this case, dead women tell no tales. She was the scapegoat if you like. With you and Suellyn both out of the way, your share of Rose’s inheritance would go to him. We don’t know if he had plans to get rid of the other beneficiary, Kevin Taggart.’
Jill looked at William.
William didn’t say a word. He took a long, deep mouthful of coffee and closed his eyes.