All Shall Be Well

Trevellyan fished a packet of Player's from under the papers on her desk. She lit one, then said through the smoke as she shook out the match, 'I know what you're thinking. Health-care professionals shouldn't smoke. Sets a bad example, right? Well, by my last count I've quit fifteen times, but it never seems to stick.'

'Is Home-Care your business, Miss Trevellyan?'

'Yes.' Martha Trevellyan sat down on the edge of the chair opposite Gemma. 'Two years ago I decided to get out of nursing, try something that might not kill me before I reached fifty.' She smiled a little ruefully at Gemma and tapped her cigarette on the coffee table ashtray. 'Look, Sergeant-it is Sergeant, isn't it?' Gemma nodded. 'What's this all about? I'm still operating on a shoestring, here. Any allegations of negligence could ruin me.'

'Perhaps you could start by explaining how you operate.' Gemma waved a finger toward the room's work area.

'Most of our business comes through referrals, even from the beginning. I'd done critical nursing and the doctors I'd worked with recommended me to their patients who needed in-home care.' She settled back in her chair, looking more comfortable as she began to talk about a familiar subject. 'I keep a list of nurses who can work for me full or part time. When we acquire a new patient, I match them with an available nurse, keep things coordinated as necessary. I bill the patients, then pay my nursing staff. Simple enough?'

'Beautifully,' said Gemma.

'Except that good nurses demand high wages, and my profit margin is very, very slim.' Martha leaned forward and crushed her cigarette out in the ashtray. 'It's not exactly the Ritz around here. You might have noticed. I'll need a few more years of good luck and hard work if I want to provide comfortably for my old age.' She smiled as she spoke, but it didn't conceal the worry in her eyes.

The flat, although small and cluttered, looked scrupulously clean, and the furnishings were of good quality if rather conventional taste. 'It could be worse, as far as temporary situations go,' said Gemma with an answering smile, and she felt Martha relax a little further. 'Tell me, Miss Trevellyan-'

'Actually, it's Mrs.-I've been divorced for donkey's years. Raised two kids by myself, but now they're both out and educated I could afford to take a risk.' She nodded toward her work area. 'Call me Martha, why don't you. I'll feel less like I'm in the dock.'

Gemma didn't mind conceding to her small request. It was common enough, and seemed to help close the gap people felt between themselves and the police. 'How did you acquire Jasmine Dent as a patient, Martha?'

'Doctor's referral, if I remember correctly. I can check my files.' Lighting another cigarette, she stood and went to one of the metal cabinets beside her desk. She pulled open a drawer and ran her fingers along the colored tabs before extracting a medical chart. 'Dr. Gwilym, all right. Cancer specialist. He's sent quite a few my way.'

'Was there anything unusual about Jasmine's case?'

Martha thought for a moment, then shook her head. 'No, not really. By the time we get them, there's not usually much chance of remission. She was in good hands with Felicity.' At Gemma's inquiring look, she continued. 'Felicity Howarth's my best nurse. I pretty much let her pick and choose which cases she wants, according to her schedule and what's geographically convenient for her.' Thoughtfully, she added, 'And it's also a matter of personal preference. All nurses have them. Felicity does particularly well with cancer patients.'

'Did Felicity Howarth choose Jasmine's case?'

'As far as I can remember. Felicity's been carrying an especially heavy caseload lately. I thought it might be a bit much for her, but she insisted. Said she needed the money.'

'Do you know why?'

Hesitating, Martha stubbed out her cigarette before she answered. 'I don't feel comfortable giving out personal details about my employees.' Gemma waited in silence, and after a moment Martha sighed and said, 'Well, I don't really see what harm it can do. I know Felicity has a son in a private nursing home, some sort of childhood injury. Maybe the fees have gone up. It must cost her a bundle anyway.' Then she added a little combatively, 'But I don't know that that's what she wanted the money for. She could be saving for a cruise, for all I know. I' in sure she deserves it.'

Don't we all, thought Gemma, trying to ignore the growing hunger signals from her stomach. 'One more thing, Martha. About the morphine. How easily could Jasmine have saved enough morphine to kill herself?'

Martha Trevellyan lit another cigarette, and Gemma saw the return of tension in the sharpness of her movements. 'Look. You have to understand. When the doctor orders unlimited self-administered morphine for a terminal patient, we have no real way of monitoring how they use it. Miss Dent could have requested more morphine while actually keeping her dosage the same. It happens. More often, honestly, than any of us like to admit. What are you going to do, slap their hands? Most of them do it as insurance, in case the pain becomes more than they can bear. And in Jasmine's case, because of the position of the tumor, the pain probably would have been very bad indeed.'

Martha Trevellyan's account of Jasmine's treatment and condition tallied with Felicity Howarth's, but Gemma still felt curious about Home-Care's system. 'Who's responsible for acquiring drugs for the patients?'

'I am. I keep a log, and the staff sign it when they make a withdrawal. Then I do a regular cross-check between the patients' charts and the medication log.'

'No discrepancies?' Gemma asked.

'None,' Martha Trevellyan said flatly. She drew on her cigarette, then tapped it several times against the lip of the ashtray. 'Just how far is this inquiry going to go, Sergeant? Are we accused of anything?'

'Felicity Howarth will have to appear at the inquest tomorrow and make a statement as to Jasmine Dent's treatment and state of mind. After that,' Gemma shrugged, 'it will depend on the coroner's ruling.'

'She didn't tell me,' Martha said, disconcerted. 'But then that's Felicity for you-she wouldn't have wanted to worry me.' She studied Gemma for a moment, squinting against the rising smoke as she ground her cigarette out in the ashtray. 'There's one thing I don't understand. Why are you lot spending your time on a simple suicide? Surely you have more important things to do?'

'Felicity didn't tell you?'

'Tell me what?'

'There's a possibility the suicide may have been assisted, and that's a felony offense.' Gemma made a silent wager on Kincaid's intuition. 'Or it may not have been suicide at all, but murder.'

There was no word from Kincaid when Gemma got back to the Yard. She shook her head as she thought about his morning call from the car. Dorset? He'd accused her of chasing after wild hares often enough, but she couldn't remember ever driving across three counties on a moment's whim.

It worried her, this obsession he seemed to be developing about Jasmine Dent's past. He'd not spoken to her about Jasmine's journals since she'd helped him carry them up to his flat. Had he found some clue in Jasmine's early life, or was it just morbid curiosity, an attempt to resurrect a girl he hadn't known? Remembering the photo she'd found facedown in Jasmine's bureau drawer, Gemma still couldn't say what had kept her from showing it to him. Had it been for his sake, or her own?

She'd taken refuge in Kincaid's empty office, and the silence gave her no answer.

Gemma sat up smartly in Kincaid's chair and shrugged off her uncharacteristic mood. It was probably just the curry she'd eaten on a too-empty stomach. She had problems enough without taking on his. She'd write up a report of the morning's interview, and if Kincaid hadn't called by the time she'd finished, she just might get away early.

After she picked up Toby at the sitter's in Hackney, Gemma headed east toward Leyton. Anxious as she had been to leave the Yard, the thought of the long evening at home suddenly palled.

Leyton High Street hadn't changed much since her childhood. The red-brick shop-fronts had sprouted a few more wire safety-grills, the Chinese take-away had been replaced by a Greek gyros, a shop that Gemma remembered as selling knitted goods now displayed neon-sprayed T-shirts in its windows-but the basic character had remained the same. Once a village in its own right, Leyton had been absorbed by London long ago, and only the High Street served as a reminder of its former identity.

Her mum and dad had owned the bakery on the High since before Gemma was born, and she'd grown up in the rooms above the shop, smelling sausage rolls, and pork pies, and fresh bread even in her sleep. She'd worked in the shop after school, and even now she felt her father's disappointment that neither of his daughters had cared