On Borrowed Time

Chapter 2

2

Caroline Hills groaned as she felt the cold porcelain against her chest. It had become a familiar sensation, along with seeing the slight chip on the inside of the rim, where she’d dropped a slate toothbrush holder on the day they’d moved into the house.

It would be fair to say there were quite a few downsides to dealing with cancer, and making friends with the toilet bowl was certainly one of them. Her original treatment had been relatively easy to deal with, but it hadn’t been altogether successful. As a result, the doctors had taken the decision to step it up a gear, and it’d hit Caroline hard.

‘Are you okay?’ her husband, Mark, mumbled through the door of their en-suite bathroom.

‘I’m fine. You go back to bed.’

Although she felt exhausted, there was no way she’d be able to get back to sleep. Once she was up, she was up. Even if it was only half six in the morning. Mark, on the other hand, could steal an extra hour or two’s kip. It’d do him good. He’d had to take up the slack when Caroline had been unable to be at her best, and had supported her through every step. At least, he had once he’d actually known about it.

Caroline had made the decision shortly after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer to deal with it herself. Mark had only recently lost his own brother and father to cancer, and the family had been through more than enough. It was something she believed she could fight on her own, but she’d been proven wrong.

Fighting battles alone was something she was used to. The irony wasn’t lost on her that her private life was so different from her work, in which she was used to being part of a team, sharing information and collaborating for the greater good as a Detective Inspector with Rutland Police. When it came to her private life, things were different.

She and Mark had always been close, but there were aspects of her past even he didn’t know about. She hadn’t kept them from him for any other reason than to protect him and keep the peace, but even so, the growing feeling of guilt was starting to gnaw away at her. She often wondered if the reason why she and Mark were so close was that they didn’t need to rely on each other for emotional support. Until Mark’s dad and brother died, they’d had no major tragedies to deal with. There’d been ups and downs, of course, but never anything big and never anything which had needed a heart-to-heart. Their deaths had hit Mark hard, and Caroline hadn’t wanted to burden him any further.

She’d always been good at keeping her work close to her chest. When they’d lived in London and she’d worked for the Met, it had been drummed into her to not divulge details of cases she was working on. More often than not, those cases involved powerful gangs and underground criminal networks. In Rutland, that was rarely the case. Indeed, in Rutland it was almost impossible to keep anything confidential. She sometimes wondered if the locals should be briefing her on what had happened. It was a different way of working; a different pace of life. But it was one she was starting to respect and enjoy.

She certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be dealing with cancer and chemotherapy whilst living in Cricklewood. Here, the peace and quiet, the scenery – and, yes, the people – were selflessly and unknowingly providing ample comfort and support. Trips to Peterborough City Hospital were just part of the package.

The last wave of nausea disappeared at the same time she registered the sound of her mobile phone vibrating on her beside table. She flushed the toilet, opened the door and walked over to answer it. She could see from the name on the screen it was Dexter Antoine, a Detective Sergeant on her team.

‘Morning, Dex. I’m guessing this isn’t a polite wake-up call?’

‘Nope. Fix up, look sharp. We’ve got a body.’

‘Dex, it’s Monday morning. Listen, you’ve got good community relations round here. Can you tell people to stop dying so early in the morning please?’

‘I’ll do my best, but we might be a bit late for this chap. On the plus side, it’s been called in as a suicide, so you might still be home for brunch.’

‘Little mercies, eh? And why am I being called out to deal with a suicide?’

‘Ah yeah, I forgot there was a word before “suicide”.’

‘Which was?’

‘“Suspicious.”’

‘Wonderful. Who decided that?’

‘First responders. One of them reckoned there’re a couple of things that don’t look right. I’m on my way down there now. Apparently they tried to get hold of you, but there was no answer. I told them you’d probably had a heavy night.’

‘Oh great, thanks Dex.’

‘Pleasure!’

‘So where am I going?’ she said, opening her wardrobe and pulling out some clothes.

‘Do you know Manton?’

‘Loosely. I know where it is.’

‘Right. When you get there, you want to head down Cemetery Lane.’

‘Cemetery Lane? Is this some sort of joke?’

‘Well, no. There’s a cemetery on it.’

‘And that’s where the body is?’

‘Nope. That’s where I’ll meet you. Bring a decent pair of shoes, won’t you?’