Page 77 of 59 Minutes
FRANKIE
FOUR DAYS AFTER THE ALERT
Otis still sleeps most of the time and Frankie is glad of it. Whenever Otis wakes – thrashing against his tubes and wires, moaning suddenly, eyes bewildered – she watches him frowning and fumbling for answers, for words that he can’t always find.
He looks older. His face pinched, puckered and lined in new ways. His gold hair has been shaved close by doctors, and his days- old stubble looks deadened and grey. When he sleeps, his face slackens like a popped balloon.
The ICU has thinned out over the last day or so due to a mixture of deaths, transfers to wards and a handful of discharges, but it is still twice overcapacity, beds and trolleys wedged where staff normally move, drugs and dressings frequently running out.
Frankie’s not supposed to have stayed in there up until now, semi-sleeping in a wingback chair at night, staring into space by day, or wincing as Otis wakes occasionally and the whole performance starts again.
The staff themselves are ragged. They sleep top and tail in the family room or lie in the corridors, the cleaners’ hands raw, the porters staggering.
But Exeter has nothing on what’s happening in London.
The television news, spoiled for scenes to show across the capital, has played footage of St Thomas’s that looks more like helmet footage from rubbled hospitals in war-torn countries thousands of miles away.
The confirmed death toll keeps climbing, hundreds or even thousands by the day, it seems.
Now the screen is playing a current affairs panel show, guests from binary sides arguing over these new ‘Hail Mary’ sentences. ‘It mocks the very foundation of English law, which says there must be mandatory life sentences for murder,’ a man in a grey suit argues.
‘How can anyone be accused of intention to murder under these circumstances?’ a woman in a navy suit says. ‘That’s like accusing soldiers of murder when they’re at war. Normal rules do not apply.’
‘Anyone can say they made a mistake due to the pressure of—’ the man starts.
‘The prisons will overflow if we treat these crimes in the normal way,’ the woman says. ‘No, it’s only right that in cases where accidents occurred or poor decisions were made under extreme conditions, and, crucially , guilt is admitted, people get a second chance.’
The man folds his arms and shakes his head.
Someone in the ward tuts, but Frankie can’t tell which side of the argument they’re on.
Killers out in a year if they admit guilt and blame the madness of the 59 minutes? Is that what will happen to Ashley Curtiss? One calendar year for all the damage that he and his brothers caused, to Otis and to Janet? That’s not right. He does not deserve a second chance.
If it were up to her … Well, it isn’t. She stands up and clicks her joints, stretches her back.
She needs to freshen up, although all that’s possible is a whore’s bath.
As she reaches for her tote bag – a cheap job picked up at nearest supermarket for carrying all her tat around, her new toothbrush and face wipes – a volunteer nurse walks towards her.
Round and kind, she has curly blonde hair in a bun and a dachshund brooch on her uniform. Despite everything, she even smiles sometimes. But not now. ‘The police are here to see you, love.’
People spill from the family room as the two young police officers approach it, Frankie trailing behind.
Children gripped to hips, haunted speechless adults look at her briefly, eyes crinkled with lack of sleep, with worry.
They must think the worst for her, assuming she is receiving more of the kind of bad news that brought them all here.
They leave their carrier bags and magazines, their paper cups.
No one rubbernecks misery anymore, she notices.
It seems everyone has had their fill of it.
The officers – both neat-haired boys with trimmed fingernails and shining shoes – hold the door open for her. ‘Would you like a tea or anything?’ the shorter of the two says, and his words suck her inside the room like a tractor beam, snap the door closed behind her.
‘The machine’s broken,’ she says, amazed her voice still works. ‘Ta though.’
Frankie didn’t catch their names, or rank. She’s not asked to see a badge, though maybe the nurse did. The two of them sit on the dated sofa, just the wrong side of comfortable, and gesture for her to do the same.
‘We need to take a statement about what happened to Janet Spencer,’ the taller one says. He has a long sharp nose like a cartoon character, barely real.
‘But I already told …’ Who did she tell? Maybe it was just a nurse, maybe it was no one.
‘We can do it here or you can come to the station. Here is nicer,’ the shorter one says.
When he smiles, his eyes turn into speech marks, nearly disappearing into his flesh.
He must have been an adorable kid, she thinks.
His soft face is at odds with the uniform, but his skin is lined with tiredness just like everyone else’s. How long have these two been working?
‘We’ve taken statements from everyone else involved but now we need your side of things.’
‘My side? There’s only one side.’ She pictures it all in her head, a mad collage. The kidnapping, the look on Juno’s face in the back of the truck, the fear as they were whisked away, Otis, permanently damaged by saving her. And Janet.
‘Has he …’ She thinks of the panel show, the express sentences. ‘Has he admitted guilt?’ she says. The officers look at each other but don’t answer.
‘Ashley Curtiss deliberately shot Janet Spencer,’ she says, firmly. ‘And if he says otherwise, he’s a liar.’