‘But unfortunately for him,’ said Bailey with a thin smile, ‘he’s not going to have the pleasure of spending it.’

The three of them chuckled in satisfaction at the thought of Rick being led away in handcuffs.

‘So far I’m really pleased with your progress, Bailey,’ said Frank.

‘Thanks,’ she replied. ‘But I’ve got this funny nagging feeling that it’s not going to be a completely smooth ride.’

18

Dennis Morgan appeared to be in good spirits despite the fact that he was dying of a terminal illness. It tickled Bailey how her father had found it within himself to start dispensing health and safety advice to the hospital staff from his bed. Prior to retiring, he’d worked as a health and safety inspector for the local council and it appeared that old habits died hard. When Bailey had arrived at the hospital that morning, she’d found him lecturing one of the nurses on the dangers of electrocution, one of his personal bugbears, and one he’d lectured Bailey about no end when she’d been a child.

She’d come down from Stratford, driving around for a bit first in an unpredictable and random pattern to throw off any possible surveillance the Molloys might have placed on her. When she was satisfied that she was clean, she’d headed to Orpington and the Princess Royal Hospital.

It had been four days since she’d last spoken to him. And sitting there on a chair next to his bed, she didn’t want to say it out loud, but her father did appear to be a little bit thinner, a little bit paler, than the last time she’d seen him – a grim portent of the illness consuming him. She remembered how he’d always hated going to the doctor and it bothered her to think that if he’d have gone earlier they might have caught his illness before it had managed to spread around his body. It was too late now.

‘Where’s Mum?’ she asked.

‘She’s with some people from her church group this morning. She said she’d pop along later this afternoon.’

Bailey nodded and looked around the gastroenterology ward at the other sick people lying in their beds, being attended to here and there by nurses. She turned back to him.

‘How’s the food here?’ she asked.

He grimaced. ‘I can’t eat much because I feel sick a lot of the time. The cancer’s in my guts so that doesn’t help, but it’s the drugs that mostly make me feel ill.’ He gestured at the stand next to the bed with the box attached that was dispensing the drugs into his system. ‘This thing gives me the drugs automatically. I’m on so many different ones at the moment. I’m on two different painkillers: fentanyl and dexamethasone. The fentanyl makes me nauseous, so they’re giving me special anti-emetic drugs to stop me feeling sick. The dexamethasone is some kind of steroid that apparently causes psychosis if you have too much, although apparently they’re going to have to increase my doses as time progresses, so if I go crazy, you’ll know why!’ He laughed.