Chapter 20

The Right Call

Everything went crazy the second they pulled up at the hospital.

Staff emerged from the automatic doors en masse and shuttled their patients away like ants taking a leaf back to the nest.

Makepeace felt a massive surge of panic at sight of Dempsey being spirited away. What if she never got to see him again?

In a haze, she allowed herself to be lead to a treatment room where she was tested for concussion and any longer term effects she might possibly suffer after the blow to the head she had sustained.

And afterwards, two intolerably long days. Although practically camping out at the hospital to be drip-fed snippets of information on Dempsey's progress, she still managed a couple of trips to the office to keep herself abreast of the situation with Levant.

During the first couple of hours she waited to hear whether he would live or die. Once the nature of the poison had been established and the relevant antidote administered, his survival was assured and there followed the nerve racking process of eliminating the possibility of damage having been caused to vital organs. Brain, heart and kidney functions were monitored closely for twenty-four hours until doctors could confidently predict a full recovery.

On the evening of the third day, Dempsey was awakened from a light sleep by the rattle of a telephone trolley being wheeled across the floor of his private room.

The sound jarred upon his frazzled nerves and the fresh faced, broad beamed young care assistant, Rose, was on the receiving end of his annoyance.

"Hey, keep it down would ya? What did you bring me this for? I didn't ask for you to bring me no telephone," he grouched.

Rose flushed a very pretty hue.

"I'm sorry, I was told to bring it in."

"Who told ya? Go back and tell 'em they got it wrong 'cause you're disturbin' my beauty sleep here!"

"Staff Nurse Moore. Shall I take it away?"

Dempsey contemplated her answer. "She's the blonde with the dark brown voice and the big bazookas, right?"

Rose's cheeks now flooded with colour.

She nodded.

Dempsey grinned. "Nah, leave it here. Maybe she's plannin' on makin' a dirty phone call."

He chuckled, rather cruelly enjoying seeing the girl squirm. Boredom was taking its toll.

After positioning the trolley at the side of the bed, she asked cautiously, "Have you filled in your menu sheet for tomorrow?"

He pulled himself up straight and grabbed a piece of paper off the top of the locker unit.

"Yeah, about that," he started belligerently. "You know why I'm stuck in this hospital bed, right? You know some psycho poisoned me?"

Rose nodded. "I know. Everybody's talking about it. It's horrible."

"So I'm being offered, for my dinner tomorrow night, a dish of freakin' toad!"

"Toad?" she repeated, nonplussed.

He jabbed his forefinger at one of the three evening meal options. "Says right here. 'Toad in the Hole'. Those things'll kill ya! Leak poison right outa their slimy skins. I know the Brits are eccentric but that's just crazy! You tryin' to score one off of the French with their freaky frogs legs, hah?"

He made a little running gesture with two fingers of his right hand.

Rose took the form that had been thrust at her.

"It isn't real toad, Mister Dempsey," she said meekly.

They both looked up on hearing a brisk knock at the door which was immediately pushed open.

Makepeace stopped in her tracks at the sight of Rose. "Oh, should I wait outside?"

"No!" Rose pleaded.

Makepeace saw the impish grin on Dempsey's face and realised she had probably just walked in at an opportune moment as far as the poor girl was concerned.

She crossed over to the bed.

"Behaving himself, is he?" she asked casually, bending down to put a kiss on Dempsey's cheek.

I call it plain insensitive," he continued to rant, "puttin' somethin' like that on the menu…"

"It's just sausage and Yorkshire pudding, Mister Dempsey," Rose tried desperately.

She looked at Makepeace for support. "Toad in the Hole. He thinks we're trying to…" she hesitated to say the 'p' word but murmured quietly, "poison him with toads."

Makepeace was extremely pleased to hear that her partner was back on form.

"I'm sure Toad in the Hole will be fine, don't worry. Americans aren't particularly discerning where their food is concerned; they eat anything and everything."

Rose looked slightly relieved at Makepeace's words and even felt confident enough to suggest an alternative.

"There's Shepherd's Pie if you'd rather."

Makepeace frowned at Dempsey, shaking her head but obviously he chose to ignore her.

"Ah, Shepherd's Pie! I know that one. That's the pie that ain't a pie 'cause it don't have no pastry…"

Makepeace turned back to Rose, her nose wrinkling as she told her, "Anything. Really, his palate won't know the difference."

"Okay, thank you very much," she said far too cheerfully and made a hurried exit.

She was used to dealing with cantankerous old men or frustrated, time pressured business men but this American policeman was something else. Funny, she used to quite like Columbo.

"And how are you this evening?" Harry asked.

He sighed, scrubbing his fingers through his hair.

"Yep. Good. Okay, I guess."

Harry gave him a sidelong look. "Meaning?"

He shrugged. "Meaning, I'm okay."

Harry looked at her watch and sat down in the high backed chair by the bed. "I take it it's all beginning to hit home?"

She was right on the money. The closer he got to feeling normal, the more events began to slot together in his head… what Andrew Levant had done to them.

He'd been told he and Toni had been poisoned with a solution of Hydrocodene. It wasn't a recognised prescription formulation and the theory was that Levant had connections with Leo Rheiner's drug land associates and had obtained the stuff from an illegal pharmaceutical lab.

They had been treated with a combination of oxygen, charcoal and carefully administered doses of Naloxone and incredibly, twenty-four hours had seen a dramatic turnaround.

But Toni wasn't doing so good. Having been subjected to more doses of the drug than Dempsey (whose devotion to duty had apparently saved him) she was on the critical list. Liver damage but they were hopeful she would pull through given the necessary care.

However, it wasn't just the physical aspects Dempsey was dealing with – it was the psychological aftermath. The man he had allowed into his home as a friend had systematically tortured him. Poisoned, stabbed and on the brink of hypothermia, Levant had maimed him mentally with the tale of his revenge which had included the horrific murder of Dempsey's own brother.

The presence of the payphone now served to remind him that at some point he had to get in touch with Gil's widow, Amy and then there was their mother… she would be devastated. She would have needed her other son, would have needed him to be there with the rest of the family. Dempsey had tried to recall the last time he had used the telephone in the apartment in a bid to work out why there had been no call from his mother to tell him of his brother's death. It had been only the bedroom 'phone Levant had decommissioned so he could only think Levant had intercepted the call and promised to get Dempsey to ring her back. But then, the more he thought about it, the more he came to realise that Levant would never have committed that gruesome murder himself – he just didn't have the stomach for it. It had to have been a hired hit man with a taste for the macabre and it had to have been carried out after Levant had left The States for Dempsey not to have received any phone call before his arrival.

Makepeace had been dividing her time between the hospital and the SI-10 offices and this afternoon she had promised to find out the circumstances before he got in touch with his family and he knew that her visit this evening would bring him the answers he must face.

He saw her look at her watch again.

"I looked in on Toni on my way to see you," she told him.

Dempsey grimaced. "I'm really hopin' this is good news."

Harry smiled reassuringly. "It is. She apparently regained consciousness three hours ago. She's still on a ventilator of course but she knew who I was and she squeezed my hand."

He laughed delightedly, bringing his hand to his mouth and squooshing his lips together in a gesture of personal amusement. "I'll bet she did," he chuckled.

Harry smiled back with puzzlement. "I managed to have a word with one of the doctors; she said they're going to reduce her medication if they get the results they're hoping for on her next set of blood tests."

He nodded, still smiling broadly. "Great. That is great news. Really great news."

Catching her once again glancing at her wristwatch, he felt he had to ask.

"Am I keeping you from something, Sergeant?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Me? No. There's nothing I'd rather be doing on a Friday night than visiting my partner in hospital."

The deliberate sarcasm was quashed by her sincerity as she laid a hand upon his forearm, "honestly."

He grinned and placed his hand on top of hers. "Yeah?"

Their eyes held for a few seconds and then she shrugged casually. "Yeah."

"Did you know Chas stopped by earlier," he asked, keeping hold of her hand.

"No," she answered, enjoying the feel of his thumb stroking over her knuckles.

"Miss Whiplash."

His tongue rolled over the words, oozing dark sensual promises.

For a second she was taken aback but refused to show it. Unknowingly though, her eyes glittered at the connotations.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Ah no, wait, it was Miss Pistol Whip. Think I was just hearing what I wanted to hear."

"Hmm. He told you about that, did he?"

Smoothly she withdrew her hand, glancing at the time as she sat back in her chair.

"You're a naughty girl, Harry. Somethin' like that could land you in a lota hot water."

She didn't respond, just lowered her eyes and fixed a faint smile on her lips. She was aiming for nonchalance but Dempsey knew her well enough to recognise it as diffidence.

"Never seen you lose it that bad before," he chuckled softly, "least not with someone that wasn't me."

"Extenuating circumstances, Dempsey."

Her voice always hardened that way when there was a threat of emotion taking hold – a little defence mechanism she used, same way he used humour.

"Woulda paid good money to see that sideshow, Tiger."

"Terribly unprofessional," she answered primly but when Dempsey caught her eye she relented. "And just a little bit liberating."

Again, their eyes held.

Would it be so wrong to hold his arms out to her, to press his cheek against her soft, blonde hair and move his fingers gently up and down her spine?

When the 'phone rang, Dempsey jumped – a sign of his state of mind, Harry considered.

She quickly stood up and hastened to the door.

"I'm going to get a coffee or something." She pointed her forefinger at the ringing payphone. "That's for you by the way."

"What?" he asked, bewildered.

She looked at her watch. "Bang on time."

When Dempsey failed to respond, she pointed again. "Well go on then," she commanded, "answer it!"

When the door swung shut, Dempsey finally obeyed.

"Yo! Jim Dempsey – who's this?"

There was a delay before the caller spoke but then…

"If I should give you a heart attack right now, bro, least I know you're in the right place."

There was a delay at Dempsey's end too whilst his mind attempted to make sense of what he was hearing.

"Gil? That really you?"