Page 69 of Watching You
‘Pretty cut and dried then,’ Connie said.
‘There’s more. On inspection of the lungs, the postmortem showed multiple small tumours. It looks as if the cancer had also spread to Mrs Smith’s lymph nodes. The conclusion was that had the heart attack not caused her death, she only had a matter of months to live, it was just that the lung cancer hadn’t been diagnosed.’
‘So what did the hospital do?’
‘Everything I’ve seen indicates that a medical review is undertaken first by a consultant within the hospital who has not been involved with the case. If there are any red flags from that, the hospital undertakes a full review with interviews of staff members by an external committee. Barbara Smith’s case was open and shut, so it stopped there. I can see, however, that Ailsa Lambert invited the son and father to meet with her so that shecould explain all the physical evidence, and for them to ask any questions they wanted. It looks as if there was no response to that invitation. The notes from the postmortem file indicate that no such meeting took place.’
‘So they just laid the blame at the hospital’s door, didn’t get the answers they wanted from the preliminary enquiry, then decided it was all some conspiracy,’ Connie said.
‘You think they hid themselves away and let their anger fester until one day Karl decided to start visiting the hospital and found people to kill there? It feels like there’s a piece of the puzzle missing,’ Midnight said.
‘It really does, because none of the family’s anger was directed at the hospital itself. Nate Carlisle has confirmed that a cursory look at Karl’s father’s body showed that he had inhaled liquid and choked on a small item of food. Do you have access to those notes?’
‘I do,’ Midnight said with a new flurry of tapping. ‘Dr Carlisle’s assistant sent them over a few minutes ago. He’d been bedridden for a long period of time – the mortuary managed to get access to his medical records. Looks like his stroke occurred just a few weeks after Barbara Smith’s death. It would have been while the hospital’s preliminary enquiry was taking place, in fact.’
‘So Karl is at home grieving his dead mother, presumably, when suddenly he ends up also having to care for his father. His whole life was upended. That’s a lot of emotion to have to put somewhere. You’d need someone to blame for that, right? Midnight, are you able to get me the names of all the people on the surgical team who treated Barbara Smith?’
‘Two seconds, here it is. The anaesthetist was Giles Polgood and the trauma surgeon on duty was Elizabeth Waterfall. They then called the duty cardiac surgeon who was—’
‘Stop,’ Connie said. ‘Elizabeth Waterfall also known as Beth Waterfall?’
‘It’s an unusual surname, so if you know of a surgeon there called Beth Waterfall, then I’m guessing it’s one and the same. Do you know her?’
‘Yes, we’ve met a few times. She’s newly in a relationship with one of the officers from MIT. If Karl Smith is stalking her, though, he must be doing a good job of hiding it or I’m sure she’d have said something. Could you check police files to see if she’s made any sort of complaint since the date of Barbara Smith’s death about anything happening either at the hospital or at home that she was worried about? I’m going to call DS Lively while you do that.’
Connie rang Lively’s mobile but got only his voicemail recording, then she tried Baarda but got the same.
‘Connie,’ Midnight said. ‘I’ve got something. A couple of years ago, there was a complaint to the police but not by Elizabeth Waterfall, it was by someone called Molly. She would have been in her early twenties, but she was accompanied to the station when making the complaint by Beth Waterfall, her mother.’
‘Go on,’ Connie said.
‘The complaint was about a stalker, mostly online stuff. Damage to reputation, deep-fake videos, posting untrue allegations about her private life. It’s pretty nasty but the investigating officer reached the conclusion there was nothing that could be done. The videos were posted anonymously, websites would pop up then disappear, the servers were international and social media sites wouldn’t disclose user information. Overall, it was impossible to prove it was the work of just one person. Several names came up during the investigation.’ She went quiet.
‘Midnight?’
‘Yeah. One of the names listed was Karl Smith, no otherdetails known. Various spellings of it and alternative surnames were also used. No other identifying details and it’s a common name. Police were unable to trace where the harassment started so no suspect was ever found.’
‘Oh crap. I take it there was never any arrest?’
‘Nothing. The file was closed when no further complaints were made after a year. It was him, wasn’t it?’
‘I think so. And because the complaint Karl made about his mother’s death was decided during the preliminary enquiry, Beth would never have been made aware of the complainant’s details. Stay right there. I need Beth’s personnel file.’
She called DS Salter.
‘Christie, you’re on speaker with Midnight and me. Are you at the hospital?’ Connie demanded.
‘Yes. All quiet here, nothing coming up on the surveillance. You okay?’
‘Has Lively ever mentioned Beth’s daughter to you?’
‘Only once. I asked if it was just him and Beth at the house and apparently she had a daughter who passed a while ago. Lively hadn’t wanted to pry but he got the impression it might have been a suicide.’
‘Oh, hell. That’s why the complaints stopped. Listen, I think Karl’s real target is Beth. He believes she was responsible for the death of his mother, and it looks like he started out targeting Beth’s daughter as revenge. Do you have someone from the hospital admin team with you now?’
‘I do.’
‘Good. Is Beth working right now or should she be at home?’
