The Siege of Reginald Hill Read online

  “Sorry, Bane, he’s fallen asleep.” A soft voice spoke nearby. “Speaking exhausts him.”

  I dragged my eyes open again as Margo started to move away, the phone to her ear. “Wait…” I wheezed. Wait, I haven’t…haven’t said goodbye…

  “Oh, he’s woken up. Here you are.” Margo restored the handset to its place under my ear.

  “Bane?”

  “Hi, bro.”

  Now I had him back on the line, I struggled for words. “I’ll give…your love…to Georgie…”

  When Bane replied his voice was thick and low. “Thanks. Don’t forget Blessed Peter and Father Mark. Or Snakey. Or Lucas. Or…well, there’s a bit of a list, isn’t there? Say hi to them all from us.”

  “I…will. Tell…children I love them.”

  “Of course. You’ve…you’ve been an awesome brother, Kyle.” Bane’s voice wobbled slightly, and I pictured him standing at the ship’s rail, staring out over the ocean in the hope that the tears on his cheeks would be ascribed to the sea breeze blowing in his eyes. “And I don’t just mean in comparison to Eliot!”

  “You’ve…been a…great brother…too…Bane. I know you’ll… carry right on…looking…after Margo and…”

  “’Course I will.”

  “Daddy? Daddy? Polly’s climbing over the lifeboat and she’s probably going to fall overboard, but she won’t listen to me.”

  Luc’s plaintive voice came faintly to my ears.

  “Uh, Kyle, mate, I’ve got to go.”

  I sensed myself plummet down Bane’s scale of priorities and smiled. “Bye, Bane.”

  “You’ll…uh…you’ll see me someday, okay?”

  “I’d better.”

  That won a wry snort from Bane, then he took the phone away from his mouth and the sounds grew faint. “Where is she, Luc? How many times have I told her…” Clanging footsteps, then Bane cut the call.

  I dimly felt Margo easing the handset out, then blackness swum up around me.

  If a man takes your cloak, give him your shirt also.

  The words were lodged in my head as I woke. Blearily, I played around with them, trying them for size, turning them this way and that as though they were a garment themselves. Why were they echoing in my mind?

  A clink of a glass being put down and a familiar voice. “If a man presses you to go a mile with him, go two…”

  Oh, Margo was reading to me. I’d a vague recollection, now, of her offering, when I’d sort of woken up a few…minutes?…ago. She’d asked me what I’d like to hear, and I’d muttered a Bible citation at random rather than disappoint her, too fog-brained to have any idea what I’d asked for.

  If a man takes your cloak, give him your shirt also…

  I drew in a breath so suddenly I choked. Margo’s frantic attempts to help caused pain but no relief, and soon Doctor Fathiya perched at my bedside, encouraging my body to behave itself.

  Once she’d got me breathing normally again, she stood up to go. “Can I help you with anything else, Father Kyle?”

  “Actually,” I whispered, “you can.”

  MARGO

  Sobs tore unstoppably from me as I turned away from Kyle’s curtained off bed and moved towards Reginald Hill’s. Ugh, I had to get hold of myself. I couldn’t speak to the man in this state.

  I made it to the monster’s bedside, but still I couldn’t stem the sobs. This last straw had caused my heart to swell and break, or so it felt.

  Hill looked up at me unemotionally. “So he’s dead, then? That was quieter than I expected.”

  I still couldn’t speak. Putting my back to him, I wrestled with my misbehaving body. Finally, I could breathe normally—a little quiveringly, but normally enough—and I turned around again.

  Hill stared over at Kyle’s bed, or at its drawn curtains, an unreadable expression on his cold face.

  “No, Mr Hill.” My voice still trembled infuriatingly. “He’s not dead. Not yet.” It wouldn’t be long, though. He’d fallen asleep twice while talking to Doctor Fathiya and the surgeon and could only just be considered conscious now.

  “Then why are you trying to flood the room? Is it a cunning plan to drown me and make it look like an accident?”

  I gritted my teeth, fighting to ignore the needling. “Mr Hill, my brother asked me to come over here and tell you something.”

  “Otherwise you wouldn’t be speaking to me, eh, Little Miss Forgiveness?”

  Blast, Hill knew I didn’t forgive him, didn’t he? I felt such a naked hypocrite, standing here talking to him.

  Just say it, Margo.

  “Mr Hill, my brother wishes you to know that he is donating you his liver and heart.”

  Hill stared at me, now, his face oddly…frozen.

  “He has arranged for a transplant team to be ready, so when…when his heart stops…” somehow, somehow I didn’t break down again, “the organs can be transferred straight into revival boxes for evaluation and then transplanted without any need for freezing.”

  No need to explain to Hill that organ freezing and revival—although possible for decades and vastly increasing both the ethics of organ donation and the quantity of organs available—took some years off the life of the frozen organ. He knew that, well enough.

  My turn to stare at Hill. Who said absolutely nothing. Good grief, cold old cuss or not, this took the biscuit. Kyle had insisted on closing the bed curtains—to stop Hill lip-reading—and having a top secret whispered conference with the medical staff rather than risk raising Hill’s hopes prematurely if they judged his relevant organs unlikely to be viable, and here was Hill, unable to muster so much as a reply, let alone a Thank you.

  When the silence went on and on, I said, as politely as I could, “Did you understand what I just told you, Mr Hill?”

  His eyes snapped to me at last. “I’m not senile, girl!” A hesitation, and he added, “I was just…thinking about the medicine I’ll require. For the operation. I need to make a phone call and order it.”

  “You, make a phone call?” I snorted. “Dream on!”

  “The transplant will be a waste of time without it. I suffer from a variety of complicated conditions. A healthy young thing like yourself wouldn’t understand.”

  Fuming, I raised my wristCell and opened U’s channel. “U? Mr Hill needs to make a phone call. To order medicine for the transplant op, he says.”

  “Isn’t it anything the hospital has?” U’s cultured voice issued tinnily from my wrist.

  I raised an eyebrow at Hill.

  He rolled his eyes. “Why on earth would I order it if it were? That’s a no. It’s very rare. And expensive.”

  “Did you catch that, U?”

  “Yep. Give him your wristCell. I’ll monitor.”

  I unfastened the device and handed it to Hill, who ignored U’s unseen presence and dialled calmly.

  “Hello?” A startled voice, speaking Esperanto. Was the wristCell showing an African number or a Vatican one?

  “This is Hill. Reginald Hill.”

  A long silence. Then the voice came again, low and breathless. “I can’t speak to you, Senor Hill. You’ve no idea how… I can’t!”

  “Listen up. One of my out-of-Bloc bank accounts has a balance of six hundred thousand eurons. Six and five zeros, did you catch that? I want five vials of the E4367 sent to the Kenyan Free State, and I want them here within two hours. Pull rank—or bribe someone if you have to—get them on a fast jet, get them here, and you will receive access details in a few days for that very bank account. Can you speak to me now?”

  Another long silence. The voice spoke again, nervous, but also eager. “Sir, two hours just isn’t possible. But I can do it in three…”

  “A minute over, and it won’t be a PIN number you receive. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I might even do it in two and a half. Just not in two. Sir.”

  “Then you’d better get on with it. Agent Willmott, would you be so kind as to give the good doctor an address?”

  “Ver
y well, Mr Hill.” The wristCell went silent as U cut Hill from the call.

  Hill held the device out to me. My disgust at the way he’d spoken to his subordinate—former subordinate—must’ve shown on my face, because he smirked. “Well, after all the, ah, present stresses the organs are undergoing, I wouldn’t want them to deteriorate the slightest bit further, now, would I?”

  Unbelievable!

  And still, not a word of thanks.

  Strapping my wristCell back on, I stormed out of the room, by some miracle holding back a tirade in which ‘ungrateful rat’ would have been the mildest phrase. And threatening to kill the doctor—some sort of military poison-developing doctor barely worthy of the title—for running a minute over time!

  Okay, so organs couldn’t be held indefinitely in an artificial revival box without suffering some slow deterioration, but Hill, at his age, even with Kyle’s organs, could scarcely expect to live long enough for an extra hour to make any difference! Hill terrorised people out of sheer reflex, didn’t he? The utter swine!

  Oh dear! With a supreme effort I reined in my unloving, unforgiving thoughts. And turned my steps towards the chapel. I’d better take a quick break and try to calm down. The events of the last half hour had been so heart wrenching. Kyle’s generosity had stunned me. Though I’d not been able to help protesting, “But does the world really need Reginald Hill around for another few decades, Kyle?”

  Kyle had smiled tolerantly at me. “Just keep him…locked up…until you’ve…saved his…soul.”

  He spoke as though the saving of Reginald Hill’s soul were some simple, easy little matter. But he had a point. We wouldn’t be letting Hill go, so what did it matter if he lived a bit longer? Maybe he’d be healthy enough to make himself useful on the farm, after all. But the thought of Kyle’s heart, the part of him that symbolised all his love and kindness and warmth, in Hill’s chest; the thought of my brother being buried without it…it hurt more than I could have imagined possible.

  But the worst moment had been after the organ donation was arranged and I mentioned to Doctor Fathiya that it must be time for Kyle’s lunch, since it was nearly one o’clock? And she’d given me a compassionate look and said that right now, food would only cause his body undue stress.

  And I, with stubborn determined optimism, had said well, he could always make up for it at dinnertime.

  And then she’d looked at me even more compassionately—her fingers checking her watch remained in place—and said very gently that the question of dinner really wasn’t going to arise.

  Before six o’clock, Kyle would be dead.

  KYLE

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Ah, the pain was so bad.

  Could I really hear a dripping?

  Every breath, searing my lungs…

  The sound of the morphine, trickling from its bag?

  Morphine…

  I’d never heard the noise before. My imagination? The devil?

  Margo had put a stop to nurses turning the morphine up. The thought of what she’d deduced from my unguarded words made my cheeks warm. I hadn’t meant the right hand to know what the left hand…

  And then she’d told Doctor Fathiya? My face burned at the thought.

  But they’d stopped adjusting it.

  Thank God. If someone turned it up now, could I even muster the strength to ask them to turn it back down?

  Yes, you could, Kyle. Because it’s not about your strength. The Lord has the strength…

  Two candles burned by the bed, on either side of a crucifix. Such a familiar sight…I’d just never been the one in the bed before. Welcome, though. The crucifix over the window was hard to focus on, but I could see this one easily. I’d a vague memory of the chaplain saying the litanies of the dying with Margo and some of the nurses after putting it there. I’d tried to mouth the responses but…fallen asleep?

  Father—oh, what was his name, was my brain going?—he’d gone off to minister to some of the other patients, assuring Margo he would return before the end. Yes, I didn’t want him spending time on me, when others needed him more. I’d received all the Sacraments of the Dying, Margo was here, and I didn’t need comforting, anyway. I was as big a sinner as anyone, but God’s mercy was bigger.

  Blackness nibbled my mind again…a familiar stab of fear pricked me…the next time I woke, would I be drowning? Suffocating?

  If so…then I would be very close. To being with Him. No reason for fear, then.

  I was fighting, fighting to surrender to Him. Fighting so hard. But how could I tell if I succeeded, without even my old awareness of Him?

  Mother Mary, pray for me. Guardian Angel, protect me.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  The morphine hung right there, by the bed. A word from me and…no more agony. A pain-free passage could be mine.

  I have no soul. That’s what Uncle Reginald said. That’s what he believed. How wrong he was.

  Save him, Lord. Please, save him. Use the extra time he’s getting and save him.

  Would it really matter if I turned the morphine up? Even just a few bars? He had all that extra time now, after all…

  I pictured a full team of hefty African football players bearing down on that temptation as though it were a deflating football.

  And for good measure, myself, from the sidelines, bellowing: Get thee behind me, Satan!

  MARGO

  I returned to Kyle after only a short time and sat by his bed, quietly reciting the prayers for the dying from the booklet Father Omwancha had left me. Kyle rarely became fully conscious, his breathing bubbly and pain-racked. No sign of any blood, yet.

  Doctor Fathiya predicted that he would fall almost entirely unconscious soon and that although he would—unfortunately—return to a significant level of awareness once the cascade started, it would be far too late for communication. Had I missed my chance to say goodbye? Please, no…

  Thank God, not long before three o’clock he finally seemed to grow a little more aware of his surroundings.

  “Kyle?”

  His eyes focussed on my face for the first time in an hour.

  I took his half hand, very gently. I always feared it must hurt him terribly to have it held, yet I sensed he preferred it. Maybe when I took his wrist instead, it felt like a rejection, somehow.

  His lips curved in a slight smile.

  I leant closer. “Kyle, I love you, and I’m so glad you’ve been my big brother. You know that, right?”

  He smiled that weak smile again. His mouth opened and after a couple of attempts he managed, “Ditto…little sis… Love…you.”

  I kissed his cheek. How I longed to hug him—but I’d only cause him more pain.

  “Mum…? Dad…?” he whispered.

  I shook my head, my heart aching. “I’m sorry, Kyle. We still can’t get through. The storm’s barely moving away yet, and the communications are all down.”

  Our poor parents. They would emerge after the storm, intent on evaluating the damage and getting things straight, but when, to great joy, communications were restored, they would get the worst news any parent could ever receive. Mum, Dad, Kyle is dead because I riled up Reginald Hill once too often…

  No, stop it, Margo! This isn’t your fault.

  Kyle still focussed on me. I rubbed the back of his bandaged hand gently with my thumb, in preference to squeezing it.

  “Let me…hear you…say it…”

  I frowned. “Say what?”

  “One thing I want…hear you say…make me…very happy…” He looked like he’d pass out from the effort of so many words, but his eyes strayed from me to Hill…

  Oh.

  He looked at me again, his green eyes daring me to refuse his last request. “Just…to…me?”

  Oh Lord, give me strength. Give me…willingness.

  I put my mouth very close to Kyle’s ear, and somehow, somehow I whispered, “I forgive Reginald Hill.”

  Kyle came as close to beaming as his condition allowed.

>   “That was low and sneaky,” I grumbled.

  His eyes twinkled with an irritating depth of amusement. “Be as…gentle as…”

  “…doves and as cunning as serpents,” I finished, before he could exhaust himself further, though I felt a familiar desire to slap him. Apparently, even being on his deathbed couldn’t stop my brother from being annoying!

  “Promise…look after…Uncle Regi…?”

  I couldn’t help glaring at him for this audacious request, but his pleading eyes were irresistible. “I’ll do my best,” I muttered.

  He attempted to beam again, clearly delighted by my reply.

  Oh no. Doing my best must be the highest commitment I could’ve made! Why hadn’t I gone for something nice and vague like ‘I’ll try.’ Too late now. Maybe Angel Margaret and Angel Kyle colluded to make me speak without thinking.

  I looked at Kyle, at his pain-glazed eyes and pallid face, and my heart tried to turn itself inside out.

  He must’ve seen my anguish, because he smiled again, mustering a few more words. “Not long…I…with Him…”

  The eager joy in his eyes filled me with awe—but did soothe my aching heart slightly.

  Kyle murmured another word. “Hug?”

  “It’ll hurt you…”

  The faintest of snorts was his only response to that, so very carefully, making sure I didn’t knock that oxygen tube from his face, I slipped my arms around him.

  “I’ll be…praying…you all…” I only caught the words because he breathed them right in my ear.

  I went on holding him until he slipped unconscious again, only a few moments later.

  I stayed beside him as the minutes ticked on, the blessed candles slowly burned and the hand of the clock inched its way to half past three. He didn’t wake again. Part of me wanted Father Omwancha’s towering, uplifting presence, but most of me dreaded his return, because the nurses would have told him it was…time.

  Finally, I simply had to go to the little room. I ran all the way, terrified Kyle might be embarking on that horrible death, alone. He wouldn’t really be alone, of course. The nurses would rush to comfort him, to fetch the chaplain. But it wouldn’t be the same.