Keep Me Alive by Natasha Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

had netted the smallest profit he’d ever made. Bills were flooding in every day. Without the money Bob paid him for the weekly flights to France, he’d never be able to settle any of them. He’d always had a legitimate sideline, taking aerial photographs for local landowners and estate agents, but that was never going to plug this kind of gap. No legal business could.
    Could he make himself crawl back to Bob now? Having had that one fantastic glimpse of freedom, it would be like slamming the door in his own face. And Bob would make him pay for his weakness.
     
    Caro was in a general admission ward, full of mainly elderly patients who had been brought in after falls at home or in the street. Some were unconscious, but several beds had two or three nurses shouting supposedly soothing explanations at the confused and frightened occupant.
    Trish found Caro eventually in the furthest bay from the door. She was asleep, which seemed astonishing in the middle of this cacophony. Her complexion looked even worse than Trish’s had in the night, and already her cheeks were sunken. Her nose jutted up under the skin like a spike. A drip was attached to her right arm. Trish leaned towards it to read the name of the drug they were pumping into Caro.
    ‘Can I help?’ asked a heavily accented voice behind her. Trish turned to see a tall blond nurse hurrying towards her. There was a harassed expression on his pale, chiselled face. His accent suggested he came from Eastern Europe, or possibly even Russia.
    ‘It’s OK. She’s a friend of mine and I just wanted to see what you’re giving her.’
    ‘Only saline to keep up fluids,’ he said. ‘At this stage.’
    ‘Do you know what kind of food poisoning it is?’
    ‘Not yet. The results are not back from the lab. Why do you ask?’
    ‘Because I was eating with her yesterday, and I’ve been affected too, though not like this.’
    ‘Ah. The doctor thinks E. coli maybe, but the lab will say for sure in a day or two.’
    ‘E. coli? Is that enough to make her as ill as this?’
    ‘Oh, yes. If resistance is lowered, E. coli can be … severe. The
infection is able to spread, maybe affecting the blood, too. This is known as septicaemia.’
    The last thing Trish wanted now was a lesson in medical terminology. Horrified at the thought of what could be happening inside Caro’s body, she said, ‘What are you doing about the source of the infection?’
    ‘Is nothing we can do. We think it will have come from the sausages she ate, but no one knows what brand they have been. Often it will be poor hygiene, not the food itself, that infects.’
    ‘Even so, it should be checked out. And Caro’s partner must have the wrappings in their flat. I could go now and—’
    The nurse put his hand on Trish’s arm to hold her back. ‘All the packagings have been thrown out, and garbage removed this morning. We have asked this already. Miss Jess says often her friend will buy food when she is at work and it will be out of the refrigerator all day. Is enough to allow bacteria to multiply. How are you treating this?’
    Trish told him and was relieved to hear that the advice she’d been given over the phone by NHS Direct had been correct. But that did nothing to change the fact that her best friend was lying in front of her, unconscious, perhaps dying. Could it be true? Trish gripped the metal bedstead and tried to think sensibly. The only ideas her mind threw up were like a child crying ‘it’s not fair’. Caro was too rare a person – and too necessary – to die. It couldn’t happen if there were any kind of justice.
    Trish pushed the thought away. She’d learned years ago that no one could guarantee justice.

Chapter 5
    Pain was everywhere, absorbing all Caro’s brain cells and tearing at every part of her body. She moved to ease it and something tugged at her arm. Her eyelids felt too heavy to lift, but she had to know what it was. Trying to focus on the transparent worm that was