CHAPTER 3

Dorothy ist im Krankenhaus hinter einen Erpressungsversuch gekommen, aber kann sie von ihrem Krankenbett aus etwas dagegen unternehmen?

It was three o’clock in the morning. Elsa was fast asleep and snoring gently as Dorothy pressed the buzzer to call Sister Carola. “I have a very bad headache. Could you give me something a bit stronger than paracetamol?” “Natürlich, Frau Winslow. But I’ll have to give it to you as an injection now that you no longer have an infusion. Is that all right?”

Dorothy nodded. Sister Carola left the room and returned a minute later wearing rubber gloves and carrying a syringe and a small bottle.

“What is it?”

“Just a small dose of morphine. It’ll help you sleep as well. Let’s find a vein…” She tightened a strap around Dorothy’s upper arm and wiped a spot in her elbow. Then she raised the bottle, inserted the needle and drew some liquid into the syringe, before placing the bottle on the side table.

“This isn’t morphine, Sister,” said Dorothy quietly, taking the bottle with her free hand and examining the label carefully. “It’s a vitamin shot.” She sat up in bed and looked the astonished nurse in the face. “Do you want to talk to me, or should I go straight to the police? I think you’ll find I’m much more understanding.”

It took patience and quite a few tears, and Sister Carola nearly walked away several times, but Dorothy eventually got the full sad story from the nurse in a mixture of German and English.

“Bei meiner Mutter wurde vor einem Jahr Alzheimers diagnostiziert…,” was how it began. Sister Carola had moved her mother into her flat to look after her. She was able to look after her during the day, and work at the hospital at night, while her mother slept. One night, however, her mother had woken up and started watching the shopping channel on television. On an impulse, she found her daughter’s credit card and ordered products costing more than €5,000.

“When the things came with the postman, I was sleeping, so my mother hid everything in her room. She knew she’d done something bad, but she was so afraid, she said nothing. And then she threw away the bills from the credit card company when they arrived. By the time I found out, six weeks had gone by.”

Sister Carola was already in debt from paying legal fees to end a disastrous marriage. The additional €5,000 threatened to bankrupt her. Her salary as a nurse just covered her normal bills if she was very careful, but definitely not the new credit card payments.

“Then I had an idea. I had a patient who was always asking for painkillers, although she didn’t really need them. So, I gave her a vitamin shot as a placebo, wrote in the drug logbook that I had given her morphine, took an ampoule home with me and sold it for €100 on the black market.”

Sister Carola started looking out for other patients who might be suitable candidates for the same trick.

“But I never wanted any of them to suffer. Frau Junker was a mistake. I really thought she didn’t need anything.”

As her debts gradually decreased, it occurred to her she could do it more quickly if she had some help.

“Which is why you tried to blackmail Hamza?”

She nodded. “I was desperate to pay off all the credit cards. On my own, it would take too long. But I was also worried that Hamza suspected something after that night with Frau Junker. He said you claimed you had not taken any painkillers, but I had written you down in the drug logbook and already stolen an ampoule. I had to pretend that you were confused, but I could see Hamza thought it was suspicious. So, I decided to frighten him to stop him asking any questions. It was a horrible thing to do, I know, but I had to … I had to!” The tears were now running down her face. “Frau Winslow, what are you going to do with me?”

Dorothy sighed. “Sister Carola, I feel very sorry for you, but what you did to Hamza was wicked. I think the three of us need to sit down together and have a talk, and you need to tell him exactly what you’ve told me. He should decide…”

“Well, that was very sweet of those two nurses to send you home with all these flowers,” said Lucy a week later, as Sister Carola and Nurse Hamza waved goodbye to Dorothy on leaving the hospital.

“They’re probably pleased to be rid of me,” said Dorothy. “I expect they found me rather bossy.”

“Oh, really?” said Lucy as she drove towards Heroldstein. “Armin said you told him to find Sister Carola a helpful accountant, and an immigration lawyer for Nurse Hamza. What’s that all about?”

“Well, you know how Armin likes to feel useful. I thought if he could do something for those two, he wouldn’t worry about me all the time and I could relax. That’s what the doctors ordered.”

“Ah, I see. Well, when we get home, I want you to carry on relaxing. No more mystery-solving for you, Ms Winslow!”

“Absolutely,” said Dorothy, making herself more comfortable in the passenger seat. “I’ll do my very best.”