‘You haven’t had any more…’ he didn’t quite know how to put it, ‘trouble, have you?’
‘No, but Brian is so suspicious. He imagines the person who stole my lingerie from the washing line is now getting into our house and stealing things from my drawers. Not just lingerie but jewellery. Some earrings that I must have lost.’ There was a note of sadness in her voice.
Daniel was appalled. ‘And what do you think?’
‘Oh, Daniel, I don’t know.’ She sounded weary. ‘I don’t know what to think any more. Brian is…I don’t know, different. Changed. Something is wrong with him, in his mind, I think. He is very strange sometimes. He imagines things. Even…’ She hesitated, ‘about you. You know? He has changed the locks and is fitting extra bolts to the doors. He has told me to keep the doors bolted when I am inside. He’s very angry, Daniel, and very suspicious of everyone.’
‘You’re not in any…’
They both knew what he meant.
‘No. No – of course not. He wouldn’t hurt me.’ Her emphasis on the last word was subtle but unmistakable. And they both knew what she meant by it.
Privately Daniel wanted to tell her to be careful, to come to him if she felt threatened but he could say none of it. He fell silent and waited for her to suggest an outing with Holly and Bethan over the weekend but she didn’t. He took the hint and after a few more pleasantries she said goodbye.
He hung up.
So now he had no one. ‘M’ had turned out to be his practice nurse and he wasn’t starting a relationship with her, and the friendship with Claudine which had promised so much had come to an abrupt halt because her bloody policeman husband was suspicious of his motives.
Daniel’s face twisted. Maybe Brian wasn’t so deluded – merely perceptive.
He and Holly spent most of Saturday cycling along the disused railway which ran between Stafford and Newport. It had been made into a gravelled flat track, popular with joggers, dog walkers and cyclists with a pub halfway along. They stopped and drank a J2O, from the bottle, with a straw, in the garden, sitting at one of the wooden tables underneath a Racing Green umbrella. As usual he had had to pay the penalty of kitting Holly out with the right clothes, in this case padded cycling shorts, but as they pedalled along the track he forgot about his multiple problems and simply enjoyed the warm sunshine and Holly’s chatter.
They cooked Sunday lunch together and Holly grew quiet towards the end of the afternoon. When four o’clock came she suddenly put her arms around him and burst into tears. ‘I don’t want to go back to Birmingham,’ she sobbed. ‘I want to stay here with you. Please let me. I want to live here and see Bethan and have a pony and stay in my bedroom. Why can’t I?’
He felt the familiar pain in his heart. This was so hard. He could almost have joined in her tears. Instead he sat her on his lap. ‘Now listen, pigeon,’ he said. ‘Life here isn’t always such a bowl of roses as you think. We wouldn’t have fun every day, having little adventures and doing things together. I wouldn’t be buying you clothes every time I saw you. I have to go to work, like Mummy does.’
‘I know that,’ she said, almost angrily, ‘but even doing boring things with you like tidying out my bedroom and cooking, seems like fun.’ The tears were rolling down her cheeks. ‘I want to stay with you, Daddy. Please let me. Don’t send me away.’
He stroked her hair, staring at the kitchen wall. Should he have tried harder with Elaine?
Right on cue he heard the 4x4 roar up the quiet street.
Monday, 15th May
This was to be the day of the calm before the storm, the false promise of peace, of settlement and serenity.
Sammy Schultz met him in the car park. ‘I’ve some news for you,’ he said. He glanced around at the trickle of patients parking and entering the surgery. ‘Let’s go into my office,’ he suggested. ‘We can’t talk out here, there’s no privacy.’
Daniel knew that it would be something about Chelsea Emmanuel and followed his partner again feeling like a boy trailing the headmaster to his office after a misdemeanour. Sammy closed the door behind them then turned to face him. ‘Sit down, Daniel,’ he said. His face was grave.
‘I’ve spoken to Chelsea Emmanuel,’ he began.
Daniel waited with baited breath. He noticed that Sammy was not meeting his eyes.
He waited.
‘I explained to her what the usual procedure was in cases like this,’ he said, ‘what the repercussions would be, that she’d be questioned, that your career was on the line.’
The silence was thick enough to be cut with a knife.
‘I don’t think she’d thought,’ Sammy continued, ‘beyond the letter. ‘When she did she withdrew the allegation.’
Daniel’s first emotion was one of relief. Quickly followed by anger. Pure, furious, white hot anger.
‘They were lies anyway,’ he managed.
Sammy wafted a piece of paper in front of him.
‘The result is that Chelsea Emmanuel has written another letter to say that she was mistaken, that she supposes it was your job to examine her and that she’s sorry if she’s caused any trouble.’
Daniel gritted his teeth. Cause trouble? How dare she, the little tart, make those allegations, put him through hell for a week, endanger his reputation. How bloody dare she? He wanted to run round to her grotty little couple of rooms and shake her until her eyeballs fell out.
Sammy was watching him anxiously. ‘Dan,’ he said.
‘The little b—,’ Daniel burst out, his anger patently obvious to his concerned friend. ‘How dare she.’
‘If you want my advice,’ Sammy said cautiously, ‘you’ll put the whole thing behind you. Forget about it, Dan. No harm’s done.’
‘No harm,’ Daniel said. ‘No harm?’
Sammy put his hand on Dan’s shoulder. ‘Drop it,’ he said. ‘No good will come if you pursue this matter. More people will get to hear about it. The gossip’ll continue. People have short memories.’
Daniel said nothing for a minute or two then he faced his partner. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘in the States, if this situation happened, what would the doctor do?’
Sammy looked uncomfortable. ‘Hard to say,’ he said.
‘Stop bullshitting, Sam. What would they be likely to do?’
‘They might talk to a lawyer,’ he said reluctantly, ‘try and get some recompense for the allegations. False allegations,’ he substituted quickly.
‘Yeah. I thought so,’ Daniel said.
‘But listen. A word of the most friendly advice,’ Sammy said. ‘This isn’t New York or Chicago or some other huge American city. This is a real small town in Middle England. It’s a place where gossip spreads like a forest fire in Australia. Hot and quick. Please, Dan,’ he pleaded, ‘don’t make the biggest mistake of your life.’
‘I’ll tell you what I will do,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll sleep on it. Have a think. As soon as I’ve decided I’ll let you know. That’s as good as I can give you.’
He was conscious, as he left the room, that he was leaving behind one very apprehensive man.
General practice, he reflected, as he walked along the corridor towards his own consulting room, was supposed to be undramatic. The calm end of medicine. No crash calls or open-heart surgery. No dramas, collapses, heart attacks or such like. He stomped along angrily. It didn’t help meeting Marie in the corridor with a come-to-bed-smile. ‘Morning, Doctor,’ she said.
His reply was, he reflected later, an impolite, uncivilised grunt.
Shit, he thought, as he slammed the door behind him.
He was losing it.
Brian was peering out of the kitchen window. ‘OK, you bastard,’ he muttered, ‘come here. Just come here. I’m ready for you.’ He clicked the cigarette lighter once, twice, three times, held the flame up to the window. ‘See here,’ he shouted. ‘Have you got the guts?’ He scanned the line of trees. ‘No. I thought not. You haven’t got the balls. So leave my wife…’
‘Brian. What
on earth are you doing?’
He whipped around. ‘Protecting you,’ he snarled.
She touched his shoulder timidly. ‘But I don’t need protecting.’
‘You do, Claudine, you do.’ His hug was too tight. She wriggled away from him.
He eyed her suspiciously. ‘By the way, Claudine…’ She knew that tone and was on her guard. ‘Who were you speaking to on the phone on Friday night when I got back?’
‘Daniel,’ she said. It was useless to lie. ‘I wanted him to know that we are behind him, that we believe in him. Terrible rumours are circulating.’
‘And why?’ he demanded. ‘He’s been touching up a fourteen-year-old.’
‘That is a lie.’
‘Is it? Well – the rumour that’s circulating the town is that he’ll be suspended.’
‘No.’ She couldn’t hide her upset. ‘Surely you can see that the girl is lying. Look at her. She’s a little slut.’
‘Why are you so bothered? What’s he to you?’
She felt her face flush.
Lucy Satchel was thawing. She brought him a coffee when she’d finished surgery and gave him one of her wide, open smiles. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I was that the girl’s withdrawn her allegations. They were malicious,’ she said firmly, ‘but they could have caused untold harm.’
Daniel was glad of the olive branch. ‘Well – thanks,’ he said.
But it was difficult to have any extended conversation in the surgery. There was a knock on the door and Christine popped her head round. ‘There’s an extra asking to see you. Cora Moseby. Never makes an appointment,’ she grumbled.
‘OK, I’ll see her,’ she said.
Lucy waited until the door had closed behind the receptionist. ‘Now there’s a woman with a problem,’ she said.
Daniel recalled the woman who had turned up before, again without an appointment. ‘Oh?’
‘She’s had a trauma in the past. Won’t go into details but she’s still very disturbed by it. She’s had some psychotherapy but still suffers from nightmares. I’m trying to keep her off medication but…’ She held her hands up in a gesture of defeat. ‘One of these days I’m going to give in to her and prescribe something. She has trouble sleeping. I don’t know much more about her other than that she’s divorced with a couple of kids. I don’t think she ever sees them. From what she says they think she’s a nut and her ex-husband doesn’t seem very supportive. I feel sorry for her. She’s another born victim. Oh well.’ She gave another of her rare smiles. ‘Off I go.’
It was around lunchtime, two days later, as Daniel was grilling some cheese on toast a favourite midday standby of his – that his telephone rang. He picked it up, returning to the grill, hoping and praying that it wouldn’t be his mother. He wanted a peaceful lunchtime and she was capable of spoiling it only too easily.
His wish was answered. It wasn’t his mother but an unfamiliar, haughty voice. ‘Doctor Gregory?’
‘Ye-es?’ He was casting around his memory for a clue. A hospital colleague, patient?
‘My name is Richard Snape,’ the voice said. ‘I’m a solicitor acting for the late Mrs Allen. I wonder, could I trouble you to call in to our offices on the High Street at some point?’
Daniel was bemused. What on earth would Mrs Allen’s solicitor want with him?
‘Yes. Yes – of course.’
‘When would suit?’ the polite voice asked.
‘I have a half-day tomorrow.’
‘Would two-thirty be all right then?’
‘Yes. Fine.’
Richard Snape gave him the address of his office and Daniel hung up.
He didn’t have much time to reflect what Maud Allen could possibly have to say to him from beyond the grave. Could it be a letter? An explanation, an accusation? Something exonerating him from her suicide? Or a reproach? The phone call left him with a very uneasy feeling. He had an instinct that trouble was brewing from some other quarter now. Yes, Chelsea Emmanuel had withdrawn her allegation so the worry had been defused. But not the anger. He had known all along that she was making it up. It was others who would have continued to doubt him. But this was different. It wasn’t like his bodged diagnosis on Maud Allen and its tragic consequences. He couldn’t shake off his responsibility in that. He’d got it wrong and she had died believing he was right. She had trusted him – misguidedly as it had turned out.
His afternoon was spoilt by a visit from the police who seemed to be trying to corner him into making a statement about Anna-Louise. Not Brian Anderton but a CID colleague from Stafford who had nasty, suspicious eyes that darted around the room as though he was searching for clues.
‘So, Doctor,’ he said, ‘tell me about Vanda Struel.’
It was no good using the excuse of confidentiality. The detective’s suspicions grew when Daniel tried to fob him off with that. ‘Look,’ he finally said. ‘I never saw Vanda Struel harm her child. I wondered why it was that Anna-Louise seemed to have such a succession of consultations. Anna-Louise had numerous tests and we didn’t find anything wrong. She always recovered in hospital.’ Even as he spoke the words he was recalling the descriptions of Munchausen by proxy cases. It fitted the bill too neatly.
He felt that the detective would never be able to prove anything.
Daniel arrived at the solicitor’s a little late. He’d had a last minute call which had taken longer than he had anticipated. He started apologising but the solicitor, who was a youthful, balding man, seemed impatient to move on. ‘That’s all right, Doctor Gregory,’ he said, leading him into a small office lined with shelves groaning under thick files. Snape gestured to a chair. ‘Do sit down,’ he said.
‘Now then.’
He opened a file and steepled his fingers together. Cleared his throat. ‘We acted for the late Maud Allen,’ he said pompously while Daniel waited for the familiar twinge of guilt.
‘My client,’ the solicitor continued smoothly, ‘made a new will a few weeks before she umm…’ He seemed embarrassed. ‘She left her estate to her niece apart from the cottage.’ He waited for maximum effect. ‘The cottage, Doctor Gregory, has been left to you.’
‘What?’
‘Applegate Cottage,’ the solicitor eyed him over his rimless glasses, ‘together with the acre of land which adjoins it.’ He smiled comfortably. ‘The paddock.’
Daniel sat back in his chair. He should have still felt guilty. He had played a part, unconscious and accidental, but still a part, in Mrs Allen’s death. Yet the guilt was overshadowed by happiness. The paddock could easily house a pony for Holly. She would come and live with him now. Not in the centre of Birmingham. He could move in, sell The Yellow House. He would have spare money, for holidays, for school fees, for fun. He visualised the pretty, ancient place then looked up to see the solicitor watching him carefully.
‘I had no idea,’ he managed, hoping the solicitor hadn’t read his pleasure at the news. ‘She didn’t tell me. Not anything.’
‘I feel I should warn you,’ the solicitor added, ‘that it is possible that Mrs Allen’s niece might just contest the will.’
Daniel felt startled. ‘What?’ It was as though someone had offered him a bag of sweets only to snatch them away before he had had the chance to taste one.
‘The trouble is,’ the solicitor said, ‘that…umm…’
Spit it out. Accuse me.
‘Well,’ the solicitor said. ‘Mrs Allen believed she was terminally ill.’
He was avoiding even looking at his client.
‘And of course, this belief led, we would imagine…’
Oh they were so careful, these legal people.
‘…to her suicide.’
There were a few more formalities, papers to sign, and the solicitor squared up the papers and promised to be in touch while Daniel tried to rid himself of the conviction that the solicitor was unsympathetic. Finally he left and drove slowly back to Eccleston, almost screeching to a halt when he saw Guy Malkin and Vanda Struel walking, arm i
n arm, down the street. He couldn’t believe it. Yet there they were. Brazen and comfortable with each other. He could even have sworn that Guy met his eyes and gave him a malicious, triumphant smile.
He garaged the car, reflecting. Why is it that odd and dangerous people seem to hook up with each other when their relationship seems guaranteed to bring out the worst in them?
Chapter Thirteen
Friday, 19th May
And then the storm broke, flashing and crashing around his ears, raging through day and night.
It began in a suitably spectacular way, with a hammering on his door early on Friday morning.
His initial thought, just before he swam into consciousness, was very like his panic reaction as a newly qualified houseman. Someone was in trouble. A medical crisis. Heart attack. Haemorrhage. A stroke. A major incident.
It was none of these but an even worse nightmare.
When he opened the door his mother stood there.
‘Don’t look so thrilled, Daniel,’ she said dryly. ‘An expression of untainted joy would have done nicely but then…’ She sighed and stepped forwards.
He was speechless as she pecked his cheek.
‘They do say,’ she said, marching around him, ‘that if Mohammed won’t go to the mountain then the mountain must go to Mohammed. So here I am, Daniel dear.’
He picked up the large suitcase with a feeling of panic.
What is it about mothers?
His second rogue thought, which caused a surreptitious smirk, even through his dismay, was that his mother truly did resemble a mountain.
She had always been a big woman, a size sixteen, with an ample bosom which projected far forward, seeming to defy the laws of gravity – and age. There was not the hint of a sag about his mother.
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