The Watchful Eye

by Priscilla Masters

  But by the time he was back in the lounge his thoughts had turned inexplicably back to his problems at work, to Maud Allen and Anna-Louise. What troubled him about Maud were her last words to him that his life would change. He froze. Surely – surely she would not have sacrificed her life for his elusive dream of having his daughter with him? As much as he rejected the idea it would not go away but left him uncomfortable. She had been a tough, brave, unselfish woman. But surely this had been a step too far just to give him a paddock? And now he had the niece to deal with who would no doubt be hostile towards him – the doctor whose wrong diagnosis had led even indirectly to her aunt’s death. And he had benefited.

  In the wake of these thoughts was the knowledge that the true story of Anna-Louise’s death was as much a mystery to him as it was to the police and the pathologist.

  Who had stood to gain by the little tot’s death? No one. So it was not gain. The only person who knew the true story was almost certainly her mother.

  But when he sat drinking a final malt whisky before turning in, having seen his mother off to bed, it was back to Claudine that his thoughts returned. He was worried about her. Although – yes – he fancied her very much, he’d never touched her. Nothing physical had ever happened. And whatever his personal desires might be he had never had any hint that she felt anything but friendship towards him, her daughter’s friend’s father. So what was going on in her husband’s mind? Daniel had been careful not to expose himself. Brian couldn’t know that he fancied Claudine like mad, fantasised about her like a fourteen-year-old. He couldn’t know that. Surely?

  He finished his whisky, resisted the temptation to have another and followed his mother and daughter up to bed.

  But once there he lay with his hands cupped behind his head, hearing the noises of the night – a boy racer screeching up the High Street, the tinny tone of the millennium clock striking twelve, then one. Something was disturbing him and he knew it was the note of panic in Claudine’s voice when she was normally so calm. What was PC Anderton up to?

  By one-thirty he was groaning. After the allegation made against him by Chelsea Emmanuel the last thing he needed was for the local bobby to be accusing him of making advances on his wife. No female patient would feel safe again.

  He tossed and turned, dozed fitfully for a couple of hours, finally gave in to insomnia and padded downstairs to make himself a cup of tea.

  He propped himself up and read an article in Pulse on the use of statins to prevent myocardial infarctions. That, finally, did send him to sleep.

  Vanda Struel had got rid of Arnie for the night so she could have the flat to herself and entertain Guy. There was something fantastic about him these days, tall and gangly as he was. Almost overnight he seemed to have turned into a sexpot and Vanda wasn’t complaining.

  Guy was very sure of himself these days.

  He leered at her. ‘I’m glad you ain’t got that little tot no more. We couldn’t have had half the fun.’

  Even Vanda looked slightly shocked at this. ‘’Ang on a minute,’ she said, ‘that’s my daughter you’re talkin’ about. My little girl.’

  Guy looked slightly abashed. ‘Sorry, love. I didn’t mean it like that but…’ he glanced around him, ‘it’s great here.’

  She put her hand in his. ‘Didn’t mean to be so touchy,’ she said.

  He put one of his large hands at the back of her jeans and pinged the elastic of her thong. ‘I’m feeling randy,’ he said.

  Daniel woke late on the Monday morning, the scent of bacon frying somehow entering his dreams so he was waiting in a long queue in an American diner. His mother shouted up the stairs. ‘Daniel, Daniel. Come along. You’ll be late for surgery.’ It reminded him of his long gone schooldays.

  He pulled his dressing gown on and went downstairs. Again Holly and his mother were in obvious conspiracy. There was a détente between them that he had never noted before. Holly had set the kitchen table with a blue and white checked cloth and a vase of flowers picked, presumably, from the garden. There was a jug of fresh orange juice, sparkling water glasses and a pot of tea (almost certainly Earl Grey) in the centre surrounded by cups, saucers and a milk jug. He stared, first at the cordiality that marked the relationship between his daughter and his mother, then at the table which looked so inviting compared to his usual bowl of cereal eaten hastily from the bowl, straight off the bare pine. Holly and his mother looked at him with the same mix of indulgence and exasperation that most females express when looking at their men.

  ‘It looks lovely,’ he said. ‘I really appreciate it.’

  ‘Well, eat up then,’ his mother responded severely.

  So he did. He enjoyed the fry-up and ate with great gusto, which even extended to the Earl Grey and the orange juice. He vanished up the stairs to have a shower, leaving Holly and his mother to clear up. They both kissed him goodbye as he left for the surgery, practically whistling.

  His good mood lasted right up until he walked inside and straight away bumped into Marie Westbrook, looking annoyed. ‘Morning,’ he said, with gusto, instinctively sure that she had been lying in wait for him.

  ‘I’d have thought you would have had better manners than that,’ she said crossly.

  ‘Sorry?’ He decided to play dumb. It was the easiest option.

  ‘Didn’t you get my text message suggesting we meet up over the weekend?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I was busy. My phone was switched off in the bedroom. My mother’s been up and Holly too.’

  ‘I’d like to meet Holly,’ she said.

  He ignored the remark.

  Why should she meet his daughter?

  Her pale blue eyes held his and he knew she was waiting for his response. The moment extended into embarrassment but he was determined not to make any firm arrangement with her.

  Finally he mumbled something about having to get on with his surgery and bolted into the consulting room.

  His first patient of that Monday morning was Vanda Struel, accompanied by her mother. As she sat down he realised how much smaller she looked without Anna-Louise in her arms. Only half a person, really. He’d hardly ever seen her without her daughter, either holding her or in a pushchair.

  ‘How are you?’ He asked the traditional open-ended question as he had been trained.

  She stared back at him, mouth and eyes oddly dead. ‘How do you think?’ she asked truculently. Then blurted out, ‘The police think I killed her. They think I killed my own little girl. My baby. Can you believe that?’

  Unfortunately, yes.

  He held her gaze steadily.

  Daniel had little experience of Munchausen by proxy. It isn’t a common condition but, from what he did know, Vanda Struel fitted the bill perfectly: single mum; loads of stress; multiple investigations on the child, most at the instigation of the mother with no pathology ever found; dramatic stories, some of which had to be untrue; finally – and this was the clincher – recovery of the child when admitted to hospital, away from the mother. He stared into Vanda’s pale eyes, hoping she could not read his thoughts. The real problem for him was, what did he do about it?

  He could have countered her statement about the police suspecting her of being responsible for the child’s death with the obvious, well, did you? But no doctor could take that line. What would he do if she admitted it? Break confidentiality and inform the police? He could almost write the complaint it would inevitably lead to.

  No. It would be unethical.

  Besides, sufferers of the condition rarely do admit it. In fact, it is believed that their minds block out the events so completely that they would not be able to admit it. To them, the acts which led up to their child’s death simply did not happen.

  But he wished the powerful vision of Vanda bending over her daughter’s cot, pillow in hand, pressing, harder, harder and harder still, until the child was dead, would leave him. He gaped and looked at her and simply couldn’t find the right words. Not any words. All he could see w
as the child’s tongue furiously licking her lips until they were red and sore. But it was a tongue that could not speak.

  Vanda must have sensed his confusion. She fixed her stare at a spot on the floor. ‘I didn’t do it,’ she muttered. ‘I just didn’t do it. Whatever they think I couldn’t have done anything to my baby. I loved her.’

  Two fat tears rolled down her face as she looked across at him. ‘Can’t you convince them, Doctor? Can’t you tell them how much I loved my baby, that I was always here, fussing about her, caring for her? Tell them, please.’

  And that, he thought, is part of the syndrome. They do love their child. There is no doubt about that. But it is a perverse love. They love the attention that their ‘sick’ child brings them, the sympathy, the admiration. How well they care for a child that is always ailing. It is a terrible condition.

  You always hurt the one you love.

  He looked across at Vanda and tried to feel sorry for her. He struggled to find the right words to say. He put his hand, briefly, on her thin shoulder. ‘It won’t make any difference, Vanda, whatever I say. The pathologists make the decision. But if it’ll help I have already told them that I never saw you harm Anna-Louise.’

  Behind her daughter, Bobby Millin stood, her gaze hardly moving from him. It was as though she was trying to convey something to him. He gave her a polite smile and a nod.

  Vanda bowed her head in acceptance. But a moment later she was fighting again. ‘And now,’ she said with a touch of spirit, ‘they won’t even let me bury her. The coroner says we can’t have a funeral until another specialist has looked at her. What good’s that? How many bloody specialists does my dead little baby have to see?’

  Her small hands were gripping the side of the chair. ‘It’s like they won’t let my baby rest until they’ve got me for something.’ Two more tears followed the others down her cheek. Her complexion, never florid, was now parchment white.

  It suddenly struck Daniel that Bobby was contributing nothing to this consultation. In fact, he was mystified why she had come at all when she was so abnormally silent. He looked directly at her, inviting a comment. She met his gaze unblinking but still said nothing. Her plump face was almost deliberately impassive. Controlled. Her silence bordered on being embarrassing.

  She could have defended her daughter, protested her innocence, said how ridiculous the entire question was, but instead she continued to look at Daniel as though she would like to have said something.

  What, he wondered, did Bobby Millin know?

  He eyed her thoughtfully while he made soothing noises to her daughter, that it was routine, that investigations did not necessarily mean suspicion of guilt, that all would probably be explained satisfactorily. Bobby kept her gaze on him without flinching.

  A few hundred yards outside Eccleston, just a little outside the town, on the left-hand side of the Stafford road, is a small, old-fashioned petrol station connected with a workshop, called Claremont Garage. It was there that Brian Anderton pulled up. The owner greeted Anderton cordially. ‘Morning, constable. What can I do for you?’ He serviced the police cars and was on good terms with PC Anderton and his colleagues.

  Brian indicated the petrol can in his hand. ‘Fill it up, will you?’

  The garage owner squirted a gallon of petrol in, making conversation. ‘Waging a bit of war, are you?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Molotov cocktails? Hah hah.’

  Brian grimaced. The joke wasn’t funny. He handed the garage owner a five-pound note and told him to put the change in the Air Ambulance collecting box, which stood on his counter. He had a deep superstition about the Air Ambulance, that if he always put spare change in the collecting box he would never have to use it. His face was grim as he climbed back into the police car. It would be sent out for someone though, one of these days. Not that it would do any good. It would be too late for Doctor Daniel Gregory by the time either the ordinary ambulance or the Air Ambulance got to him.

  His mouth bent into a smile.

  Anderton stowed the can of petrol upright in the boot of the car. He intended to plan this assault with military precision, choosing the time, the place, the date, with care. He was not going to rush this. For, like a child waiting for Christmas, a large part of the pleasure would be in the anticipation.

  He drove home.

  It annoyed him that when he opened the front door Claudine greeted him with a look of apprehension. She should, he thought, look pleased to see him. Very pleased. So he addressed her sarcastically. ‘I’m home, darling. Now isn’t that nice?’

  She shrank back. She actually shrank. Recoiled as though he was a spitting cobra.

  This inflamed him.

  But he managed to suppress it. For now.

  ‘Is my tea ready?’

  She smiled at him.

  False wife, he thought. I know your game.

  He buried it, his jealousy and the white heat of his anger. His time would come. That he knew and maybe the false Claudine would burn alongside her lover. Like a person with a bad habit, a nail-biter or a smoker, his fingers itched to click the lighter. He felt it in his pocket, smiling to himself at the memory of the petrol can safely stowed in the back of the police car.

  Ready, he thought.

  All was ready.

  He just needed to find the right time.

  Daniel had finally given in and prescribed Vanda some antidepressants, feeling the usual sense of defeat as he printed off the prescription. Antidepressants were a failure on his part. To have spent half an hour listening to her problems and giving her some simple, practical advice would have helped her so much more. Tablets were simply a panacea for her hurt and an apology from him. He had watched her take the prescription reluctantly, as though, like him, she knew how inadequate they would prove to be. As he’d met her eyes he’d wondered. What was she? Grieving mother? Callous murderess? Or both?

  ‘Come back next week,’ he’d said. ‘Book a double appointment. We’ll talk some more.’ He’d tried the cheery bit. ‘Maybe they’ll have realised that Anna-Louise died from natural causes and you can have a funeral.’ Vanda had managed a watery smile and left, followed closely by her mother.

  So there had been no opportunity for him to speak privately with Bobby Millin. It was a shame. He was sure that she could shed some light on the death of her granddaughter.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Daniel thought about it he became convinced that Bobby Millin held the key to what had happened to Anna-Louise. So a visit to the nursing home was called for. Daniel normally visited on a Thursday, straight after morning surgery, spending about an hour shaking hands with the old ladies (and the two gentlemen), speaking to the staff, issuing prescriptions and changing medication. There was rarely any serious illness to worry about. Occasionally chest pain or pneumonia, but The Elms was one of the better nursing homes. They had their crises but they looked after their patients, nursed them through illnesses serious enough to have caused death in their assortment of frail octogenarians. Yet somehow, however sick the patients appeared, they invariably pulled through. The nurses were skilled and dedicated and when death inevitably removed one of their patients the place was soon filled from a long waiting list.

  Once or twice the elderly inmates had had sudden illnesses but in the elderly this was only to be expected.

  So three days after the consultation with Vanda he was ringing the bell to The Elms and waiting to be admitted. Before this system of locking the door had been introduced, there had been a tragedy. Four years ago, on a dusky November evening, a male patient who was profoundly deaf had wandered outside. Somehow, unchallenged, he had drifted towards the High Street and then out onto the B5026, the winding road west towards Loggerheads, walking up the middle of the road, oblivious to an approaching car. The unfortunate motorist, turning the corner, had slammed on his brakes when the tall shape loomed in front of him but it had been too late. Humphrey Bladon had died instantly.

  Since then The El
ms had kept all entrances and exits locked.

  Daniel was in luck. It was Bobby Millin who met him. Obviously today she was the one assigned to accompany him on this morning’s round. The Sister must be off for the day.

  Daniel was restrained. He didn’t even mention Vanda or Anna-Louise until he had inspected four residents of the home, each one with a multitude of problems and a stew pot of pathology. Heart disease, depression, arthritis, thyroid deficiency, obstructive airways disease. The list was endless. He listened, spoke, prescribed, sympathised. Three quarters of an hour later he’d finished.

  ‘Bobby,’ he said uncertainly as they walked back along the corridor. She turned incurious but perceptive eyes on him.

  ‘Doctor?’

  ‘About Anna-Louise.’

  Her eyes flickered.

  He pressed on. ‘Did you ever see Vanda harm her?’ He felt he must ameliorate the implied accusation of the question. ‘I’m not suggesting deliberately, but in temper or under stress. It can be difficult for a single mother, you understand?’

  Her eyes widened but she didn’t speak straight away. Instead she began rubbing her fingertips together. ‘Umm.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I shan’t take it any further but…’ He purposely left the sentence hanging in the air.

  Bobby nodded very slowly. ‘She did,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I did see her once or twice. She fed her salt. I know that too much salt can be harmful to a small child. I told her to stop it, but she said it was good for her. Another time I saw her pulling at Anna-Louise’s leg until she cried. The worst thing was that she used Anna-Louise’s crying to say what a difficult child she was, trying to make me sympathetic towards her.’ Bobby Millin’s eyes met his. ‘I didn’t blame her, Doctor. It was only a little tug. To be honest I felt sorry for Vanda, that she felt she needed to play this silly game. Perhaps to justify her own shortcomings, maybe? I saw her giving her rum in her bottle but she said it was to help Anna-Louise sleep better. I knew she was doing wrong things, Doctor, but I just thought she was young and a bit misguided.’