Dr Samantha Willerby Box Set

by A J Waines

  He picks up a peanut from a torn bag on the table and flips it into his mouth. ‘That’s not what you said at the time.’

  I shake my head. ‘No, I would never do that.’

  I’d remember – wouldn’t I?

  ‘For someone who’s so innocent, you were pretty damn quick to volunteer to sit in the back.’

  I force myself to look at him. ‘The seat belts – you’re saying I knew?’

  He snorts. ‘Are you kiddin’ me? Hell, you suggested it!’

  ‘No. You’re making this shit up…’

  He throws his hand in the air. ‘Bugger it, believe what you like. I don’t care. Either way, it was the only way it was going to work. You had to be in the back, so you could stay with the violin. Then you were meant to grab it and hide it on the bank. Only you botched it up big time, when you grabbed the wrong bloody case. Talk about dead wood.’

  ‘Why would I risk my own life?’ I demand. ‘Why would I have put myself through that?’

  ‘You said you were a hotshot at getting out of small spaces. And a good swimmer. You said it would be a doddle.’

  He tosses another nut in the air and catches it nonchalantly in his mouth. ‘So, anyway, because you cocked it up, your cut’s gone down by half.’ With his sing-song voice he sounds like he’s taunting little kids in the playground. ‘But, you’re still gonna help me sell it.’

  He jabs his hands into his hips.

  ‘Hell…you’ve made me wait long enough. You were meant to get in contact ages ago.’

  He waves a hand up and down in front of my face.

  ‘You really don’t remember any of this, do you?’ His jaw thrusts towards me, snarling, nasty. Why is he doing this? Trying to make it seem like I knew everything? ‘You banged on about how we could fence it; how we could get the violin out of the country and make a deal overseas.’

  He sees my blank expression and bursts into raucous laughter. He bends down right in my face as if he’s talking to someone simple. ‘Shit man, you’re a weird bitch!’ He’s so close, his spit lands on my cheek.

  His snide attitude reminds me of someone else, another bully, but I can’t quite work out from where. All I know is something inside me begins to smoulder.

  He moves back to the cupboard in the corner and pulls out the plastic bag he opened earlier. Then the memory shuffles into place. It’s Ralph he reminds me of, when I was ten, that time at Picket’s Wood. The ringleader. His bony face; scathing, vindictive, pretending to include me and then casting me aside like I was a bit of dirt stuck to the bottom of his shoe. I see my chance. I tip my chair back quickly, scoop up the small chef’s knife from the draining board and slip it up my sleeve, out of sight.

  As Greg is fiddling with the bag, my ordeal in Picket’s Wood comes tumbling back with the force of Niagara. The little gang of five. My desperation to be part of it. The trust I put in their grubby little hands. The hurt, the humiliation. Then, the way it ended. The real ending.

  It was the week after I’d been abandoned in the dark. I’d gone back to school as if nothing had happened, wearing thick tights to cover the bruises and cuts on my legs. The group who’d staged the little charade spent playtimes and lunch breaks sniggering and whispering behind my back.

  Then the tables started to turn. It began when Mrs Tanner came in to see my school teacher. Neil’s Nintendo had gone missing. As a result, all our bags and desks were checked. It never turned up. Shortly afterwards, Ralph left his brand new bike outside the Post Office and it must have rolled down the bank and got run over by a truck. He’d only had it three weeks. His dad went mad.

  A day or so later, Kelly came to school in tears. Her pet frog, the one she kept in a jar on the window ledge in her bedroom, had escaped. Taken the lid off its own jar and hopped out, it seemed. Then, that weekend, the day after bonfire night, Miles’ treehouse burnt down. One of the other kids claimed they’d seen him playing with matches. He said he was nowhere near when it went up in flames, but his parents stopped his karate lessons anyway. A few days after that, I overheard Julie’s mother saying that she’d found Julie’s bridesmaid’s dress at the bottom of the garden. It was in the wheelbarrow, covered in mud with a huge rip down the front, like it had been caught in a car door.

  All those mishaps, so unfortunate, one after the other. Funny how the sniggering and whispering stopped after that.

  Greg’s footsteps bring me back to the present. He is standing in front of me looking pleased with himself.

  ‘Here’s the first piece of sunken treasure…’ He delves into the plastic bag, showing me just a few inches. I recognise the scroll at the top straight away.

  ‘My viola!’ I’m on my feet.

  He sniggers. ‘Except – you’re not gonna be playin’ it anytime soon!’

  He slides it out, holding up a jumble of loose strings and flaps of wood. It looks like a headless puppet with all its limbs dislocated.

  ‘What have you done?’ I cry, trying to take hold of it. ‘You’ve smashed it to bits…’

  Greg smirks. He backs away, taunting me, swinging the remains of my beautiful instrument. ‘Soddin’ worthless load of shite,’ he snarls. ‘I stamped on it once I realised just how crap it actually was. Guy at the music shop took one look at it and said it would cost more to get it valued than it was worth!’

  He makes it do a grotesque dance in front of me and breaks into hysterical laughter. The parts clatter together, like a tuneless wind chime.

  Greg drops it back into the bag unceremoniously, lets it fall to the floor and kicks it into the corner. Then he reaches beside the fridge and holds up a bottle of whisky.

  ‘Fancy a slug?’ he says, ‘to show there’s no hard feelings. Then we can talk about the big one – the violin. Want to see it?’

  I shrug and he turns towards the draining board. He has his back to me for only five seconds, but it’s enough. My hand is up my sleeve and around the handle before my brain tells me to do it. Years of hurt, rejection, loss and anger, mostly anger, are seething inside me. He’s taken this precious part of me, my lifelong companion and crushed it to pieces, smiling all the while. It’s deliberate. Malicious.

  As he leans over to pick up two filthy glasses, I spot a thin stretch of white flesh under his T-shirt. I lunge forward and sink the knife into it. It slides in more easily than I expect. A wail leaves his lips and Greg turns, falls against the chair, his abdomen exposed. I sink the blade in, again and again, drawing strength from a place of dormant rage inside me I barely know exists.

  I know then what Dad must have felt. Why he pulled the trigger so many times. It was hurt that got the better of him and he couldn’t stop. Outrage, anger and fury all bubbled up into one big bang inside his head. Just like I’m feeling in Greg’s kitchen, with my viola in splinters on the floor and the knife in my gloved hand. I didn’t plan this. I didn’t come here to do this. It just happened.

  Greg grabs hold of the kitchen table, then clutches the holes I’ve made in his body. He seems perplexed by the liquid oozing over his hands. He slides to the floor, twitches a few times then lays still, his eyes fixed on the light fitting on the ceiling as if suddenly realising it isn’t up to the job.

  An oily film collects over his eyes almost straight away and I know what I’ve done.

  I’m quick. I grab the plastic bag, let myself out by the back door and swan out of the rear gate. I don’t bother looking for Max’s violin. I’m not interested in that now. I can’t believe I ever was; Greg’s story was a complete lie.

  On the bus home, I finally peek inside the carrier bag. It’s heartbreaking to have to look at my crushed viola, but that’s when I notice something else, and it brings a big smile to my lips.

  The thing is, I was right all along.

  It was worth getting my viola back, but not in the way I expected. I’ve got the connection now. It’s been locked inside my head, but I never quite lost it.

  Mick Blain messing about with my viola before our first concert and Karl’s c
onversation on the phone fifteen years later – it all makes sense now, thanks to Greg. He triggered memories buried under the surface and set all the cogs in motion.

  The thin piece of wood holding up the strings on a viola is called a ‘bridge’. That’s where the ‘fortune’ was all this time, on the inside of my viola, ‘under the bridge’.

  Chapter 42

  Sam

  I was uneasy when I got back from the Lake District, Minette’s message about Rosie being at Erica’s house the day she died was still lodged in my mind. So too, were images of Rosie pressuring me to become her ‘soul sister’, then trying to stop me calling for help when we were lost in the wood.

  What was she going to do now?

  We’d certainly parted on a sour note; she was obviously angry with me for ending the sessions – and refusing to stay in touch. I couldn’t shake off the niggling feeling that it wasn’t over.

  I had my ankle checked over at my local surgery and, as I’d thought, it was only a sprain. I hobbled for a day or two, but it quickly improved.

  During my recovery I managed to get the password from Professor Dean to open Erica’s case notes that he’d sent me. He apologised for still not being able to provide the full set. Apparently, Erica had kept handwritten notes from the final sessions in her house and these were the ones that had gone missing.

  Towards the end of my first day back at work, I dropped in to Debbie’s office. We’d managed a few quick chats recently and I was up-to-date on her pregnancy, but we hadn’t had a proper heart-to-heart for a while.

  ‘Fancy lunch sometime?’ I asked her.

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said, ‘how about that new Lebanese place near Selfridges on Saturday?’

  ‘Perfect. Text me the address.’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘Sorry, there’s a mix-up in human resources I need to sort out.’ She hesitated as she reached for a file on her desk. ‘Remember that creepy patient you had?’

  I nodded, an image of Bruce immediately springing to mind.

  ‘Poor guy ended up in intensive care two weeks ago. He was badly beaten up. Been in here with head injuries, broken ribs, a broken wrist, broken fingers, you name it, ever since.’

  ‘For two weeks?’

  I tried to remember the last time I’d had a silent phone call. There’d been at least one in the last fortnight, for sure.

  ‘He’d started stalking one of the nurses, here,’ Debbie said, clicking her tongue. ‘Waited for her in the car park. The husband caught him trying to put his hands all over her.’

  So it wasn’t Bruce who’d been plaguing me. On the train home, I ran through my current list of patients in my head. Was one of them calling my home number to freak me out? Could it be Rosie?

  Whoever it was, as soon as I got another dead call, I was phoning the police.

  I opened my diary to distract myself and made myself focus on the week ahead: a ballet on ice with Paula, a film with Hannah, Saturday lunch with Debbie. Nice, ordinary and safe.

  When I got back, I poured myself a small glass of wine and flicked on the TV to watch a film, just catching the end of the news. If I’d switched on a couple of minutes later, I would have missed it.

  I stared at the screen.

  A man had been murdered in his flat in Tooting and the reporter stated that his brother was missing, presumed dead, following a car crash at Ullswater in the Lake District.

  I recognised the photo; I’d seen the man in the footage of the Hinds’ party from 2001. I’d thought it was the same guy I’d seen on Rosie’s phone, too, the one who’d tried to sell Max’s watch. Only the reporter was calling him Greg White, not Teddy Spense. He was Richard’s brother.

  Pieces of Rosie’s mystery were whirling around inside my head.

  Teddy…Greg…was dead. The reporter said he’d been stabbed; a tenant had reported a bad smell through the letter box. And a priceless violin was found in his flat. Police were questioning neighbours for any leads. The voiceover implied Greg had mixed with the wrong people and had a history of misdemeanours as long as his arm.

  I was almost tempted to call Rosie to see if she’d seen the report, but I had to let her go. I had to let everything about the crash go too, and while I hate unfinished business, I needed to resign myself to never knowing what really happened.

  I could try to make headway on the other loose end, however. After a further call to Minette, she agreed to speak to Erica’s husband and later that evening, she called me back to say she’d persuaded him to meet me the following morning.

  I took last-minute leave for the day and the taxi dropped me off at the gate at 9am. He must have been watching me walk up the path, because the door was open before I’d taken my finger off the bell.

  ‘Mr Mandale?’

  Erica’s widower was in his early sixties and dressed in a formal black suit and tie. If he hadn’t been wearing slippers, I’d have said he was on his way to a funeral. His eyes seemed sunken and moist as if he’d spent entire days during the last few months in tears. I wondered how much sleep he was getting.

  He invited me inside the three-storey townhouse and led me through to a large airy room he called the drawing room. He offered me tea and I half expected him to reach over to the wall for a bell-pull to alert a maid. The kettle could have only just boiled, because he was back in the room before I’d had chance to take off my coat.

  ‘It was so terribly sudden,’ he said in pristine Queen’s English. ‘I still can’t believe it.’ My teacup made the crisp click of bone china as I stood it on the saucer. He blew into a large handkerchief and rallied a fraction. ‘You used to work with Erica?’

  ‘Not exactly. I’m a colleague of Dr Heron’s…and, I’m sure you’ll know all about confidentiality…I can’t reveal much, except to say that Erica and I had a connection.’

  ‘A patient in common?’

  I looked down. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t say, but thank you for seeing me.’ I swallowed. ‘Is it okay to ask you a few questions about Erica? It could be important.’

  He got up and walked across to look out of the broad bay window. I took a quick look around the spacious room. There was evidence of their happy years together on nearly every surface: early photographs in black and white and later ones with children. I wondered if the wardrobes were still full of Erica’s clothes, whether he could still smell her perfume when he walked into their bedroom.

  He pressed his hands together as if he was praying. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘How did she seem on the day she died?’ I asked gently.

  ‘Oh…the usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. She’d had an operation on her bunion, but it was healing up nicely. She still needed support, but she was down to a single crutch.’

  ‘And her patients?’

  ‘She was taking a break from Guy’s, so she only had one patient, a woman, who came to the house. Erica didn’t normally work from home, but she’d made an exception. She felt sorry for the woman, I think.’

  ‘Did she ever talk about that patient?’

  ‘No.’ He turned back towards me, smiling. ‘You know the drill. Even husbands can’t ask questions. Erica was very good, she never let anything slip about her work.’

  ‘Did you see Erica after she’d given her consultation, the day she…fell?’

  ‘No, I saw her that morning.’ He dropped his gaze. ‘Her patient was booked in for 2pm. I didn’t get home until six. That’s when I found her at the bottom of the stairs…I was too late.’

  ‘That must have been awful…I’m so sorry.’

  The delicate tick of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece filled the hollow space between us.

  ‘I thought, at first, she must have tripped over the dog…’

  My eyes instinctively swept the room searching for evidence of a pet. ‘Rupert died, not long after Erica.’ He swayed slightly. ‘I loved that bloody mongrel.’

  ‘I’m sorry…’ I cringed inside, aware of how much my visit must have been compounding
his grief. I ploughed on. ‘Dr Heron said there were witnesses who saw Erica’s patient leave that day?’

  ‘Yes. A neighbour saw a woman with red curly hair leave the house. She recognised her from previous visits. She left at around three o’clock.’

  ‘And Erica was seen after that?’

  ‘Yes, she went to the library, as usual – they remember her there because she nearly left her crutch behind.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what happened when she came back to the house?’

  He plucked brown petals from a display of white lilies and screwed them up in his fist – the first sign I’d seen of any tension. He dropped them in a wastebasket in the corner and stood still. ‘She’d tidied up the flowers at some stage. She’d opened the mail, which usually comes after lunch…done a bit of cleaning – everything was spotless. There was no sign of any visitors, no cups on the draining board and equally there was nothing to suggest a forced entry. That’s why everyone assumed she died of natural causes, at first. A heart attack.’

  ‘At first…?’

  He drew himself up and folded his arms. ‘What is it you want to know, exactly? I’ve been through all this with the police.’

  ‘Notes are missing from Erica’s records, as you probably know,’ I said.

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  ‘Not exactly. I suppose I’m looking for something that happened on the day itself that might help the police, something they might have missed.’

  ‘Oh…’ He looked exhausted and shuffled over to an armchair, folding into it before his legs gave way. ‘The police started to question whether it was a heart attack…that’s why they reopened the case.’ He paused. ‘And before you ask, Erica was cremated, so the police aren’t able to—’

  ‘Right…’ I murmured, glancing down at my clasped hands.

  His chin quivered, but he continued. ‘There was new evidence. A neighbour came back from a long trip abroad and said he remembered someone coming to the front door the afternoon Erica died. Sometime around 3.30pm.’ His voice was thin and fragile. ‘The neighbour was at the front window waiting for a scheduled delivery, so he was very aware of the time. He said he saw the visitor go inside, but didn’t see them leave.’