by Neil White
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ Laura whispered, trying to keep her voice low. ‘Doctor Barker has died. Did you know him?’
The woman looked at the house, and then back at Laura. ‘I heard the police were down here and I was worried, but I didn’t expect all of this.’ She took a tissue out of her handbag and ran it under her eyes. ‘How did he die?’
‘I can’t tell you, I’m sorry,’ Laura said. ‘Tell me how you knew him.’
‘I used to work for him, before he retired, I mean,’ she said. ‘I’m Anne. His practice is still there.’
‘So who works there now?’
‘Some new doctors. Just younger versions of Doctor Barker really.’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Laura asked.
Anne dabbed at her eye again. ‘That’s the weird thing,’ she said, sniffling. ‘He came to the practice this morning.’
‘Today?’ Laura asked, surprised.
Anne nodded. ‘He said he was tracking a former patient down.’
Laura tried to hide her eagerness, but she knew this was important. ‘Did he give a name?’
Anne shook her head. ‘He said a former patient had sought him out and asked for his help, but he couldn’t remember anything about the case.’
‘How did he seem?’
Anne thought about that, and then said, ‘Now that you mention it, he did seem a bit jumpy and nervous. More than usual, anyway, because he was normally very calm.’
‘Did he find what he wanted?’ Laura said.
‘I don’t know,’ Anne replied. ‘I didn’t see him with anything, but I was talking to someone else at the time. He just said goodbye and then he went.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Not long after we opened up,’ Anne said. ‘Nearly ten, I think.’
And then he went straight to the police, Laura thought, before saying, ‘Come with me.’
Anne looked suddenly scared. ‘I don’t want to see him,’ she said. ‘Not if he’s dead.’
‘No, not that,’ Laura said. ‘I want to go to the office with you, because if Doctor Barker didn’t take anything with him, whatever he was looking for must still be there. Come to the car.’
Anne thought about that, and then nodded her agreement. Laura could feel Anne’s nervousness as they walked to Joe’s car. Once Anne had climbed into the back, Laura gestured for Joe to join her.
‘What is it?’ he asked, once he reached her.
‘We’ve got a lead,’ Laura whispered, talking over the roof of the car and pointing towards the back seat. ‘Barker was at his old office this morning, looking for details of a former patient, just before he came to Blackley.’
‘Sounds promising,’ Joe said, and climbed into the driver’s seat, turning around just to smile a hello.
The journey was a short one, Anne taking them through side streets lined by shops selling seaside buckets and metallic balloons. As they followed her into the building where she worked, Laura wondered what her new employers would think about her bringing the police with her. She didn’t have to wait long to get her answer, because as Anne took them along a corridor lined by cheap carpet tiles, a door opened further along and a man with skeletal features and greying hair cropped right down to his skull appeared in front of them.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked, his smile polite but firm, stretching his skin further. It seemed to Laura that his intention was to stop them rather than help them.
Laura introduced herself, but before Joe could join in, the man said, ‘I guessed what you were as soon as I saw you. The question was how I could help you. What is the answer to that?’
‘Doctor Barker came here this morning, looking for something,’ Laura said, fighting to keep the irritation out of her voice. ‘We need to know what he was looking for.’
‘Doctor Barker?’ He looked at Anne, confused, and when she nodded, her eyes down, the man smirked. ‘Why don’t you just ask him?’
Laura glanced at Joe, who nodded. The secret was already out. ‘He’s dead,’ Laura said bluntly. ‘Killed, we think, because of whatever he found here this morning.’
The smirk disappeared as the man glanced over at Anne, who nodded tearfully and then cast her eyes to the ground again.
‘Why didn’t you tell us Rupert was here?’ he whispered to Anne.
‘I’m sorry, we haven’t got much time’ Laura said, stepping closer. ‘I just want to stop this happening to someone else.’ She turned to Anne. ‘Show me what he was looking at.’
‘He went to the archive files,’ Anne said
The man didn’t move. ‘Those are still confidential files. I can’t just turn them over.’
‘We don’t want the files. We just want to know which file he was looking at,’ Laura said, as she stared him down.
‘I can’t see the difference,’ he said.
‘What about this then?’ Laura said. ‘If Doctor Barker was killed because of what he knew, then how do we know that other people here won’t be next? Because the murderer will kill again.’ She pointed at Anne. ‘Maybe her, and perhaps even you.’ Laura stepped closer. ‘It’s just the name. Nothing more. Which file did a murdered man look at just before he was killed? Or is your own personal pride worth more than someone’s life?’
‘It’s a professional obligation,’ he said, some uncertainty creeping into his voice.
‘What about risking that to save some lives? Or is your professional obligation more important than saving a life?’ Laura persisted.
The man considered that for a few seconds longer, and then stepped to one side. Anne walked towards a panelled wooden door halfway along the corridor, thick with decades of paint. Laura could see her hands trembling.
‘The archives are down here,’ Anne said, and she dug into her purse for the key. She pushed at the door and stepped inside to turn on the light. ‘Everything is down there.’
‘Come with us,’ Laura said. When Anne flashed an uncertain look at her boss, Laura added, ‘you will be able to tell us if anything has been moved.’
When Anne got the nod that she should cooperate, they all descended into the damp and cold of the cellar.
It was lined by wooden racks and piled high with boxes. The dust made Laura’s nose itch, and then she exhaled loudly. Where should they start?
Joe stepped past her and began to read the dates on the boxes. ‘You only treat children here?’ he asked Anne, and when she nodded, he said, ‘We’ll need to go back a few years, as the newest boxes will make the patients too young.’ He began to walk along, examining the outside of the boxes, not the contents. Then he stopped and reached for a box from the top shelf, just at his eye-level. He grunted with effort as he put it onto the floor. ‘Nineteen eighty-five,’ he said. ‘The dust has been disturbed on the lid, and that would make him about the right age.’
Joe removed the lid and put it on the floor before he groaned. The box was filled with files, all lined up neatly.
‘There are some more boxes here with marks in the dust,’ Laura said, and grabbed the next one along.
‘Get down all the boxes where the dust has been disturbed,’ Joe said, and as he and Laura looked along the shelves, they saw there six boxes with marks on the lids. Laura watched as Joe popped the lid on each one in turn, they were all filled to bursting with files.
But the final box was different.
Joe looked into the box and then at Laura, before he got to his feet.
‘There’s your answer,’ he said.
Laura had to agree. In all the other boxes, the files were lined up, filed away. In this box, however, one file had been removed and placed on top of the others.
Joe picked up the file. ‘Shane Grix,’ he said, as he read the name on the cover. Then he opened it and began to flick through the contents. Laura watched as his eyes widened.
Anne looked at Laura, uncertainty in her eyes. Laura raised a finger to her lips to ask her not to say anything.
Anne looked at the floor, her hands clasped i
n front of her, as Joe read. He flicked through the pages, sometimes pausing to consider something in more detail. After a few minutes, he handed the file back to Anne, who looked nervously at the cover.
‘Thank you,’ Joe said. ‘You might have helped us catch a killer,’ and as he rushed for the stairs, Laura followed quickly behind.
Chapter Forty-Three
As the sound of Adam’s car disappeared into the hills, Jack grabbed his own car keys and headed outside. He needed to be at Bobby’s school, in case his father was late. As he climbed into his car, he wondered what to do with the information he had been given. He wanted to write about Jane, but what Adam had told him fitted in with the piece he had partly finished for Dolby on the Whitcroft estate. Dolby wanted it to sneer at those who always came up against the tougher side of life, but Adam’s version gave the story a villain: Don Roberts.
He went to turn on the engine, but then paused and reached for his phone. He dialled Dolby’s number, who answered on the second ring.
‘How late can I leave the Whitcroft story?’ Jack said.
There was a pause, and then Dolby said, ‘I thought it was almost done.’
‘It is, but I’ve got another angle,’ Jack said.
‘I don’t want another angle.’
‘This ties in with Jane Roberts, the dead woman.’
Jack could almost hear Dolby’s thoughts as he pondered on whether to allow Jack extra time. Eventually, Dolby said, ‘How so?’
‘The security on the estate is managed by Jane’s father,’ Jack said.
‘That’s a tenuous link.’
‘Not really. Jane had a good upbringing, much more affluent than those people on the estate, but it was partly paid for by them.’
‘And with a tragic postscript, because Jane was killed,’ Dolby said, and Jack could hear him thinking. ‘Write it up, see how it comes out.’
‘Will do.’
‘It needs to go in tomorrow though. Two pages.’
‘I know, I know, but this will add something to it.’
Dolby sighed at the other end, and Jack knew he had just earned himself a late night.
The car started on the first turn of the keys. It was a good omen. Bobby first, and then it was back to the Whitcroft estate.
Laura put her phone into her pocket. They were heading towards the last known address of Shane Grix.
‘He doesn’t appear on the system,’ she said. ‘If Shane Grix is dangerous, he’s avoided detection.’
‘For the last few years anyway,’ Joe said. ‘Remember there was a time when our computer records were not that good, and so if he’s been off the radar for more than fifteen years, he might not appear.’
‘And he might have changed his name,’ she said. ‘So if the name isn’t known to us, what did you see in the file that got you so interested?’
Joe glanced over. ‘Shane Grix,’ he said. ‘A quiet kid from a nice family. Adopted. It’s a bit of the old nature versus nurture thing, I suppose, but it seems that in this case quiet also meant withdrawn, and bullied.’
‘There’s a child in every school who is bullied,’ Laura said. ‘It doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make it exceptional either.’
Joe smiled. ‘Do you remember what I told you about why some children are cruel to animals, or set fires?’
‘Power,’ she said. ‘Or, at least, how they react to feeling powerless. They strike back at things weaker than themselves.’
‘Exactly, and that’s why young Shane went to see a child psychologist. He was mistreating small animals.’
Laura could see the gleam in Joe’s eyes, the academic side of him taking over, relishing the chance to chase a theory rather than a killer. She turned away and watched the seascape flash into view as they passed the ends of those streets that ran towards it, just glimpses of bright blue.
‘But what was it about Shane that made Doctor Barker go looking for his file?’ she asked eventually.
‘It was the way he was mistreating them,’ Joe said, as he turned onto a street of semi-detached houses, with large bay windows and glass porches. He looked out of his window as his car crept along, and then he stopped alongside a grass verge that separated the path from the road. ‘This is Shane’s address. Or at least it was all those years ago.’
Laura looked out of the car and saw dusty windows and net curtains. She could see the outline of china ornaments on the window sill, and there was a flower basket hanging from a hook by the front door, although the flowers looked tired and sagging.
They both climbed out of the car, and looked up at the house. There was no car in the driveway and Laura wondered whether anyone was home.
‘Shane was a boy when he lived here,’ Laura said. ‘He will be long gone.’
‘But we might get the local gossip,’ he said. ‘Look at these houses. These are not new-build starter homes. These are old-fashioned houses, where people bring up children and then stay in when they’ve retired. I didn’t see a single for sale sign as we drove here. Even if Shane has moved, someone around here will remember him.’
Laura sighed. She had stopped questioning Joe’s methods, because he usually had a plan. So she walked towards the front door and rang the bell.
As they waited, she looked down at the lawn and rose bushes. They were untidy, but there was some sign of maintenance. The grass had been cut recently, although the branches on the rose bushes looked like they’d never been pruned.
No one came for a while, and they were about to turn around, when Laura saw a white shimmer behind the frosted glass in the porthole in the door. Someone was coming.
The door was opened on a chain, milky-blue eyes and pale mottled skin peering at them through the gap in the door. Laura pulled out her identification, and for a moment, the old woman’s eyes widened.
‘Is it Mrs Grix?’ Laura asked.
The woman on the other side of the door slammed it shut, but as Laura and Joe exchanged glances, Laura heard the jangle of the chain and realised that she was just taking it off its clasp.
‘Is it Amanda?’ the old woman asked as the door opened, panic in her eyes. ‘Is she all right?’
‘Amanda?’
‘My daughter, Amanda,’ she said. ‘Is that why you are here?’
‘Is it Mrs Grix?’ Joe repeated, stepping forward.
The woman nodded. ‘Call me Ida.’
‘Can we come in?’ Joe asked. ‘It’s about your son, Shane.’
The woman reacted like she had been punched in the stomach, her hand going across her midriff as she let out a yelp. Then she stepped to one side and asked Joe and Laura to go into the room at the front.
As Joe went into the living room, Ida shuffled along the hall. Laura followed and saw Ida rest her hands against the kitchen counter, her head down. Her fingers were trembling. Laura was about to go to her, but Ida straightened and clicked on the kettle, her hands going to a cupboard for some cups.
Laura backed along the hallway and into the living room. Joe was in front of a large photograph over the fireplace. It was two teenagers, the girl a few years older than the boy, both in identical school uniforms – bright white shirts and purple ties. The boy was staring at the camera, blond hair, his mouth pulled into a half-smile, but he looked more like he was sneering at the camera, not smiling at it. There were other photographs of the girl. More glamorous shots of her in her late teens, and then she was holding a baby, a young mother in her twenties. There were more pictures on the window sill, and Laura saw how the teenage girl blossomed into a woman as she looked around the room. There were no more pictures of the teenage boy.
‘Shane?’ Laura said, pointing at the photograph.
‘Probably,’ Joe said. ‘What is the old lady doing?’
‘Making a drink, but something isn’t right. She didn’t ask about Shane once she knew it wasn’t about Amanda.’
Laura stopped talking as Ida came in, holding a tray with three cups on it, along with a small sugar bowl and a plate of
cakes. The cups jangled slightly as her hands shook.
‘I hope tea is all right for you both. And please help yourself to something to eat,’ Ida said, although she didn’t look at either Laura or Joe as she said it.
Joe reached over to take a cup and an almond slice, although from the way that he took a small bite and then put it onto his saucer, Laura guessed it was all about keeping Ida onside.
‘What can you tell us about Shane?’ Laura asked.
Ida took a deep breath, and then she smiled, before reaching for the handkerchief that had been tucked into the sleeve of her cardigan.
‘Just what you probably already know,’ she said. ‘He was a quiet boy, and we thought that it was just his way. He was secretive, and a bit of a loner. He could be sweet though, when he wanted to be.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Usually when he wanted something.’
‘Why did you take him to Doctor Barker?’ Joe said.
Ida looked surprised. ‘How do you know that?’
‘We’ve just come from his surgery.’
Ida scratched at her cup with her fingernail, and then said, ‘He became too withdrawn and quiet. When he did say things, they were cruel and hurtful. We did what we could, but it seemed like he hated us both. Then we bought him a hamster for a pet. He seemed pleased at first, but then it disappeared. Shane said that he had left the cage open, so we got him another one.’ Ida took a deep breath and dabbed her nose with her handkerchief. ‘I was tidying Shane’s room one day and I found the first hamster under his bed. It was dead, but we knew that it hadn’t died naturally.’
‘Why?’
‘Its head was twisted, and it had dust from its cage in its mouth.’
Laura and Joe exchanged glances.
‘We were so worried,’ Ida continued. ‘He didn’t have any friends and spent all his time in his room. We didn’t know what he was doing, because he wasn’t playing music, and if we went in he was usually just sitting on his bed, looking ahead. That’s why we bought him the hamster, because we thought it would help to draw him out. But look what happened. Then a friend recommended Doctor Barker. We took him along for a few sessions, but it was hard to get anything out of Shane, so we gave up. We couldn’t afford the fees.’
