Night Visit (22 page)

‘
Well,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I’ll speak to the pathologist. I expect he’ll have preserved some samples of his own.’

I
risked all then. ‘I think the fungus was
Amanita
virosa
, the Destroying Angel.’

Lemming
gave a sceptical ‘Hmm. If there are any grounds for believing this’—he paused—’fungus was ingested, I suppose I’ll have to alert the police. I must say, Dr Lamont, your patients have an uncanny habit of dying in strange circumstances, don’t they? I believe we have another police investigation concerning a second patient of yours? A drug addict?’

I
could hardly reply, my mouth was a suddenly dry. ‘Yes.’

‘
Well, we’ve fixed the inquest for him early next week and I shall expect you to attend.’

‘
And Mrs Pritchard?’

‘
Let’s wait until we’ve got some toxicology reports, shall we, and see what the police turn up.’

*

Police? They surfaced the next morning. WDI Skilton looked as though she had been sucking lemons. Her mouth was puckered with disapproval. And she’d been lying in wait for me to finish my surgery. All bad signs.

‘
I’m afraid we have a slight problem,’ she said in a polite voice.

I
could play this game too. ‘And what’s that?’ It seems funny to think I still felt no apprehension. I was still so sure that I had injected Narcan into Danny Small’s battle-scarred little vein.

‘Put
it like this, Doctor. We found the ampoule of Narcan, as you suggested.’

I
smiled smugly.

‘
And sent it away for analysis.’

The
two of us were keeping the biochemist busy.

‘But
while it read Narcan on the label,’ she said, ‘the drug inside the glass phial,’ she paused for full effect, ‘was pure diamorphine.’

‘
What?’ I was dazed. ‘Are you saying someone switched drugs?’ It made no sense.

‘
Exactly.’ I could hear the dry rasp as she rubbed her hands together. ‘You see, one of the technicians in the forensics laboratory was clever enough to examine the rubber bung in the top of the phial.’

I
was still too dazed by the revelation to interpret what she obviously perceived as a significant fact.

‘
There were three holes in it, Doctor.’ The sharp little eyes bored into mine with all the direction of a Black and Decker. ‘Do you have any comment to make?’

I
shook my head. There should only have been one, the one I would have made as I inserted a needle to extract the drug. Three meant... ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ I managed.

She
shook her head as though pitying me. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t, not unless...’

Even
I could work that one out. Someone had switched drugs. ‘Fingerprints?’

‘
Yes,’ she said. ‘Yours.’

She
let that sink right in before standing up. ‘I have to inform you, Doctor,’ she said, ‘we’re investigating this as a case of manslaughter. And to be perfectly frank with you we only have one suspect.’

‘
But I gave that injection in good faith, believing it to be Narcan.’

‘
We understand your claim that the drugs had been switched but look at it from our point of view, Dr Lamont. Who would want to switch the drugs around?’

I
could think of no one. Certainly not Pritchard. Come to think of it, who had orchestrated my initial visit to Danny? Again I could think of no one.

I
looked around my scarred room, my mind working the picture out in slow motion as though in a comic strip. Wagstaff had said there were three holes in the rubber bung when I knew I had only pushed the needle in once, into what I had assumed was a phial of a sterile and unused drug, straight from the manufacturer’s. Three holes... The first to withdraw the Narcan. The second to insert the diamorphine. So mine would have been the third prick, made as I inserted the needle preparing to withdraw the drug ready to ‘save’ Danny Small’s pathetic little life. Whatever my motive, what I had actually done had been to murder him because someone had switched drugs. But who had access to pure diamorphine? And I didn’t just mean the stuff I had injected into Danny’s arm but the original stuff he had overdosed on, the stuff supposedly sourced from
my
doctor’s bag.

I
knew I hadn’t been carrying diamorphine when Danny had robbed me. Temgesic I might forget about. Diamorphine—not a chance.

You
see we weren’t talking about street dope here. We were talking about diamorphine of a sterile, surgical purity. My suspicions were shifting. On top of the drug itself who would have had the medical knowledge to substitute an antidote for an agonist? Who on earth could have predicted or planned that Danny would collapse from an overdose on my night on call?

Wagstaff
had spoken of a doctor’s bag. I looked further. The hand that had held the phial had been wearing a surgical glove. We were talking about one of my colleagues.

What
hope
for
you
,
Doctor
,
if
your
patients
still
have
the
power
to
manipulate
you
from
beyond
the
grave
?

20

At the beginning of the year I had finally learned not to trust my husband. Now, as I sat in my scarred surgery, I decided that the same yardstick might apply to one of my partners. One of them had set me up to give Danny Small his last, lethal shot.

Which
one
?

The
vision of Duncan, walking hand in hand with Rosie through the trees was a haunting one. But this was pure conjecture. On the surface Duncan seemed a happy family man, reluctant to see his daughter settle too far away.
On
the
surface
.

I
tried to think whether I had ever seen Merryn with a boyfriend? No. It was an uncomfortable thought. I had believed I knew Duncan. Not as a child abuser, a killer, a man who would...

I
stared through the window. What was I saying? That Danny had been killed purely to distract me from Melanie Carnforth’s murder? Had I been getting too near? I shook my head, bemused. Apart from asking questions and pointing fingers I had found out
nothing
about Melanie’s disappearance.

Had
Danny been the real target, then? Why would anyone want to murder a crazed drug addict? Had
he
known something about the murder?

At
the time when Melanie had disappeared he would have been a boy of around nine. Had he then, possibly, been a child who had wandered through the trees early on summer mornings? But if he had seen something why hadn’t he told the police at the time? Why bottle it up only to use the knowledge manipulatively years later when the whole incident had been forgotten.

Except
by
me
. Had I then resurrected an almost forgotten image? Or had it been something he had found out more recently? And how would he use his knowledge?

The
answer was daybright. To acquire drugs, of course. Danny would do anything to get drugs. The only thing I didn’t know was what had been the knowledge? And who had he used it against?

There
was another more uncomfortable thought. Had I been the true target? Had Danny Small been eliminated purely to discredit me, to prevent my questions about a dead child being heard?

And
as I could suspect Duncan then Neil should share the umbrella of suspicion. Neil who hid everything from us apart from a choice, surface veneer. But at some point his wife had vanished, like Melanie Carnforth. And a year later his son too had gone. And we, his partners, had received no explanation. More incredible we had not asked for one but had politely allowed Neil to keep his secrets.

What
secrets
? Slowly I shook my head. Neil could not possibly have murdered Petra and concealed her death for a year. Sandy would have asked questions. So they had left and for a reason.

My
hand wandered towards the telephone. I felt an overwhelming urge to share my suspicions. But who would I speak to? The police? They weren’t interested in Melanie Carnforth’s murder, only Danny Small’s. And they had their chief suspect.

My
hand slid back down to my lap. So it was up to me to investigate. But where should I start? Reluctantly I acknowledged that I had only one potential avenue of enquiry.

Danny
Small’s ‘girlfriend.’ And I didn’t hold out much hope.

I
muddled my way through my morning surgery and defaulted on the usual cup of coffee. I couldn’t face sitting with Duncan and Neil, wondering over the rim of my mug which one it was who had killed Melanie Carnforth, only to follow up the crime ten years later. Because connection there was. Of that I was sure.

So
instead I found my way to the terraced house again and stared up at the gable window which had marked Danny’s room. I wondered who lived there now.

It
only struck me that Danny’s girlfriend might blame me for his death when her face appeared in an inch-wide crack in the door and she spoke with overt hostility.

‘
What do you want?’

‘
Please,’ I said. ‘Please, I want to ask you a few things.’

She
opened the door just wide enough to snarl at me. ‘Haven’t you done enough? The police told me how Danny came to die. We came to you for help. And look what you done. You killed him.’

I
jerked back. Theoretically she was right. She tried to push the door closed but I heaved against it. ‘I must explain.’

‘
Explain what? You bloody murdered him, you cow.’

‘But
...’

Her
eyes were hot with hate. ‘What is it with you doctors? You can’t bloody well admit it when you’ve made a mistake, can you? You were wrong.’

‘
I gave him the wrong drug,’ I said. ‘But only because someone had switched the drug inside the phial.’

Her
glare was even more hostile.

‘
Someone deliberately switched the drugs,’ I insisted.

‘
Who then?’ Her stare was challenging now. ‘Who’d do such a thing? And why?’

My
hands dropped to my side, uselessly.

She
pushed her face out beyond the door. She believed she was calling my bluff. What she didn’t understand was that it was the perfect cue.

‘
I think it was the same person who got him the stuff he OD’d on in the first place. Who was supplying him?’

‘
That was you,’ she said, ‘you cunt.’ And she slammed the door in my face.

*

Three days later I was summoned to attend Danny Small’s inquest. Inquests are informal affairs, held in coroners’ courts, a cross between a schoolroom and a court of law. Today’s was poorly attended, by the police, the pathologist and a thin woman at the back in leggings and a balled blanket coat who sat huddled into the seat, as though to make herself invisible.

I
caught sight of PC Wagstaff who struggled to avoid my eyes, and Detective Inspector Angela Skilton, who made no such effort but seemed to want to stare me out as though I would eventually collapse under the penetrating gaze of her hazel eyes. I sat, awkwardly, on the front row and waited to be called.

A
coroner has a job; he has to ascertain who the deceased was, how, where and when they died. His is not the chore of pointing the finger but it was still up to me to tell my side of the story, clearly.

Lemming
adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses.

‘
So you were summoned to the home of the deceased at?’

‘
Ten p.m.’

‘
Where?’

I
supplied Danny’s address.

‘
And what conclusion did you reach?’

‘
I decided that Danny Small was suffering from an overdose of diamorphine.’

‘
What made you arrive at this diagnosis?’

‘
Personal history. He was comatose with pin-point pupils and slow respirations.’ I tried to moisten my lips. ‘Although other diagnoses were possible I felt urgent action was required to prevent my patient’s death.’ I knew I had to justify my actions.

‘
So you decided to administer...?’

‘
Intravenous Narcan.’

He
gave me an uncomfortable, stern look.

‘
And then what did you do, Doctor?’

‘
I drew a phial of Narcan from my bag.’

He
interrupted me. ‘The light, I assume, was poor?’

I
knew what he was getting at. ‘Not too poor for me to read the label on the phial.’

‘
And?’

‘
I injected 10 milligrams intravenously.’

The
next look was more unfriendly. ‘I have to say there appears to be a disparity between the findings of the pathologist and your evidence.’

So
I had not imagined Lemming’s hostility. It was real.

‘
I have no comment to make.’ But I did. I wanted to defend myself. I wanted to make them all believe me.

Lemming
sat on his high seat and shuffled his papers around before addressing the gathering. ‘I have no option but to adjourn this inquest pending further forensic and police enquiries.’

The
woman sat at the very back of the room burst into tears. She must be Danny’s mother. It was a sobering thought.

*

I made my way back to the surgery feeling depressed and let myself in through the back door.

I
spotted Duncan disappearing into his early evening surgery but although he must have seen me he pretended he hadn’t. The action made me feel even more alone as I closed the door behind me and stared at my own four walls. But receptionists can be loyal beings. Fern Blacklay must have spotted me and immediately attacked me with paint cards. ‘Choose your colour,’ she said gaily.

Did
she not know my very integrity as a doctor was under question, and with that not only my right to practise but potentially my right to freedom?

I
tried to explain to her but she tossed her head.

‘
There’s been some mistake, Doctor,’ she said. ‘Some awful mistake.’

I
tried to pump her. Maybe she could put her finger on the guilty party. ‘So how do you think I came to give the wrong drug?’

‘
They must have got muddled up.’

I
tried again, none too subtly. ‘You don’t think one of the other doctors could
accidentally
have switched the drugs?’

‘
You can’t go blaming one of your partners,’ she said severely. ‘The mistake won’t have been theirs. I mean the stuff was in
your
bag.’

I
persisted. ‘You’ve never seen either of them touch my bag?’

Instantly
she drew herself up to her full height, her eyes were hard. ‘Certainly not. Doctor, what are you suggesting?’

I
tried to say something but she put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Look, Doctor,’ she said. ‘I know it isn’t my place to say this. But I have known you for a number of years.’

I
smiled weakly.

‘
Take a holiday,’ she urged. ‘You need a rest. It’s been a stressful year for you. And the job isn’t easy.’

Even
the receptionists disbelieved me. I gave up then, tried to repair some of the damage. ‘So let’s choose a colour.’

Fern
must still have had some faith in me because she gave me a tentative smile. ‘You’ll feel better when Ferris has got rid of those horrible marks on your wall. You can move into Dr Anderson’s room. He’s away. Addicts,’ she finished darkly. ‘More trouble than they’re worth.’

I
jabbed my finger against a warm peach tone. I was still here, not Danny Small, not Amelia Pritchard. Not Neil.

‘
Did you say I was to move into Neil’s room?’

She
nodded. ‘Ferris will have to get a move on. We’ve only got a week. It’s now or never, Harriet.’

Now
or
never
, I repeated. Now or never. I watched my eyes narrow in the mirror. Now.

So
while the handyman wandered across the road to the DIY supermarket I moved my stuff into Neil’s vacated room. Another holiday for him meant that he, at least, was out of the way. It would soon be Christmas. Cleverly, or so I thought, I reasoned that if I found evidence in Neil’s room of his involvement with either Melanie or Danny, Duncan would be in the clear. But if I found nothing and believed that Neil was innocent then it
had
to be Duncan. Who else was there?

And
for the first time because I linked the two crimes, I believed I could discount Pritchard. He had no access to doctors’ supplies of diamorphine, Danny’s original OD, the one that had lured me to his house in the first place. Neither would he have had the knowledge to switch a drug for its antidote.

Pritchard,
I reasoned, was in the clear. Innocent of all but his mother’s poisoning?

The
questions were still tugging at my brain as I sat in the clinical whiteness of Neil’s room and wondered. By the end of my morning surgery I was still wondering. The room was so bare, as though Neil had made an attempt to conceal the man he was. Unsurprisingly, unlike my room, there were no family photos. Petra and Sandy had vanished as if they had never been.
So
where
were
they
?

I
opened Neil’s desk drawer. No. That is a lie. I did not simply open one drawer. I rifled through the entire room. I felt I must expose everything. Not just the poisons books and drugs bulletins, not just the medical journals and spare batteries for the auroscope. Not only the piles and piles of notes waiting for letters to be typed or reports to insurance companies. Everything.