The Quiet Woman, page 1
Contents
Cover
Also by Priscilla Masters
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Priscilla Masters
About the author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Also by Priscilla Masters
The Florence Shaw mysteries
UNDUE INFLUENCE *
The Martha Gunn mysteries
RIVER DEEP
SLIP KNOT
FROZEN CHARLOTTE *
SMOKE ALARM *
THE DEVIL’S CHAIR *
RECALLED TO DEATH *
BRIDGE OF SIGHS *
The Joanna Piercy mysteries
WINDING UP THE SERPENT
CATCH THE FALLEN SPARROW
A WREATH FOR MY SISTER
AND NONE SHALL SLEEP
SCARING CROWS
EMBROIDERING SHROUDS
ENDANGERING INNOCENTS
WINGS OVER THE WATCHER
GRAVE STONES
A VELVET SCREAM *
THE FINAL CURTAIN *
GUILTY WATERS *
CROOKED STREET *
BLOOD ON THE ROCKS
ALMOST A WHISPER *
The Claire Roget mysteries
DANGEROUS MINDS *
THE DECEIVER *
A GAME OF MINDS *
AN IMPERFECT TRUTH *
* available from Severn House
THE QUIET WOMAN
Priscilla Masters
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2024
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.
This eBook edition first published in 2024 by Severn House Digital an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
severnhouse.com
Copyright © Priscilla Masters, 2024
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Priscilla Masters to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-1309-9 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-1408-9 (e-book)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd., Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
Praise for Priscilla Masters
“A captivating tale”
Kirkus Reviews on Undue Influence
“An excellent choice for those who enjoy intricately plotted British mysteries”
Booklist on Almost a Whisper
“Fans of traditional police procedurals will find a lot to like”
Publishers Weekly on Almost a Whisper
“A riveting police procedural focusing on guilt, frustration, and the many varieties of love”
Kirkus Reviews on Almost a Whisper
“Well-plotted … Fans of character-driven police procedurals will be rewarded”
Publishers Weekly on Blood on the Rocks
About the author
Priscilla Masters is the author of the popular DI Joanna Piercy series, as well as the successful Martha Gunn novels and a series of medical mysteries featuring Dr Claire Roget. She lives near the Shropshire/Staffordshire border. A retired respiratory nurse, Priscilla has two grown-up sons and two grandsons.
www.priscillamasters.co.uk
ONE
Friday 1 September, 11.15 a.m.
There are times when a consultation is over but incomplete. Even as the door closes behind the patient you wonder, ‘Why did they really come? What was the underlying agenda? What was it that they did not say? As you fill the consultation in on the computer, you recognize how vague the text is, that whatever you’ve written, you’ve left out the most important part – the parts unsaid. Your fingers hover over the keyboard remembering the words she’d used, trouble getting to sleep, waking early in the morning, tiredness that lasts all day, but you know these words glide over the subtext, while her husband stands over her like a sentry. You spoke; she answered. But something was lost between your questions and her responses. Cracks between the paving stones where weeds can grow. There had been a subtext, but I had missed it, skating over the surface as though it was ice. But ice reflects what is above it while concealing murky depths. You can kneel down, feel the chill on your knees, while you try to peer through, but you can never see right to the bottom, to the pond life, the weeds, mud and pebbles that lie, shifted around by swirling water under that thick sheet of impenetrable ice. And so you abandon the attempt, stand up and walk away.
Because it is easier.
It was a week before the start of the new school year and I was busy, catching up with delayed vaccinations, syringing ears, checking rashes and temperatures, taking endless blood samples. Pumping up the sphygmomanometer cuff time and time again. Reading results and logging alerts on to the computer. Asking questions and filling in the patients’ responses.
Some of it the truth, some of it observation, others incontrovertible test results.
Patient claims to have stopped smoking.
Patient omitted medication this morning
Patient gained 5 pounds in weight
Patient complains of …
I’d met the Clays on a number of occasions – more frequently this year, I realized, scrolling back through the consultations. But it is always that first impression which sticks with you, the one I’d formed from five or so years ago when I’d first met them.
He was a tall, spare man with hard, unforgiving, blue eyes and an upright military bearing, sharp-suited, thin to the point of emaciation.
Impatient.
She was small and plump, soft, in a heavy, shapeless, woollen skirt which seemed to reflect her personality. Brown, I think, and too wintry for the day.
Subdued. Suppressed.
His voice was sharp, suited to barking out orders, while hers was hesitant, questioning and polite. That morning, years after I’d first met them, I’d run through the usual questions. Simple tick box exercises to fill in the algorithms the computer dictated. Her responses were cued in by her husband. She shook her head when I asked whether she’d skipped her breakfast before I checked her blood sugar.
‘Yes,
I looked at him, met his cold eyes while he stared right back at me, his face uncompromising and impassive as a statue’s while Christine dropped her gaze to the floor, her body seeming to fold in on itself, shoulders drooping and head bowing. It was as though she wanted to disappear into the chair.
I continued with my questions. ‘Alcohol?’
‘She drinks a glass of wine sometimes in the evenings. Never more than one.’
I filled in the template and studied my patient, trying to divine what really was the problem this time. In the last two years Mrs Clay had made numerous visits to the practice, each time with a different, minor complaint: headaches, trouble sleeping, aches and pains. She’d been referred to various consultants: the general medical physicians, the gastrointestinal department, even the chronic pain clinic for a stiff neck. The letters back from the hospital were all the same.
NAD. Apart from a few minor issues put down to the aging process, Nothing Abnormal Discovered.
Nothing had ever been found. And these were the tricky patients – the ones when it was all too easy to miss something. Because at some point you stopped listening. I trawled through X-rays, scans and blood tests, hospital letters and the results of investigations. Nothing.
I met her eyes, lids sagging as though it cost too much effort to hold her eyes open. Faded blue and tired looking. There was hardly a spark of life. I thought then it was as though all hope had been extinguished.
‘I think you might have lost some weight.’
‘Well, she will have, won’t she? She doesn’t eat properly.’ It was as though she wasn’t there.
I looked up – at him first, then at her.
‘Why?’
Christine dropped her head even further and murmured something I couldn’t quite hear.
‘I think I should check.’
Her husband looked impatient while I led his wife towards the scales and verified my guess. From my memory she had been nicely rounded, almost plump, a woman with a quiet manner and a sweet face. Now she was heading towards gaunt. Her cheekbones stuck out and her hands, trembling slightly, were bones and veins. My instinct was right. She’d lost almost a stone and when I looked at her, I realized there was something more. She’d aged too quickly. I glanced at the blood bottles and decided on a couple of extra tests I could add to the fasting blood sugar.
I realized she was depressed. But something else was disturbing me.
He hadn’t noticed it. He was unconcerned, detached. Chin in the air. Shifting from foot to foot, his hand gripping the back of her chair, obviously impatient with the pace of this visit. I looked at him and wondered why the hurry. In their early sixties, they were both retired – he as CEO of his own company – and she from a clerical job in a local solicitor’s. I remembered her as being quiet, but now I realized she had crawled inside a shell, as a snail does, for protection.
‘I suggest you watch your diet,’ I said.
‘She does. We both do.’
I looked up at him. ‘I didn’t mean like that,’ I said, touching her hand to connect with her not him. ‘I wouldn’t lose any more weight if I were you.’ I tried out a smiling comment. ‘Treat yourself to some chips – now and then.’ I stepped out on thin ice. ‘Do you think you might be a little depressed?’
The look she returned was uncomprehending.
I took another step. ‘Have you had thoughts of self-harm? Suicide?’
‘No,’ he barked out. ‘Don’t. Be. Ridiculous.’
She looked at me then, lifting her eyelids with effort, and I was taken aback. Her look held a mute appeal. Combined with the degree of her hopelessness, I wondered if a psychiatric diagnosis rather than a physical illness was what was needed. I would check the results of those blood tests very carefully.
He gave a little twitch of annoyance. ‘Come along, Chrissie. Time to go.’ He picked her handbag up from the floor and handed it to her – or rather thrust it at her.
‘Before you do leave …’ I addressed her now very directly, ‘… have you any other symptoms that you haven’t so far mentioned?’
She looked at her husband.
‘No. She hasn’t.’
‘I’ll ring you with your results. They’ll take a day or two.’
And they were gone, leaving me with an empty room and an uncomfortable feeling of something unsatisfactory and unfinished. I wished I could have seen Christine Clay on her own.
I knew I’d failed her as I logged the consultation: sleeplessness/mild depression with no red flags – no thoughts of suicide or self-harm.
I made a note to check the blood results next Tuesday and was briefly thoughtful – until the next patient arrived with their problem.
TWO
11.50 a.m.
Late morning was punctuated, as usual, by the exotic flavour of Jalissa O’Sullivan, who waltzed in with her basket of sandwiches, cakes, fruit and desserts. It was one of my favourite encounters of the morning. Not just because she made the most delicious lunches, but because she was loud and cheerful and, it being the week before school started, that morning her two children accompanied her. Jalissa was the result of a diving holiday in Jamaica ten years ago, taken by electrician, Brett, with his mates. He had fallen in love with Jalissa and when he had returned to the UK he’d broken off his engagement and courted her from afar. Eventually she’d followed him back to the UK and they had two of the most delightful children you could possibly imagine: Petronella, eight years old, a pretty child with coffee-coloured skin and her mother’s wild hair tamed into cornrows. She had the longest, curliest eyelashes I’d ever seen outside a mascara advert and large, darting eyes. Where his sister was merry, Charles, her five-year-old brother, was solemn, observant and intelligent, with the dignity of a politician. To be honest I loved the little boy and his sister but had to refrain from picking them both up and hugging them, which was my instinct.
‘How you today?’ Jalissa made no attempt to speak anything other than her native patois.
‘I’m good,’ I said, adding pointedly, ‘but very hungry.’
Petronella put her finger to her chin and carefully selected a chicken mayo sandwich before hovering over a slice of carrot cake, but Charles stopped her. ‘You don’t want to get fat, Nurse Florence,’ he said. ‘I’m sure your boyfriend will feed you plenty.’
He gave a very straight look, first at me and then at his mother who was standing, hands on hips, laughing at my embarrassment. She pretended to cuff the boy who wasn’t fooled and didn’t even bother to duck away. ‘Sometimes,’ she sighed, ‘I think this boy is psychic. What you seein’, Charles?’
He smirked as though he had a secret. ‘Nurse Florence,’ he said. ‘You got a boyfriend?’
I gave a despairing look at Jalissa and paid for the sandwich but left the cake as per Charles’s advice. And now, judging by the giggle that she couldn’t hide behind her hand, Petronella was in on the secret.
12.30 p.m.
I was alone in the staff room that lunchtime. The others had either wandered into town or else were scuttling home to feed the dog or enjoying half days.
I had no dog and a full afternoon’s surgery and, to be honest, I was glad of the work that took my mind away from some uncomfortable happenings in my personal life. Let me fill you in.
Four years ago, my dear husband, Detective Sergeant Mark Shaw, left me for his worktime squeeze, Police Constable Vivien Morris, who had proved ready and willing. While I had nursed dreams of a leisurely life post-retirement, funded by our combined pensions – making friends on cruises and various other holidays in the sun – my husband had revived his sagging libido. However, his plans of nonstop sex on the beach had been scuppered by her secret plans for a baby. PC Vivien Morris, the goofy-toothed wannabe siren, had subsequently become pregnant. I’d learned about the impending happy event through two sources. The first was my dear ex-husband who, hating the thought of another child (our own two having flown the nest a while ago), had confided in me, spending almost the entire six months whining about having been trapped.
