The Quiet Woman, page 22
‘I don’t know about that, but she has made some documentaries on short fallings in the NHS.’
She realized the implications right away. ‘Oh shit,’ she said.
She started fumbling with her bag – always a sign she was ready to go. ‘Letters came from Harriet’s school,’ she said, not looking me in the eye now. ‘All her jabs and illnesses and stuff,’ she finished vaguely. ‘That’s how I know.’
I stood up and gave her a hug. ‘I’m really glad about you and Gregory. You deserve something nice in your life.’
‘As do you, Florence,’ she replied with sincerity. ‘So stop digging up shit. Eh?’
I walked her part of the way home until she was within sight of her flat. We hugged again and parted ways.
On the way home I chewed over the points I’d learned from the evening. Coming up with an indisputable fact. Richard held the answers. But would he talk to me? I pictured his face, uncompromisingly hard and strong. I very much doubted it. I would have to find another way.
FIFTY
Wednesday 1 November, 3 p.m.
Will texted me, trying to sound casual, but I sensed some tension behind his invitation.
Fancy a drink or two at The Wharf? Could do with talking to you X
I know when someone is anxious. I smiled and sent back, 6? X
And got a heart emoji in return which felt rather nice, a feeling which lasted right through the squawking that inevitably accompanied my afternoon baby immunization clinic, heading home, showering and changing into a dress. Right up until we’d arrived at The Wharf and were sitting in his car outside where he broke his news, an anxious eye out for my response.
‘We’re not making any charges against Richard Clay.’ He was watching for my reaction, which was muted. I’d searched the charge of assisting a suicide online and hadn’t been surprised that there were few convictions. Most of those had been given a suspended sentence, including the case I’d quoted to Catherine of the woman whose husband had ‘apparently’ overdosed on insulin while she had survived, which had resulted in the charge being dropped. And the evidence against her had been much stronger – her fingerprints on both the insulin bottle and the syringe. It still upset me that I was letting Christine down, that Richard was going to get away with it, but I was starting to realize that there were things about both him and his wife that changed the perspective. And the neighbour? What part had she really played, because I didn’t believe that at that time of night she had investigated a noise which couldn’t have been very loud. Christine was dead, her husband hardly conscious. I made a note to question Jalissa (casually, of course) about the relationship between Richard and his neighbour. I realized both Jalissa and Catherine saw Richard through a different perspective. More victim than villain. These were two women whose judgements I trusted. Was I the one looking through the telescope from the wrong end?
I realized I’d based my judgement on the consultations I’d had, swayed by my dislike of him, impressions formed of his wife’s demeanour. What if his impatience and irritation was a result of frustration at being unable to shift her conviction that she was ill? Neuroticism, I knew from experience, is an incurable, intractable condition. Trying to convince someone they are not ill is, actually, harder than convincing a patient that they are ill when you have visible proof – scans, X-rays, blood tests.
‘Florence …’ Will had been scanning my face for a sign of guilt or regret but he had his hand on my arm now. ‘Let it go as a suicide pact. Accept that. She obviously had some mental problems. He just happened to survive and she didn’t. It can’t do any good keep going over it.’
‘And you’re happy to accept that as the truth?’
He looked at me even harder, shaking his head. ‘We have to.’ His lips were pressed together. Uncompromising. ‘We have no evidence to make a charge against him.’ He knew he had this as a get-out. ‘The CPS would never be happy for us to proceed.’
I stared at him and changed my question, putting my face close to his. ‘Was Christine’s life insured?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Only Richard’s was.’
That was one of my theories put to bed. ‘You don’t really want to know the truth, do you?’
He didn’t quite know how to answer this very direct question, but blinked and then smiled and linked his arm in mine. ‘Time to get a drink.’
While I hadn’t made up my mind whether to thank him for telling me all this in person or feel furious at him for not seeing the fable of the Clays’ suicide pact through to the end, I capitulated, feeling cheated by the system as well as disappointment in that, ultimately, I’d let a vulnerable patient down.
I got it that the Romanian gang deserved a higher priority but simply brushing the Clay case under the carpet made their lives seem less deserving.
I had a sudden blurry vision of Christine, vulnerable, weak, her quiet voice dominated by her loudmouth bully of a husband. It was the picture I’d had of them since I’d first met them, each subsequent consultation reinforcing that image. But now it was out of focus, blurred, and I was wondering whether I’d been wrong, misled somehow.
Will was still watching me, a little nervously by my estimation. ‘Florence?’
And, strangely, I wasn’t sure how to respond but shook my head.
We walked into The Wharf, found a table in a booth where no one could eavesdrop on us. I waited until we had drinks in front of us and shot my last bolt.
‘I need to speak to Ryan. Do you know where he is?’
He gave a slow nod, then broke into that warm, all-encompassing smile. ‘Can we just eat first?’
I’d thought things were back on track but now I sensed he was holding something away from me. Halfway through my fish pie I put my knife and fork down.
‘What is it, Will?’ I demanded. ‘You didn’t just bring me here to run through the case, did you? Is it us?’
He shook his head and I saw the light had gone out of his eyes. At the same time my heart sank. He was breaking up with me? Before we’d even got going?
FIFTY-ONE
‘Rumour has it,’ he said reluctantly, the words dragging out of him as though pulled by a weary animal, ‘that Mark and Vivien have split up.’
I looked at him and couldn’t bite back the one word that shot out of me. Rapid as a bullet. ‘So?’
‘She’s given birth to a daughter. Premature.’ He still couldn’t look at me.
‘There’s more?’
‘There’s something wrong with the baby.’ He was frowning now. He held his hand up, shielding me. ‘I don’t know what but it seems things …’ I realized he was trying to break the news gently. ‘Things aren’t good,’ he said quickly, glad to have got the words out in the right order.
I was gaping, my emotions in turmoil and I wasn’t sure which dominated: pity for the child, pity for Vivien whose amorous adventure had turned so sour, or anger at Mark for having jumped into a tiger pit. And, shamefully, a touch of triumph, which I quashed as soon as I’d felt it rise. I tried to say something decent, something good. ‘Many babies born with problems are the most loved, adored, beautiful children. Plus,’ I added, gathering strength, ‘it can be difficult to assess just how much the child will be affected. These days …’
I stopped because he’d covered my hand with his own and locked his eyes into mine, boring right into my soul. ‘Do you want him …?’
‘No.’ Again the word shot out of me, a second bullet. ‘No. But I do want to meet up with him. He has an obligation to both Vivien and his daughter.’
And now DC Will Summers was smiling. ‘Phew,’ he said, and took a long draft of his beer.
We spent the rest of the evening in happy, comfortable companionship. He left me at the door with a long kiss before returning to his car. ‘Early start in the morning,’ he explained, adding, ‘I’ll try and persuade young Ryan to make contact.’
And then he was gone.
10.45 p.m.
I let myself into the house and sat in the dark for a while, my mind dealing with the confusion Will’s revelations had provoked.
And I lectured myself. This was not my problem. It was Mark and Vivien’s.
Unlike Christine Clay’s death. And I knew why it stuck with me. Only if I understood what happened that night could I learn the part I’d played in the tragedy. And only then could I even hope to absolve myself of responsibility. I had to find the truth for my own peace of mind. It was a selfish instinct rather than loyalty to my patient.
I sat very still and tried to turn my mind around.
What if I started believing Richard’s version of events? The letter that Christine had written proved that Christine had intended to die. She had been the one to buy the drugs illegally. Enough for herself and her husband, presumably. Six months ago. I stared across the room.
How was that significant? She had been the one to persuade him to take a near-fatal dose. No, no, I thought. That didn’t fit. Richard a dumb victim? Swallowing a near lethal dose of drugs – because she’d persuaded him? My mind drifted some more. Poison, they say, is a woman’s weapon. The weapon of the weak against the strong. There was an alternative. She could have slipped the drug into his tea or his dinner or that glass of wine. I closed my eyes and saw those two glasses, side by side, on the coffee table, right in front of the sofa where I had sat and she had died. But if he had been poisoned by her, why hadn’t he said when he’d woken up that his wife had tried to kill him? Had he truly forgotten? Had his mind erased an unpalatable memory? I tiptoed through the theories, that caveat always present. I would have to be very, very careful. Any hint that I was making false accusations, which was how Harriet Clay would see it, would result in one of her ‘investigative documentaries’ and the result of that would inevitably result in my losing my job, possibly suspension of my fitness to practice. I would never be able to work as a registered nurse again. The stakes were high but I had to know what had happened for my own peace of mind.
And then I turned to the other revelation of the evening. Mark, Vivien and this child. I’d worked in the Special Care Baby Unit which dealt with nenonates with congenital abnormalities, so I had some experience of babies born with various congenital conditions. Many are so minor they can practically be ignored. As the child grows the condition becomes less and less significant. But some carry a disability right through their lives. I had enough patients at the surgery with various defects to be all too familiar with the daily grind of caring, worrying and planning for a child who has problems. Mark could be selfish. Yes. But he was not cruel. And this might seem a strange pronouncement about a cheating husband but Mark was not inherently dishonest either. He had been caught in the last fling of a dwindling sexual prowess. Flattery and, no doubt, some effort by a younger woman, had won him over. Not the first and he certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Ah well.
Then I thought about Will’s revelation about the life insurance. Which meant my theory about a wadge of money being behind Christine’s death was wrong.
A text came in from Will.
Ryan will call in the surgery tomorrow. Tell him he’s a lucky boy to have got off scot-free.
This was further followed by kisses. XXXXXX
Six!
I sent a smiley face and a love heart back. Sometimes emojis say it all. No need for words.
Right, I thought. Tomorrow …
FIFTY-TWO
Thursday 2 November, 7 a.m.
I still searched for something to support my original theory but I was running out of ideas. Fast.
7.30 a.m.
I was in the shower when I heard a knock at the door. I turned the water off and peered out of the window to see DC Will Summers grinning up at me.
‘Thought I’d catch you in,’ he called up while I was glad the lower bathroom window was frosted, wrapped a towel round me and ran downstairs. ‘You put the kettle on. I’d better get my uniform on.’
Fifteen minutes later we were sitting in the kitchen, drinking companionably. His face was soft with a look of humour, both quizzical and curious, but he stayed silent, his eyes trained on my face as he watched thoughts trickle through my mind. He didn’t interrupt but seemed happy just to observe – and drink.
And then he did speak. ‘You there yet?’
I shook my head.
He chewed his lip. ‘We’ve closed the case, Florence. I’ve already told you that.’
I put my mug down on the table, harder than necessary. ‘And I’ve already told you that Richard Clay never discussed his wife’s belief with us, not once. He could have come to the surgery alone and confided in us. Had he done that we could have tackled her underlying problem. As it was, we were working in the dark.’
Wait a minute, I thought. This cancer phobia. The only evidence we had of it was in that letter – that helpful letter, and those repeated phone calls to the oncologist’s secretary.
I cradled my mug of coffee, aware that Will was watching me.
‘Hypochondriacs,’ I said. ‘They’re a nightmare.’
Then I thought of something else. ‘You asked Richard where he thought the OxyContin had come from. Of course.’
Will was wondering where I was going with this. ‘He assumed his wife had been prescribed it by one of your doctors.’
‘He never checked though he had plenty of opportunity. He could easily have asked us as he was always in at the consultations.’
Why didn’t he check? I was thinking. Because he already knew? Or because it was a fabrication?
There I went. Round and round, trying to wrap up the story in rope so thick it would not break, knotted so well the harder you pulled it the tighter it bound. Rope so long you could not find the beginning or the end.
Will put his mug down. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’ He leaned forward, touching my lips with his own. It was not a proper kiss. Too perfunctory. ‘Time I headed for work.’
‘Before you go, did Ryan say what time he’d be in?’
‘Around two, I think he said.’ He dropped another kiss on my cheek. Then hesitated, seeking reassurance and finally giving the reason for his early morning visit. ‘Any more thoughts about Mark?’
‘Ahh,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Not a single one.’
‘Good,’ he responded and now his grin was genuine, his eyes caressing.
Moments later I heard the front door slam and his car start up before heading out of the cul-de-sac. I hoped the neighbours were spying now and at the same time, as I stood in front of the mirror, brushing my hair and applying what I called my ‘work’ make-up (basically a light coating of foundation, a more generous application of mascara and a light lipstick), I reflected how strangely things were turning out. Two years ago I had been the abandoned wife. Today I was abandoned no longer.
It was hard not to aim a smile into the bathroom mirror until I remembered the child who might find itself abandoned – at least by her father.
FIFTY-THREE
8.20 a.m.
Driving into work that morning I realized a few things. One was this relationship I had with Will was not on quite such an easy footing as I’d thought. While our parting had been warm, undercurrents swirled around from our past. I knew Will wished I would drop this investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Clays’ suicide pact. Not so much because he felt I was pointing out a certain sloppiness in the police’s handling of a death. I got it that they had to prioritise serious cases where they were most likely to secure a conviction and skate over others. It made sense. More because he worried I would never let it go.
He couldn’t realize I would – when I’d teased out the truth. I wasn’t there yet but I was inching closer.
I still had a few stumbling blocks. Chiefly the letter.
I’d read two suicide notes before, both tragic cases, misunderstandings combined with depression. Both had illustrated a blind, desperate state of mind. Not this structured rationality which scratched at the back of my mind like a rat behind the skirting board.
I wondered if I could turn Harriet into an ally or if that was too dangerous a strategy, but I didn’t see how else I could move these uncertainties along. However, she would have a deeper understanding of her parents’ relationship and might be able to provide some missing answers. She was intelligent and insightful. And so must have formed her own narrative of her parents’ suicide pact. If only she would share it with me without pointing the finger of accusation. If I talked to her and learned nothing else, if I was careful, I would, at least, have a chance to stand at her side and peer into her mother and father’s actions that night.
I was still trying to picture it.
To kill his wife he had risked his own?
I was still shaking my head when I reached the surgery. That was not it.
But I was moving closer.
However, my next thought led straight into an unwelcome third.
The only way I would learn the whole truth would be to talk to Richard. I shrank from the thought of facing that skull-face, pale skin stretched taut over bones like the head of a drum. I might owe it to his dead wife to expose the truth but it might lead somewhere I didn’t want to face. The frustration was that I believed I had almost all the facts. I was simply failing to put them in logical order.
And then there was the Mark issue which obviously haunted Will, though it seemed an imbalance when I considered I knew nothing about his past except that he’d had a long-term relationship that had fizzled out. That was the version he’d given me.
And I’d accepted.
And lastly, finally, I needed to put Mark, Vivien and the baby out of my sphere and stop worrying about them. They were not my problem. I needed to focus my time and energy on my relationship with Will because … And here I smiled, recognizing the unmistakable indulgence. Simply because I wanted to.
