Ann Cleeves - The Healers

“But that wasn’t enough for her. She seemed to be obsessed. She even phoned me here, begging me to go out to Otterbridge to meet her.”

“I expect she was lonely,” Ramsay said. “It must have been hard to go back to her bed sit after having had company all summer.”

“I suppose it was.” He was so self-centred that the idea had never occurred to him before. “Anyway I thought I should make a clean break of it. Tell her straight that I didn’t want to see her again.”

“When did you do that?”

“I’m not sure exactly. Not long after she left here to go back to college.”

“How did she take it?”

“She seemed all right,” he said. “Quite controlled. She didn’t burst into hysterics or anything, which is what I expected. It was a bit hard to tell because I told her on the phone. I couldn’t face a mega scene in public. At least she stopped bothering me.”

So you could forget all about her, Ramsay thought. You could go back to your mates in the rugby club and making money. And a much more suitable girlfriend.

“Then I heard she was dead,” Peter went on, bleakly.

“Who told you?”

“Mrs. Abbot phoned me. She’d never liked me but she thought I should know.”

“She didn’t blame you in any way?”

“What do you mean?”

“She didn’t suggest that Faye killed herself because of the way you’d treated her?” He realized that was cruel, but he felt vaguely that Peter deserved it.

The boy was defensive and all the bluster returned. “Of course not. I’d finished with her a couple of weeks before that. She’d had time to get over it, hadn’t she? Besides, I thought it was an accident.” He thrust his head towards Ramsay. “You can’t go around making that sort of allegation. What’s this got to do with you anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Ramsay said as he let himself out of the house. “I really don’t know.”

When he returned to the hotel most of his team were still in the bar. He hurried past the door to the stairs so no one should see him. From his room he phoned Prue. She seemed pleased to hear from him and when he replaced the receiver he was comforted, more optimistic.

Early the next morning the Abbots sat over muesli and apple juice. Win was still in her nightdress, a long, shroud-like garment. She looked faded; her skin had the dusty, dried out texture of dead leaves. Daniel felt a shudder of irritation, even of disgust. He had never found her sexually attractive. Now her lethargy repulsed him. But not enough, he realized, for him to consider leaving her and risking all that they had achieved together.

The telephone rang. It was Ramsay, requesting an interview.

“I’m seeing a patient at nine,” Daniel said.

“I must see you this morning.” Ramsay was polite but emphatic.

“I could be free by eleven-thirty,” Daniel said. He replaced the receiver slowly.

“He’ll want to talk about Faye,” Win said. She looked at him anxiously.

“Of course…” He paused. “I wonder who’s stirring up trouble after all this time.”

He spooned yoghurt on to his muesli and said, as if he were changing the subject completely: “Do you think Lily would have the boys this afternoon?”

“I expect so. I think it’s her afternoon off. Now they’re staying in the house I could phone and ask.” Win faced him uncertainly across the breakfast table. He realized she was frightened of him and felt an exhilarating rush of energy.

“I was wondering if you’d go to see the lad, James. To express our sympathy. Someone from the Centre should do it and I’m busy.”

“I don’t know,” she said quickly. “Surely he won’t want to see us.”

“Why?”

“Well, first Faye. Then Val. I should have thought we were the last people’

“Nonsense,” he interrupted. “I think it would be a welcome gesture.” Then, persuasively, “Val was very close to him, wasn’t she? If she confided in anyone it would have been in him. Find out if she talked to him before she died. You’re good with kids.”

“All right,” she said. “If you think it’s a good idea.” He smiled because he had known all along that he could make her agree.

In the Alternative Therapy Centre his patient was already waiting for him. Daniel introduced himself and began mentally, almost automatically, the process of diagnosis: rigid posture, he thought, firm grip, cold hand. All that could be relevant.

“Just give me a couple of minutes,” he said and let himself into his treatment room. He put on a clean white coat. Other acupuncturists might practise in jeans and a sweatshirt but he had never been comfortable with such informality. He looked at his equipment with satisfaction. He loved this work, cared more about it than anything else in his life. There was the plastic case of sterile, disposable needles; the aka bani the sticks which warmed the skin to test for an imbalance between the left and right side of the body; and the moxa, the herb which was burned on the acupuncture points to warm the energy. The tools of his job, he thought. Then, suddenly: healing gave you power. That’s why he got such a buzz out of it.

He rang through to Rebecca to send the patient in.

The man complained of migraine.

“I’ve been to the doctor,” he said, ‘but he just tells me it’s stress related. Of course I’m under stress. All the time. I’m running my own business in a recession. Who wouldn’t be?”

“Today I’ll do a TD,” Daniel said. “A traditional diagnosis. If I can help we’ll start the treatment in the next session.”

He already had the man down as a wood causative factor. He could even hear the shout in his voice. Woods could be rigid, over-independent, needing to control. Cissie Bowles had been a wood causative factor, though she had mellowed with treatment and become almost human by the end.

“I’ll take a personal history,” he began. “I’d like to concentrate on the first five years of your life.

Perhaps you could tell me something about that time.”

The businessman claimed not to remember anything, looked at Daniel as if he were wasting time.

“That’s not unusual,” Daniel said, but probing gently he discovered that the father had been a merchant seaman, away a lot. The patient had spent much of his early childhood with his grandmother.

“Now,” he said, ‘what about your present family?”

There was a wife apparently, who had a successful career in her own right, two teenage children. All the time Daniel was looking for the secondary gain. What did this man get out of being ill? Attention, it seemed. The wife made a fuss of him when he had a migraine attack and at other times dismissed him as a failure. In Daniel’s experience there usually was a secondary gain. In Cissie Bowles’s case her arthritis had allowed her to ease up on the farm and boss poor Ernie about.

Poor Ernie! Daniel gave a little grin. The business man looked at him suspiciously.

“I’ll ask you to undress now,” Daniel said, trying to concentrate, ‘so I can do a physical examination.”

When he was waiting for his patient to strip he went out to reception. Rebecca was opening the mail. She heard him coming, looked up nervously.

“Yes, Mr. Abbot. Is there anything I can do?”

“I’m sure there is, Rebecca. I’m sure there is. But not just now.” He walked round behind her, so he could look over her shoulder at the letters on the desk. His hand rested on her waist. As he walked away he tapped her on the buttocks.

“Very good,” he said. “What a fast little learner you are!”

Back in the treatment room he completed his diagnosis. He took the pulses, six on each wrist. He waved the burning aka bani over the man’s fingernails and waited to see how long it took for the skin to feel warm. He took his blood pressure.