Cath Staincliffe - Desperate Measures

‘And it’s not?’ Norma said.

‘Over my dead body,’ Don had said, ‘he’s no idea how to work as a member of the team. If you don’t agree with his projects and his buzzwords he writes you off.’

‘What do the others think?’ Norma said.

‘He’s not made himself popular,’ Don said. ‘I don’t think anyone will disagree.’

Norma wondered now, as she ironed his shirts, what sort of doctor she herself would have made, if things had turned out differently. Would she have gained the loyalty and affection of her patients and colleagues like Don had or been an irritant like Fraser? Would she even have been a GP? Perhaps she’d have chosen a specialty and gone for a hospital career instead.

At eighteen all she knew was she wanted to study medicine, to save lives. She had worked so hard to get her A levels, to get into medical school, swotting late into the night, taking diet pills to keep awake. Diet pills and black coffee. There were extra classes at school, too, and she went to every one of them. There were about a dozen girls selected for the fast stream, about half of them doing science.

The exams made her terribly anxious, a tightening across her back, churning in her stomach and a clammy sensation across her forehead. She gripped the pen so hard that the indentations remained on her fingers for hours. Once, half way through the first chemistry question, she tore a hole in the paper.

They were in France when the results came out and she had rung Uncle Marty who had opened the letter and read out, ‘Four As: biology, chemistry, physics and maths.’ Four As! She had her place in Manchester.

The relief was like someone releasing her from an iron lung or something and she’d spent the rest of the holiday having fun with the friends she’d made from the village where the gîte was, in a haze of Gauloises and cheap wine, holiday romance and Pernod.

There were three weeks after they got back from France to get ready for student life. She was going into halls for the first year. She’d never been north and imagined it to be pretty grim but when the training was done she would be able to work pretty much anywhere, even abroad. Doctors were always in demand.

Mummy and Daddy drove her up one fine Saturday afternoon. She felt sick with excitement as they carried clothes and records, her books, sheets and blankets and her castor oil plant up to the room.

Once lectures had started, it didn’t take long for that excitement to be replaced with the crushing realization that if swotting for exams had been hard going at school then studying medicine was ten times worse. Until she met Don.

A cordon had been set up to protect the crime scene and the surrounding area. Janine could see the tape, the uniformed officers checking cars and advising residents who needed access.

She could see her sergeants, Shap and Butchers and Lisa, her detective constable talking to the handful of people watching from the opposite pavement. Shap and Butchers looked like a double act, behaved like one often enough. Shap was wiry, sharp and cynical while Butchers was a big man with a belly to match, more of a plodder but meticulous in his police work. Lisa was the one who looked out of place, a striking looking black woman with coffee coloured skin and shiny black curls. She could have been a model, but Janine knew that the young woman was dedicated to the job, keen to learn and make progress.

Janine parked the car and pulled on her protective jumpsuit, collected her mask and gloves and overshoes. It wasn’t the most flattering, or the most comfortable outfit, but it was essential if she were to avoid contaminating the scene.

The address was a large detached villa. A notice board by the front wall identified it as a doctor’s surgery – and gave the telephone number and opening hours.

Janine showed her ID to the officer guarding the crime scene and ducked under the tape across the driveway entrance.

Ahead she could see the forensics team were already busy. A CSI was taking photographs, documenting the victim and the surroundings. Others were erecting a screen to shield the body. Close by she saw Richard talking to Dr Susan Riley the pathologist and went to join them.

‘Susan, Richard,’ Janine said.

Richard nodded hello and gestured to the victim. ‘Donald Halliwell, sixty-four. General practitioner. The cleaner found him,’ Richard said. ‘She arrived at half-past six and he was here, like this. Keys just there.’

Janine looked at the man on the ground. Grey-haired, clean-shaven, wearing a charcoal grey suit, his blue striped shirt now soaked with blood from the wounds visible on his chest. He lay just outside the door to the building, his feet, in brown leather brogues, facing the road. A yard away from him were a bunch of keys on a leather fob.

‘Did the cleaner touch anything? Go inside?’ Janine asked.

‘No, called 999 straightaway,’ Richard said.

‘Cause of death looks fairly obvious,’ Susan said. ‘We’ll be moving him soon and hold a post-mortem tomorrow. A public place like this, we’ll be drowning in trace evidence.’

Janine nodded. Other factors might well prove to be more significant as evidence, ballistics on the weapon for example, the doctor’s relationships, any motive for someone to kill him.

‘The victim’s been shot,’ Janine said to Richard. ‘What’s the first thing you think of?’

‘Gangs, drugs,’ Richard said.

‘Exactly,’ Janine said. ‘But a GP? And in broad daylight? Were there any witnesses?’

‘No, not that we know of,’ Richard said. ‘If anyone did see it happen, you’d think they’d have told us by now. The car’s registered to his wife.’ Richard gestured across to a car in one of six bays marked Staff Only in front of the building. A sign directed patients to a car park at the rear.

‘Anything visible in the car? A bag or briefcase?’ Janine said.

Richard shook his head. ‘No. And no sign of any disturbance inside the building.’

‘The door was unlocked?’ Janine asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Was he locking up, perhaps?’ Janine said.

‘Cleaner says that was often the case, Dr Halliwell would be the last to leave before she arrived. She saw him sometimes. Shall we go in?’

Inside the surgery, there was a reception area to the right and a waiting room to the left. Behind the reception desk were photographs of the practice staff, six in all. Receptionist, practice manager, nurse and three GPs. In his photograph, Donald Halliwell looked fatherly, older than his years, Janine thought. The other two doctors, Anita Gupta and Fraser McKee, were both younger.

They walked on down the broad corridor past four consulting rooms to a bathroom and a locked storage room at the end.

The décor was in good repair, Janine noted, lemon painted walls with green flecked carpeting and white woodwork. Flowers on the reception desk scented the air, paintings hung along the corridor. Richard was right, there was no sign of anything out of place inside the premises.

Back outside, Sergeant Butchers took Janine and Richard to the pavement and introduced them to Ms Ling, the practice manager and key holder. She was a petite woman, of Chinese descent Janine guessed. Her skin was smooth and her face bare of any make-up. She looked young on first impression but Janine saw the fine lines that fanned out from her eyes and the touches of grey in her hair suggesting she was reaching middle age.

‘Ms Ling,’ Janine said, ‘I’m DCI Lewis, I’m in charge of the inquiry. And this is Detective Inspector Mayne.’

Richard said, ‘Hello.’

Ms Ling nodded. ‘Who would do such a thing?’ she said.