Cath Staincliffe - Go Not Gently

‘But how did they know he wasn’t ringing from home,’ she asked, ‘pretending he was at work?’

‘Ah! Because you could hear the yard in the back ground, all these vans and a Tannoy, really clear. It was brilliant. It proved he was at work, miles away at about the time of the murder. And now it looks like they’re on to the right suspect.’

We nattered on some more about what we liked and didn’t about the new technology.

‘Promise me,’ said Diane, ‘if I ever get obsessive about it, you’ll tell me.’

‘Promise.’

‘Hey, maybe you could be the first virtual private eye, shadowing people down the Information Superhighway, uncovering virtual crime.’

‘What, for virtual money? Give over.’

I slept late on the Saturday morning. My cold was receding and I’d enough energy to make a start on planting up the cold frame. Maddie and I made a trip to the local garden centre and bought a selection of packets of seeds. I limited myself to petunias and lobelia for tubs and baskets, I could supplement them with cuttings I’d taken from ivy and pansies. I got some asters for the border and Maddie chose lettuce and candytuft for herself and Tom.

On the way back I called at the office to check my mail. There was a handwritten envelope. I didn’t recognise the writing. I opened it eagerly though I should have realised that no friend would write to me at my work address. Inside was a cheque, drawn on the account of Mr J. W. Achebe. Jimmy, paying off his debt. The fact he’d bothered to sort it out in the midst of what he must be going through brought a lump to my throat. There was a small note with it; it just read ‘Thank you.’ I sighed, put it in my drawer to deal with on Monday. Poor Jimmy. Now he was free to start grieving for the loss of Tina. There’d be all the arrangements to make for her funeral once they released the body. He’d been transformed from murderer to widower. Had friends and family believed him guilty, how would they ever face him again?

It was a mild, grey day and the two of us pottered nicely, filling old seed trays with compost, sprinkling on seeds, watering them gently and putting them in the frame.

Maddie wanted a picnic lunch so I heated a tin of soup and we sipped it from mugs, along with cheese rolls. She chattered on about school, mainly about Miss Bryan, her teacher, who she was deeply in love with. She wanted to be exactly like Miss Bryan, she was going to be a teacher like Miss Bryan, Miss Bryan had three earrings in one ear. I watched a magpie pulling twigs from a tree in the adjoining garden and flying off with them.

I left Maddie playing with her bike and went in to ring Moira. What had happened with the police?

‘They got the gist of it over the phone,’ she said, ‘then they sent a chap round last night, had to repeat it all again. Said it’d be Monday at least before they’d be doing anything – no point in calling on people over the weekend. Not a high priority for them, anyway.’

I rang Agnes too. Lily was neither better nor worse. They thought it was pneumonia. Agnes had been there the previous evening. I told her what the results were on the tablets.

‘I knew there was something wrong with them.’ She was triumphant. ‘I just knew it. Four times too strong. It really is disgraceful. How did it happen? Did he write out a faulty prescription?’

‘No, the label’s got the correct dosage on – it’s the tablets that are stronger than the label says. You’d only know that if you had them analysed. The mistake must have been made when they were being prepared.’

‘It’s a clear case of negligence, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Whoever’s got it wrong must be disciplined.’

‘Well, the police are involved now. My friend the GP who sent them to the lab had to report it so they’ll hopefully get to the bottom of it. But listen to this, they were made up at Malden’s, the place where Mrs Goulden works. I think Goulden’s covering up because Malden’s got it wrong. I bet he didn’t do anything after we went to see him, thought we were cranks, and now he’s realised…The others probably know too. It could ruin them, bad publicity and that, endangering life. But, Agnes, I think there’s more to it than just the tablets.’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t believe it’s just a coincidence that all these people are involved, both in the firm and in Lily’s case. I’m not that gullible. I talked to Mrs Knight and I’m sure she knew nothing about it, she was completely fazed when I told her about the dosage and she only lied about the tablets turning up because Goulden had bullied her into it. But I checked on Ernest Theakston – the other resident from Homelea who’d gone to Kingsfield this year. His case was totally different from Lily’s. He’d been ill for a long time, the progress of the disease was slow and he never had any medication from Malden’s. I can’t see any motive either. Just suppose we’re right, there’s something going on, Goulden gets funny tablets made up at his wife’s lab, gives them to Lily, who’s got dementia any way. She becomes even more demented, they can’t control her so she’s referred to Montgomery for assessment at Kingsfield.’

‘Then she falls,’ Agnes spoke calmly, ‘if she did fall.’

I thought of the other patient with her riddles about the fall. Was she pushed? They wouldn’t dare, would they? But no one had seen her fall, neither Mrs Li nor the nurse we’d seen. Who’d found her or seen it happen?

‘All right – if she did fall. So she has an operation to sort out the bleeding in her brain.’

‘She gets an infection.’

‘But apparently unrelated to the operation or the medication.’

There was a pause. We’d reached the end of the story so far.

‘Why?’ I said. ‘What’s it all for?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Agnes, ‘but I wasn’t born yesterday. I think you should tell the police everything you’ve found out, let them deal with it.’

I had my doubts, but rang off promising Agnes I’d contact the police.

Back in the garden I set to weeding and rehearsed what I could tell the police. It didn’t amount to anything they’d want to hear – a mishmash of connections, suspicions and concerns. The only hard evidence of any wrongdoing was the falsely labelled pills and the police were already looking into that.

I struggled with a crop of dandelions along the edge of the flagged path. It wasn’t a crime for a GP to be eager to refer patients to a well-regarded local psycho-geriatric unit, even if his brother-in-law did work there. It wasn’t a crime for the same GP to order drugs from his wife’s pharmaceutical company or for the city’s neurosurgeon to sit on the board of that company. It wasn’t a crime for a GP to lose his temper.

I was right. There were too many coincidences for comfort. But I wasn’t going to go making a fool of myself in front of the police. Let them look into the mix-up with the tablets, meanwhile I needed more idea of how this all connected to Lily Palmer. Suppose she had been pushed – she was very ill now in hospital – did somebody want Lily dead? I threw down the trowel, washed the soil off my hands and rang Agnes back.

‘Did you ever check whether Charles was the only beneficiary in Lily’s will?’

‘No.’

‘Can you check for me, find out where the will’s held and if she made any recent changes?’

‘I can do. He’s up for the weekend, I’ll be seeing him at the hospital. You think that might be behind it all? Lily only had the house, nothing else. That was sold off so there would be enough to pay the charges at Homelea.’

‘And she wasn’t there very long so there’d be quite a lot still left. I’m sorry, it’s a horrible thought, but I think we should check.’