Quintin Jardine - Gallery Whispers

'No, sir,' she replied, hurriedly. 'I didn't mean Special Branch.

SB's short for Sleeping Beauty. It's what we call Dennis. Wayne helps him to bed around nine, and then we go out.'

The DCC smiled. 'Ah, I see. For a minute there I thought you were turning into a security risk. On you go, then.'

She looked at him, relief written on her face, and headed back towards the foyer. Skinner's smile vanished as quickly as it had arrived.

'What's up with you?' asked Martin.

'I'm not sure she might not be a security risk after all,' he growled.

'There's something about that Aussie that's giving me a niggle. Maybe it's just the voice, maybe it's just that all these surf burns tend to look the same.

'It's probably nothing at all, and yet… I can't help feeling that I've seen that one somewhere before.'

'Here you are, sergeant, this is the one you're looking for.' Neil Mcllhenney murmured his thanks to the hospital records clerk, a cheery little woman, and took the thick file from her.

Seating himself at a desk in the corner of the small office he looked at the green folder. Alongside 'Patient's Name', he saw 'Nicola Marston', and in the space marked 'Consultant', 'Mr Simmers'. The word 'Deceased' in heavy red lettering was stamped across the cover.

Staring at it, he shivered for a moment, before he opened the history and began to read.

He saw at once that the file was in reverse date order, for the first document was a note which read, 'Patient's death reported by police.

Postmortem shows death due to overdose of insulin.' The scrawled signature was only just legible. Mcllhenney read it aloud: 'D Simmers'.

The detective had not intended to read the history page by page, yet he was unable to stop himself. He pored over each entry from the top down with an eye which was no longer that of a total layman, making his way backwards through the course of Nicola Marston's illness, studying the notes in each stage of her treatment.

Although the regime was far from identical to that which Olive was undergoing, there were some similarities, most notably the concern of Deacey Simmers and his Registrar for the side effects of their therapy on the patient's blood. Before he was half-way though the file he found himself identifying with Nicola Marston, sitting by her side at each consultation, feeling her pain and distress as she struggled through the inevitable, violent sickness which followed each chemical transfusion, imagining her pleasure as he happened upon positive indicators from her scans and X-rays.

All the while that he read, he recognised the danger to himself of exposure to such a story, but he forced that consideration to one side.

This was not Olive, this was not Olive, he told himself. This was a woman who had given up.

Very few pages remained unread when he found the name. One that he had read in the police report on Anthony Murray: one that he knew.

He raced through the rest of the folder, closed it, then sat at the desk, his head in his hands, thinking hard. At last he nodded, a decision made: he took out his mobile phone and dialled Skinner's direct number.

'Yes,' came the snapped reply. The impatience in the normally steady voice took the sergeant by surprise. 'Boss?'

'Sorry, Neil,' said Skinner, at once. 'I've got something on my mind.'

'I won't keep you then, sir; but so have I. There's something in this report and I'd like to follow it up. To do that, I need to make one call, and I need to go and talk to someone.' He chuckled softly into the phone.

'I think I must have been working with you for too long, gaffer. I'm starting to get hunches!'

Sarah grinned. 'Of course we're pleased to see you Alex. It doesn't matter that there's European football on television tonight, does it Bob?'

'What? Oh sorry girls, I was miles away there. No, no, sod the football.'

His daughter laughed. 'You know what they say about the secret of life. Pops. It's sincerity: once you learn to fake that, you've cracked it.

You still need to do some work in that area.'

'Seriously, I mean it. Anyway, it's only an English team. So what did bring you out here?'

Alex shook her head, rearranging her long dark curls on her shoulders, and fixed her big blue eyes on her father. 'A bonding trip, Pops. With my brothers and with you two.'

'I don't suppose for a minute that you wanted to ask me how Andy was getting along,' he said, idly. 'No, that would have nothing to do with it. Bonding, sure, that's it.'

'You, you…' she spluttered, then smiled, '… always could read me, couldn't you.'

'He's doing fine, kid. He had a couple of days of moping and chewing people out, but he seems to have pulled himself out of it. In fact, I didn't realise how much he'd changed in the time you two were engaged. The truth of the matter is, I reckon, that you were suffocating each other.'

'Do you think there's a chance,' Sarah began, tentatively, 'that once the two of you have had a chance to readjust, and to get your own personalities back, that you might get together again?'

'Not as much as a flicker, step-mother. Andy's very easy-going in some ways, but completely unbending in others.'

'So are you, kid,' Bob murmured.

'Maybe so, but my principles are consistent. Andy has a selective conscience, you know. He squares it with contraception, no problem, but as soon as one of his tadpoles goes astray, that's it, he might as well be wearing a pointy white hat and carrying a shepherd's crook.

You should have seen him when I told him about my termination…'

'You still can't say abortion, can you.'

'Okay,' she shot back at him, her voice raised, 'have it your way; my abortion. He went berserk all because I'd exercised my rights over my body. Yet that same guy would put a bullet in someone's head tomorrow, if the need arose, then go out for a pint with the lads.'

'No,' said Sarah, intervening to calm her, 'I guess it doesn't look like there's a chance, does it. What about this boy Ray? Do you think you might see him again?'

Alex's smile returned in a flash. 'God no! He's got a brain the size of a pea; I was only ever after his body. No, I'm fo'otloose again. Just like my ex. Seriously though, I'm glad to hear he's getting over it.

He's not sniffing around that Neville woman, is he?'

Bob shook his head. 'No, he'll keep her at arms' length.'

'He'd have to with that chest others.'

'Yeah, it's as well I got her out of uniform; the tailors were having trouble. But really, Karen's not a factor. She's spoken for. And that's why I was preoccupied earlier, to tell you the truth. I still feel I should be able to place the guy.'

The woman took a while to open the door: it was understandable, Mcllhenney realised, as soon as he saw her twisted, claw-like hands.

'Miss Ball,' he said. 'Good evening to you. I'm Sergeant Mcllhenney: I phoned you earlier.'

'Yes, of course,' she replied. 'Come away through, I've been expecting you.' He followed her through an open doorway and found himself not in her sitting room as he had expected but in the kitchen.

'Before we begin, sergeant, can I ask you something I ask all my visitors? Would you please make us a nice pot of tea. I can manage a bag in a mug these days, but I do so much prefer it properly made.'

'So do I,' said the detective. 'Show me where the tea is and I'm your man.'

Five minutes later, he poured perfectly brewed Darjeeling into two china cups and placed them on a side table between his hostess's chair and his own. 'Well done,' she exclaimed. 'Now, I'm at your disposal.

This is still about Gaynor, isn't it. I haven't read anything in the papers lately, so I suppose the mystery remains.'