Quintin Jardine: Gallery Whispers

"at stake"?'

'Deacey Simmers' reputation, and freedom. He was right in the frame for killing Gaynor Weston and Anthony Murray.'

She put her hand to her mouth. 'But I never meant that,' she gasped.

'I'm sure you didn't; and maybe when he was arrested you'd have come forward. But it would have been too late by then. The damage would have been done. You know how sensitive Mr Simmers is. The faintest whiff of something like this could have finished him.'

She nodded. 'You're right. He might have been your next suicide.

'How did you know I was involved in those deaths?' she asked.

'I found your name in Nicola Marston's notes. I knew you'd been to see Mr Murray too. So I went to see Joan Ball; she told me about your connection to Mrs Weston.'

'Did you help the Marston woman?'

She turned to look at Skinner as he spoke. 'Nicola asked me, hypothetically, how much insulin it would take for a fast-acting lethal overdose. Hypothetically, I told her. I wasn't there when she died though. I didn't know about it until Deacey told me.

'I felt terribly guilty about it, at first, but over the next couple of years, I thought about it more and more. Eventually, having been an opponent, I swung right round and became a member of the proeuthanasia camp.

'That was as far as it went though, till Gay told me about her illness and asked me to help her end it. She was a strong woman, she had made a firm decision, and in my view a correct one; so I agreed. I went out to Oldbams late at night, injected her, made sure she was dead, and went away. I didn't realise how many silly mistakes I'd made until Nolan Weston let something slip in conversation at the hospital one day.'

'So you were more careful with Mr Murray,' Skinner interposed.

'Yes, although not careful enough, it seems.'

'No. not quite.' The DCC smiled, faintly. 'Tell me this. When you helped Gay Weston to die, was Mr Simmers there?'

'No. He had been there earlier in the evening, for supper. Gay told me, in fact, that he'd been a bit disappointed when she asked him to go. He thought that he'd be staying the night as usual.'

Neil and Olive Mcllhenney sighed with relief, in unison.

'What about Mr Murray?' Skinner continued. 'Did he ask you to help him?'

Penelope dark looked up at him. 'No,' she said. 'I made the offer.

Anthony was such a lovely man, and he was struggling so hard to hold on to what was left of his dignity, that I couldn't stop myself. He jumped at the chance. When I put the bag over his head, the last thing he said to me was "Thank you".'

'And what did Gaynor Weston say? It wasn't "Thank you Mrs Futcher", was it?'

Neil Mcllheimey's jaw dropped, as he stared at Skinner.

'That's the one big problem I have, you see, doctor,' said the DCC, 'the fact that Gaynor Weston was your husband's girlfriend. When Neil asked me to witness this, and told me about you, I made some inquiries through a contact at the BMA. He checked the files and told me that although dark's your maiden name, the one you qualified under and the one you've always used professionally, you're also Mrs Terry Futcher.'

The woman jumped to her feet. 'Look,' she protested. 'You have to understand about Terry and me; we're happily married in our own way, but I have my life and he has his. I don't enjoy his attentions over much; never have. That's why we don't have a family, and that's why I don't mind his screwing around, although we keep up the pretence that I don't know about it.

'I love him though, and he loves me, and we agreed a long time ago that we'd stick together, come what may.

'I knew about Gaynor almost as soon as it started; Terry's careless with his diary and I knew who she was through her work for the firm.

But I'd never met her until that day that Joan introduced us. I liked her at once, all the more because I realised that she was no threat to my marriage. She was a hell of a sight more independent than Terry ever was, and I knew early on that he wasn't her only boyfriend.

'I know it looks bad, but Gay and I were friends.'

'Did she know who you were?'

'I never told her, and if she knew she never let anything slip. I have no idea if Terry ever showed her a photograph of me. But her relationship with my husband had no bearing on my decision to help her end her life. You have to believe that.'

'It doesn't matter whether I do or not,' said Skinner. 'If a judge saw malice there, though, that would matter, big-time.' As he looked at her, Penelope dark Futcher sat slowly back down on the settee.

'However,' the big DCC continued, fingering the bruise on his forehead and wincing as he did, 'it isn't going to come to that. Because, more by your luck than your judgement, we have no hard evidence against you, Dr dark, nor the prospect of ever finding any… and under Scots law a person cannot be convicted on the basis of an uncorroborated confession.

'All that I can do is have a quiet word with Home Support, and make sure that you are never again put in a position where you might be tempted to offer your special help to a terminally ill patient. Make no mistake, I will do that, unless you promise to resign. I'll do the same with the BMA too, unless you promise never to practise medicine again. Will you give me those undertakings?'

'Yes,' the woman whispered, after a moment's hesitation.

'In that case, you're free to go. And take this both as a request and a warning: don't ever be tempted to do such a thing, ever again.'

She had almost reached the door when Olive spoke. 'No, Penelope,' she said, 'please don't. Because you're not God, you're not the Pope, you're not infallible. With what you've been doing, you only have to be wrong once… and my dear, you were wrong about me, about us.

'You probably don't understand this, given what you've said about your own marriage, but my family's the driving force behind everything I do. I don't have a choice at all. I don't have the luxury of opting out. I have to go on, for Neil and the kids' sakes as much as my own, because I will not entertain the idea of our being parted before our rightful time.

'For them, I have to fight this thing: to my last breath, if it comes to that. And believe me, lady, I will.'

'Where have you been?' Sarah looked at him appraisingly as he stepped carefully across the threshold. At the same time she noted the police car's tail lights, which were disappearing down their driveway.

'And why did you have a driver?' she asked, suspicious of his deliberate gait. 'Have you been celebrating your victory over the Forces of Darkness by hob-nobbing with the great and the good?'

'Leaving aside my concussive injury,' he said, with equal care, tapping his forehead but feeling nothing, 'I have to tell you that the real Forces of Darkness are bastards and cannot be swept aside by a few rounds from a Browning.

'That said, I have indeed been hob-nobbing with the great and the good. Drinking many toasts to them, in fact… to two of the finest and best people I have ever met.'