Barry Maitland: The Marx Sisters

The doctor turned and stared at Brock for a moment.

‘Miss Harper phoned me yesterday about quarter past four in the afternoon. I was here, upstairs. That’s where I live. I have been the doctor to the three sisters for over ten years.’

Kathy stared at the powerful hands clasped on his blotting pad. They were disproportionately large for his body, with thick stubby fingers matted with black hair. They were the hands of a bricklayer or a farmer. She stopped herself trying to imagine him giving the old ladies internal examinations.

‘She said she needed me straight away. There was something wrong with Meredith-Mrs Winterbottom.’

‘What were her exact words, doctor?’ Brock asked.

‘ “Please come at once. I think Meredith is not breathing.” Something like that. It only took me a few minutes to get my bag and go down the street to the house. Eleanor was waiting on the landing.’

‘And Mrs Blythe?’

‘She was sitting in Meredith’s bedroom. She seemed to be in shock.’

‘Could you describe her?’

The doctor frowned.

‘I didn’t take much notice of her, not at first. I was more concerned with Meredith.’

He stared up at the ceiling, recalling the scene.

‘Peg was sitting on an armchair beside the window, looking at the bed. I don’t think she moved or said anything all the time I was examining her sister. Later, after I called the police, I had a look at her and checked her pulse. She was trembling and showing signs of shock. Eleanor and I took her upstairs to her room. I gave her two secobarbital tablets and Eleanor stayed with her until the detectives arrived.’ He nodded at Kathy. ‘By that time she was asleep.’

‘I understand you were already prescribing sleeping pills for Peg,’ Brock said. ‘Is that right? Eleanor told us that they gave Meredith one of Peg’s sleeping pills after lunch yesterday to help her rest.’

‘Really? I’m surprised she took it. Yes, I did prescribe sedatives for Peg from time to time. The last time would be… oh, two months ago, perhaps. She was complaining of sleeping badly and I gave her a prescription to last her two weeks. I suppose she didn’t finish them.’

‘All right, tell us about Meredith.’

Until this point Dr Botev had been speaking slowly and cautiously, but now he clutched his big hands into fists and said fiercely, ‘She was a fine woman, a strong woman.’

Brock waited for him to elaborate on these qualities, but he sat in silence, eyes staring unblinking behind his thick lenses.

‘She was seventy-four, doctor.’

‘So? I am seventy-six.’

Brock raised his eyebrows in surprise.

‘People don’t die of age, Chief Inspector. Death has a cause-natural or unnatural. There was no reason for Meredith to die.’

‘You had examined her recently?’

‘Yes. For some months she had been sleeping badly. Unusual for her. She came to see me for help.’

‘How long ago?’

The doctor peered down at a patient record card on the desk. ‘The first time in early June, just over three months ago. Apart from a fall she had two years ago it was the first time I’d seen her professionally, although I knew her well. Everyone in the Lane did. Of all the people who live here, she was the most alive, the one who was always keeping up with things. It took her a lot to come and see me in June, I could see that. She wasn’t the sort of person who goes to the doctor just because she’s had a few sleepless nights. But I could see she wasn’t well. She said she didn’t have her usual energy, was run down. Said she wanted a tonic. Something about a bottle of iron medicine her mother gave her as a girl.’

Dr Botev paused and repeated ‘iron medicine’, shaking his head. ‘When we talked some more, it appeared there were other symptoms: no appetite, constipation, dry skin. She was also troubled by stabbing pains in the lower back. Also, she seemed to have lost interest in what was going on in the Lane. I noticed that in particular, because it was so unlike her. I remember that she didn’t seem to be at all interested in the Kowalskis selling their bookshop and moving down to the coast.

‘I gave her the usual check-up here, and sent her down the road for blood tests, but I was fairly sure what it was. My diagnosis was depression. She claimed she wasn’t worried or upset about anything in particular, that nothing had happened to make her anxious in the past few months, but to me she was presenting the symptoms of depression.

‘When the results of the tests came back I had her in to see me again and told her I was going to give her some pills to help her. She didn’t like the idea. She said she wouldn’t take sleeping tablets or tranquillizers because she believed they were addictive-she’d seen something on TV about it. So I told her these were like iron tablets, only more modern.’

‘What did you prescribe?’

Dr Botev consulted his card again. ‘Plustranil, 200 milligrammes a day. It’s a tricyclic antidepressant.’

‘It worked?’

‘Yes. It took a week or so before she started to feel better, but after three weeks she came back to thank me. She had all her old bounce again, and said she felt much better and had stopped taking the pills. I told her she had to keep taking them for a couple of months and gave her a repeat prescription.

‘A couple of weeks later she came back to say she was getting new symptoms-palpitations, occasional dizziness, and the constipation had returned. These are quite normal side-effects for this type of drug, but from her remarks I could see she was worried there might be something wrong with her heart. Well, postural hypotension can be a side-effect of Plustranil too, and that can be a problem for someone with a bad heart, so I suggested she had a thorough check-up and she seemed quite relieved. I also reduced the Plustranil to 150 milligrammes a day.

‘She attended the cardio-vascular unit at the hospital on… August 12th. I got the report three weeks ago. She had a complete set of tests, and she was absolutely in the clear. There is no history of heart disease in her immediate family.

‘So’-he glared at Kathy through his lenses-‘while it is not impossible for someone to walk out of their doctor’s surgery with a clean bill of health and to drop dead with a heart attack ten minutes later, it is highly unlikely. Also, she didn’t look as if she’d suffered a heart attack. No warning chest pains, no signs of distress.’

‘What about a “silent coronary”, while she was asleep on the bed?’ Brock persisted.

Botev turned his glare back to Brock. ‘I don’t believe it. Come back when your police doctor has something to persuade me to change my mind.’

‘But do you know of any reason why someone should want to kill her?’

Botev didn’t reply, but only glared more defiantly over Brock’s head.

‘Or have any suspicion who it might be?’

Again no reply.

‘What about Eleanor? Have you been treating her?’

He shook his head. ‘She never needs a doctor. She is strong, too. Quite different from Meredith. But a fine woman.’

As Brock and Kathy got to their feet the doctor spoke again. The tone of abrasiveness had gone, and the curiously high pitched voice suddenly sounded plaintive.

‘I will never forget how good she was to me when my wife died. I was helpless… like a baby. She saved my life then. You must find who killed her.’

They stepped out into the little square which was formed where Jerusalem Lane changed alignment halfway along its length. Across the way the proprietor of the Balaton Cafe was taking advantage of the warm morning sun to set a couple of tables outside on the stone flags. A powerful rich smell of roasting coffee beans came from Boll’s Coffee and Chocolates next door, and on the near corner of the square, tubs of cut chrysanthemums and roses stood outside the front of Brunhilde’s Flower Shop.