Peter Lovesey - The House Sitter

Olga was relieved. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”

“We could have been a million miles away. We saw nothing.”

“When we came back from our swim, and Haley was missing, I thought the woman was asleep,” Olga recalled, picturing the scene. “She was very still. She could have been dead already.”

“Must have been.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite so strongly as that. When Haley went missing, you went off to look for her and I was in no state to notice anything. The woman could have been strangled while I was standing there, looking along the beach. What a ghastly thought!”

“Unlikely.”

“And when the lifeguard brought her back, I ran up the beach towards them. It could have happened then.”

“Does it matter?” Mike said. “The whole point is that we don’t know because we saw nothing.”

“You were the first to find her dead.”

“Someone was going to find her. I’m keeping out of this, Olga. Our life is heavy enough. We can do without this.”

He’d talked her round. She was uneasy, but she didn’t want another argument. There had been too many in their marriage in recent days.

“What’s she like-Dr Wilkinson?”

Stella had targeted the receptionist she reckoned would say most if encouraged, the smiling woman in her fifties with carefully made-up eyes that gleamed through dark-framed oval rims. Mrs Bassington would have you believe she ran the entire health centre without interference from doctors, nurses or her fellow receptionists. She had shown Stella straight into Shiena Wilkinson’s consulting room, a stark place with little in it suggestive of the doctor’s personality except a Vermeer print on the wall behind the desk. There was a box of tissues on the desk. No family photos.

“What’s she like?” Mrs Bassington repeated. “A sweet doctor, very popular with the patients.”

“I meant in appearance.”

“Oh. Rather pretty in an intelligent way, if you understand me. She’s slim and about your height. Lovely hair with a reddish tinge to it. Natural, I’m sure. You can tell, can’t you?”

“Reddish?”

“Chestnut, I’d call it.”

Would chestnut pass for copper, the description everyone seemed to agree on? Stella wondered. She thought of copper as more red than brown. She was too experienced to put words in the witness’s mouth. “What length?”

“That I couldn’t tell you. She always wears it up, fastened across the back with a large wooden clasp like a geisha. It could be quite long. I’ve never seen it loose.”

“You knew she was off duty at the weekend?”

“Naturally I knew. The doctors’ schedules are my responsibility. Her next surgery was this afternoon.”

“And did she say how she planned to spend the weekend?”

“Not to me personally, but she goes to the beach to relax sometimes. She’s mentioned it in the past.”

“When did she join the team of doctors here?”

“It must be two years now. Her first GP appointment. We were overstretched at the time. Normally I’d ease a new doctor in, specially a first-timer, but she was given a full list straight away and she coped brilliantly. You see, Dr Masood had died suddenly and Shiena had to step into his shoes. We unloaded a few of his patients to the other doctors, but basically she took over his list.”

“Dr Masood? He was here before she came?”

“Yes.”

“And died suddenly?”

“Killed in a motorway accident. A great shock to us all. You don’t really believe Shiena is this woman who was strangled, do you?”

“We don’t know yet,” Stella said. “We found her car abandoned. That’s all.”

“It would be too awful-another doctor dying.”

“What can you tell me about her personal life?” Stella asked, leaving aside the possible implications of another dead doctor. “Is there a family?”

“Not here, for sure. I think they lived abroad. She used to talk about Canada. Her people are over there if they’re anywhere.”

“Any men in her life?”

“Apart from two or three hundred patients? I couldn’t tell you. She isn’t very forthcoming about her life outside this place.”

“Let’s talk about patients, then. I’m sure she must have had a few difficult characters on her books.”

“What do you mean by difficult?” For a moment it seemed Stella had miscalculated and was about to be lectured on patient confidentiality.

“Unstable personalities.”

Mrs Bassington spread her hands and laughed. “They’re two a penny in Petersfield. It’s that sort of town.”

“Anyone with a grudge against her?”

“All the doctors have complainers, if that’s what you mean. People who think they’re not getting the treatment they deserve, or the miracle cure they read about in some magazine.”

“Try and think, please. Someone angry enough to be a threat to Dr Wilkinson.”

“A man?”

“I’m asking you, Mrs Bassington.”

After a significant pause, she said, “Is this strictly between you and me? I wouldn’t want him knowing I gave you his name.”

“He won’t find out.”

She took off her glasses and polished them with one of Dr Wilkinson’s tissues. “There’s a certain man I could mention-a very unpleasant person who treated his wife appallingly, beating her up a number of times. Dr Wilkinson saw the injuries after the latest episode and got her into a women’s refuge in Godalming. The wife is so scared of him she won’t report him to the police. He’s very angry with Dr Wilkinson for interfering in his marriage, as he puts it. He’s not her patient, but he was here twice last week demanding to see her.”

“As recently as that?”

“The second time he marched into her room when she was seeing another patient. She called for help and we had to fetch two of the male doctors to evict him.”

“What’s his name?”

“Littlewood. Rex Littlewood. People in the town know him well. It’s the drink. He gets very abusive.”

“Did you see him yourself when he came in?”

“The first time, yes. No appointment. He came in last Monday morning and told me he wanted to speak to Dr Wilkinson. He isn’t even registered here. He’s not the sort of man who’d go to a lady doctor. I could see straight away that he was out to make trouble. I told him she was fully booked-which she was-and suggested he tried later in the week. Usually people like him don’t bother again if you can put them off. I can be very firm with difficult men. He did leave, but unfortunately he returned on Wednesday, when I wasn’t here, stormed in past reception and into Dr Wilkinson’s surgery, with the result I mentioned.”

“I’ll need his address. Does he have a car?”

“If he does, it shouldn’t be allowed. Each time I’ve seen him, he was smelling of drink.”

“Is the wife all right? Has anyone phoned the hostel?”

The blood drained from Mrs Bassington’s face. “Oh my God! You don’t think he’s killed her as well?”

“We should check. Where exactly is this refuge?”

Outside in her car, Stella asked for a PNC check on Rex Littlewood’s form. He had two convictions for being drunk in a public place, but none for vehicle offences. Nothing, either, for assault or violence. This didn’t mean he was a model husband; just that his wife hadn’t reported him.

Stella was wary. It would be all too easy to cast Littlewood as Dr Wilkinson’s killer, then find he was thirty miles away at the time.

She drove to Godalming and found the refuge north of the town, a derelict mansion someone had rented for a peppercorn. The rotten window frames were barely holding the glass. There were broken tiles on the ground by the front door. But someone answered the knock and it was a relief to hear that Ann Little-wood was alive and still in residence.