His name was Dr Barrow, he was an on-call locum, he was young and he was not best pleased at being called out. Maura had needed to get a bit heavy on the phone, explaining that, though she didn’t have a medical emergency on her hands at that moment, she would if she withdrew the medication, or continued to administer it illegally. He’d said he would come when he could squeeze her in. He squeezed her in at 8.30 in the evening.
Gordon had not been pleased to see yet another stranger in his room and had showed off rotten at the intrusion – it had taken all Maura’s powers of persuasion to calm him down. By the time it came to calming Dr Barrow down, she was all out of options.
He stood in the kitchen with his black briefcase on the table, ignoring an inquisitive Buster (who was sniffing at his trouser legs as if the man had recently been knee-deep in rabbits). He ran his fingers through his already tousled hair. ‘I’m going to be honest with you – this is a pretty unusual situation and I’m not entirely sure what to do. I can’t admit him to hospital. There’s no good reason to – not as an emergency anyway. I think we do have to get him off this medication, but for the time being, until we can do it in a controlled environment, I suggest we continue as he is. I’ll write a prescription to cover you, and for tonight you’ll have to use what you already have. First thing on Monday I suggest we contact Social Services and get him admitted somewhere where they can do a controlled withdrawal so we can see what medication he really needs. From what you’ve told me this is quite a messy situation.’
Maura nodded. ‘It is. There’s enough left in the pill reminder to last until Monday and I’m happy to give it as long as you prescribe it and document the reasons.’
Dr Barrow sighed. ‘I have no idea how this situation has come about, to be honest. I checked for his notes at the surgery but they’ve been archived. According to the available records he hasn’t been seen by anyone from the practice since 1988. It’s ludicrous.’
Maura had explained how she’d come to be at the Grange when he’d arrived. At the mention of Dr Moss’s name, the young doctor had bristled. She hadn’t pursued it at the time, having been more concerned with Gordon, but it had bothered her. ‘Can I ask you to level with me? I’m not going to ask you to break any confidences, but as I do work at the hospital part-time, can I ask if you know what’s going on with Dr Moss?’
Dr Barrow frowned. ‘I’m not sure I should say. All I’ve heard is gossip.’
Maura could sense his reluctance, but she needed to know. ‘Look, put yourself in my shoes. A man I knew and trusted recommended me for this job. Since then I’ve had to deal with the police, a dead body, frankly bonkers staff and an illegally drugged old man. I could have walked out, but I didn’t. I’m a nurse, I have a duty of care and, let’s face it, that old boy doesn’t have anyone else. Whatever you’ve heard I’d appreciate hearing it too. I’m trying to do the right thing here and it’s getting bloody hard.’ She wanted to add that even the damned house seemed to have it in for her, but it seemed a bit dramatic and would be too hard to explain. One smashed window and two blown fuses in an old house were hardly reasonable evidence for personal persecution, even if it did feel that way. Maura didn’t want to be perceived as a fool.
Dr Barrow pulled a face, pondered for a moment, then sighed. ‘It would appear Dr Moss has done a runner. The other doctors at the surgery have been questioning his competence for some time. He’s been ignoring urgent referrals and been rather bizarre with some of our patients. A complaint was made to the General Medical Council by another practice and he walked out as soon as he heard. No one has seen him since. That’s all I know and I’m not sure how much of that is true. Most of it came from a loose-lipped receptionist.’
‘How long ago was this?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. More than a week ago, I think. Bear in mind I’m just a locum.’
Maura let that sink in for a moment. It certainly explained why he hadn’t been back to the Grange since that first day. She’d thought it was odd he’d been there at all until Cheryl had explained. She had left a message on the agency answerphone explaining the odd circumstances of her employment, but wouldn’t hear back until Monday – hers wouldn’t be considered an urgent call. Until then she wouldn’t be able to ask why Dr Moss had asked for her by name.
Dr Barrow was busy writing out a prescription to cover the pills Gordon was taking. He didn’t look up when he next spoke. ‘I think you’re going to have to inform the police of this situation. If Dr Moss has been involved with prescribing and treating Mr Henderson, then something very fishy has been going on’
‘I will,’ she said, taking the scribbled prescription from his hand.
‘There’s no point my calling Social Services now. We’ll just get the duty officer and there won’t be much they can do at the weekend. I’ll contact them on Monday.’
‘I’ll be at the surgery on Monday. It’s my clinic day.’
‘Good. Call into my room first thing before surgery and we’ll sort it together. And I’ll take a look at that scratch on your arm. It looks nasty.’
Maura glance down at her arm, and at the long gouge Gordon had made with his nails the day he’d seen the teddy. ‘Ah, it’s OK, just a scratch. Gordon gets quite agitated, as you’ve seen.’
Dr Barrow frowned at her. ‘Well, keep it clean and put a dressing on it. It looks inflamed.’
‘I will. Thank you for coming – you’ve been a great help.’
Having some back-up for a change felt like a very good thing and it was with some relief that she showed him out via the front door. ‘Funny old place this,’ he said, looking up at the house, which was even more ugly in the moonlight. ‘Like a big canker in the middle of all this new development. I wonder they didn’t sell this too and be done with it.’
Maura smiled. She’d been wondering that too.
She locked and bolted the front door, checked on the sleeping Gordon and wandered through to the kitchen. Other than the house’s dodgy old electrics deciding to blow every two minutes, everything had been quiet since the night of the storm and she’d grown a little more confident about being there alone. Admittedly she had Gordon and the dog, but they hardly counted as company, or protection for that matter. Buster was a sweetheart, but she had the impression he’d roll over for any psycho who offered him a hobnob and would tickle his belly for five minutes. Essentially she was on her own and, for the first time, it was starting to irritate her. She wanted to talk her theory through, but there was no one to tell.
‘What do you reckon, Buster? Did Dr Moss and Estelle have a thing going on? Did they drug Gordon, rip him off and do a runner? Or am I suffering from cabin fever and developing an overactive imagination?’
Buster twisted his head from side to side, not recognising any words that might be of interest to him, but she appreciated his attention. She smiled, scratched his head and gave him a biscuit. ‘Don’t tell Bob,’ she said.
Both DC Gallan and DS Poole had left their cards – Cheryl had stuck them to the fridge with a couple of garish fridge magnets. Maura had no intention of voluntarily speaking to Poole but contemplated ringing Gallan and telling him what she’d discovered. However, as it was getting on for ten at night, she’d only get his voicemail anyway, so it looked like she was stuck with her own thoughts as usual. She stuck the prescription to the fridge over the top of Poole’s card – at least her ass was covered where Gordon was concerned.
Going to bed and waiting for a civilised hour seemed the only option, so she locked the rest of the house and climbed the stairs, followed by Buster, who had taken to sleeping on the end of her bed.
On the landing outside her room Buster heard something of interest to him and shot off into the part of the house Cheryl had told her was unused and unsafe. It had existed in Maura’s imagination as a no-go zone, a dark and dimly lit limb of the Grange that was solid and uninviting. She’d hovered on the perimeter of it many times, but the shadowed hallway had oozed an air of hostility that had played havoc with her nerve. Now Buster had run into the gloom and not even the word “biscuit” was luring him out. He’d not been out for a pee since the doctor had called and she was worried he was in some corner relieving himself and creating some future hysteria for Cheryl. With some reluctance she groped for the light switch and plunged into this unknown part of the house. All the doors were shut, some were locked and those that opened led into empty, dusty rooms. Maura had no reason to look inside them except the need fuelled by her imagination, which forced her to make sure they were empty and not occupied by some lurking menace that might be nightmare fodder. The corridor was chicaned by various bits of furniture, half tables, odd chairs and a bookcase, huge and incongruous in the space where it had been crammed. Beyond it lay a staircase leading to what she assumed must be the attic. She drew the line at exploring attics in the dead of night, but could hear the dog snuffling at the top of the stairs. Her pleas for him to come were ignored and even when she climbed the murky, uncarpeted staircase he ignored her. A stern “Buster, come here!” was greeted with a plaintive whine and a desperate scrabble at the door. Something in the attic had drawn him and, when she strained her ears, she could just about pick up a feeble scratching. She was profoundly unhappy at the thought of having to open the door and tried to pull the dog away by his collar. Buster was having none of it, however, and stood firm as she fought him on the narrow landing. She let him go, frightened he would turn on her and send her hurtling down the wooden stairs. Once free he leapt at the door, scraping his paws down the panelling and succeeding in catching the door handle and releasing it.
In a fraction of a second, as the door swung inwards, something black and frenzied screeched, hurtled out, caught in Maura’s hair, panicked, clawed at her and disappeared, followed by a barking Buster, who knocked Maura flying. She heard the dull thunk of something hitting a window as she fell and just before her head whacked into one of the stair treads, making her see fireworks behind her eyes. There had been no time to relax and loosen her limbs before the fall and she felt every impact on the way down before landing in a shattered and dazed heap at the bottom. Her head was reeling and she felt sick with shock. As she tried to work out if any of her bones were functional, Buster triumphantly presented her with a broken-necked, very dead, saliva-covered magpie.
Stiff, sore, but with nothing more damaged than her dignity, she looked at the thing Buster had dropped on the floor. The red tongue was lolling out of its beak, showing the drop of devil’s blood that had been placed there long ago by myth. Its head lay at an awkward angle, loose and repulsive. Maura prodded it with the stray slipper that had fallen off her foot in the fall. The bird didn’t move. She didn’t know whether the impact with the window had killed it, or Buster’s enthusiasm, but either way it freaked her out. She’d long prided herself on her lack of superstitious beliefs and had walked under ladders with casual aplomb, put new shoes on the table and frequently opened umbrellas indoors, but this rattled her. One for sorrow, and a bird inside the house. A double omen of dread.
She supposed she couldn’t leave it there, but the thought of picking it up made her stomach lurch. Battered and bruised from the fall she got to her feet, scowled at the rather-too-pleased-with-himself Buster and limped along the corridor to fetch something to wrap around the bird.
She put it on the kitchen table, wrapped in an old towel for its shroud, while Buster whined for it at her side. ‘No way, buddy, you’re not playing with that, you git,’ she said, wincing at the pain in her face. By morning she was going to look as if she’d done ten rounds with Tyson and finished the bout off by getting hit by a bus.
She had just finished swallowing two aspirin and a Valium purloined from Estelle’s dubious stash when a sound outside nearly made her choke in shock. It was nearly eleven according to the clock and she could have sworn someone had just banged a door. For what felt like an age she froze, not daring to move or attempt to look round. Buster barked. Over his noise she could hear a voice, hesitant and female – ‘Hello, hello, I’m sorry to bother you but could you help me?’
Still wincing with pain, and having experienced enough unpleasant incidents for the night, Maura slowly turned. She would have liked to ignore the caller, but there was a face pressed against the window and she knew she’d been seen.
‘Hello?’ the woman called again.
With a painful sigh Maura answered, ‘Just a moment.’
Buster was already at the door, pawing at it in anticipation of this new visitor.
The face in the window was pleasant, harmless and oddly familiar. There could be no harm from a woman. Maura slid back the bolts and unlocked the door, but left the chain on, opening it just a crack. Her eyesight was blurring and she felt sick. ‘What’s the matter?’
The woman beamed, looking relieved. ‘I’m so sorry to bother you, only my car has broken down and I can’t get any signal on my phone here. I saw someone so I knew you were up. May I use your phone to call for help?’
Maura thought it sounded reasonable enough, not that she was feeling particularly rational – her head was pounding and she was slick with sweat from the nausea caused by the shock of the fall. With a shaking hand she slipped the chain off, pulled the door wide and Buster ushered the woman in. ‘So silly really. I was visiting a friend, driving home and it just conked out at the end of the drive. I saw the lights and hoped I’d find somebody up. I don’t fancy walking home this time of night,’ the woman trilled as she stepped into the kitchen.
Her voice was grating on Maura’s already throbbing nerves and head. ‘No, of course not, help yourself, the phone’s over there,’ she said, waving a weak and trembling arm towards the wall-mounted phone. She was feeling grim and the edges of her vision were starting to blur.
Afterwards Maura could vaguely remember Buster whining and the woman’s face falling as she said, ‘Oh my goodness, are you all right?’
When she came to, cheek pressed into the cold lino, Buster licking her hand and whimpering, the woman was gone. Scared away by the dramatics, no doubt, she had chosen to face a walk home rather than deal with a beaten-up woman passing out in a strange house. Especially one as strange as this.
It was all Maura could do to stand up, let alone lock the door again. Her head was pounding and her stomach roiled its objections. Buster’s whining was grating on her and making her wince in pain, the sound of it like chalk squeaking on a blackboard repeatedly. She didn’t even have the strength to shout at him. There was no way she was going to make it up the stairs in one piece; everything hurt too much and she knew that, if she pushed her luck, she’d pass out again. She made it to the morning-room sofa by a combination of wild staggering and clinging to various bits of furniture. She collapsed on its cushions and allowed Buster’s now-plaintive, wheedling song to lull her into a fitful, black-cloaked sleep.
The dog woke her, snuffling at her bruised face, still complaining. She groaned, her head was pounding, her mouth was dry, her body felt as if it had been bitten by every tread of those stairs. The worst hangover of her life hadn’t felt this bad. Peering at Buster through squinted eyes, she rolled herself off the sofa, assuming he wanted to go out. ‘OK, boy, give me a minute.’
Buster was scooting to the door and back in a wild loop of anxiety and whining. It took all of Maura’s will not to shout at him. She needed a pee too, but moving was painful and if he wasn’t careful the dog would have her over again.
‘All right, all right, I’m coming, you demanding little so-and-so!’
In the hallway Buster didn’t bolt for the kitchen as she’d expected, but instead began to claw at Gordon’s door. The first maggot of anxiety started to squirm when she noticed that the chain had been put on; since that first night, and considering his constant drugged state, she hadn’t bothered with it. Gordon could barely amble to the cloakroom, let alone go walkabout anywhere else. She must have done it in her stupor after the fall.
The second writhed when she opened the door and noticed that Buster had hunkered down and was whimpering on the threshold. She’d grown used to his various noises but this one was new. It sounded like distress.
Gordon lounged in his chair as usual, mouth open, jaw hanging, but this time he wasn’t snoring. This time there was a blue tinge to his lips and his eyes were open, frozen and empty. This time his fingers didn’t twitch on the arms of the chair, but lay stiff and still and clawed. This time he wasn’t just sleeping like the dead.
‘Oh, bloody hell!’ She leaned over and checked for the pulse in his neck, just to be sure of what she already knew. His skin was tepid and lifeless and no pulse, however weak, flickered beneath her fingers.
It seemed wrong to leave him like that, but she had no choice, she had to ring someone. Though she knew with certainty that he was dead, she had to ring an ambulance and go through the motions.
Her hands were shaking when she fumbled for her mobile, unlocked it and dialled 999. She’d walked into the hallway to make the call, as if it was disrespectful to speak in front of the dead man, as if he might be unaware of his own demise. As the call connected and she said ‘Ambulance, please,’ the front door resounded with a loud knock that vibrated through the house like a single, resonant death knell.
Buster howled.