Troubled Blood

“We’ve got a number of questions we’d like to ask you,” Strike told him. “Obviously you’re not obliged to answer them, but I’d put it to you that it would be in the best interests of everyone, yourself included, to cooperate.”

“What questions?” said Douthwaite, still flat against the door. Then, in a torrent of words, he said, “I’ve never hurt anyone, never, I’m not a violent man. Donna will tell you, I’ve never laid a finger on her in anger, that’s not who I am.”

But when Strike merely continued to look at him, Douthwaite said pleadingly,

“Look, I’ve told you—with Joanna—it was a one-night stand. I was just a kid,” he said, and in an echo of Irene Hickson, he said, “You do those kinds of things when you’re young, don’t you?”

“And when you’re old,” whispered Donna. “And all the bloody years in between…”

“Where were you,” Strike asked Douthwaite, “when Joanna killed herself?”

“In Brent,” said Douthwaite. “Miles away! And I had witnesses to prove it. We used to work in pairs, selling, each do one side of the street, and I was out with a bloke called Tadger,” and he tried to laugh again. Nobody smiled. “Tadger, you can imagine the grief he… well, he was with me all day…

“Got back to the office late in the afternoon, and there was a group of lads in there, and they told us Hammond had just got the message his wife had topped herself…

“Terrible,” said the pale and sweating Douthwaite, “but except for that one night together, I had nothing to do with it. But her old man—well, it was easier to blame me,” said Douthwaite, “wasn’t it, than think about his own bloody behavior?

“I got home a couple of nights later and he was lying in wait. Ambush. He beat the shit out of me.”

“Good!” said Donna, on a half-sob.

“And your neighbor, Janice the nurse, looked after—”

“Straight off with the neighbor, were you, Steve?” said Donna, with a hollow laugh. “Get the nurse to mop you up?”

“It wasn’t like that!” said Douthwaite with surprising vehemence.

“It’s his little trick,” the white-faced Donna told Robin, who was still kneeling by her chair. “Always got a sob story on the go. Fell for it myself. Heartbroken after the love of his life drowned… oh my God,” Donna whispered, slowly shaking her head. “And she was the third.” With a hysterical little laugh, she said, “As far as we know. Maybe there are others. Who knows?”

“Christ’s sake, Donna!” said Douthwaite, yet again. Patches of underarm sweat were visible through his thin turquoise T-shirt: Strike could literally smell his fear. “Come on, you know me, you know I’d never hurt anyone!”

“Janice says she advised you to see the doctor about your symp—”

“She never told me to go to the doctor!” snapped Douthwaite, one eye on his wife. “I didn’t need telling, I went off my own bat because I was just getting worried about the… headaches and… mostly headaches. I felt really bad.”

“You visited Margot six times in one two-week period,” said Strike.

“I felt ill, stomach pains and what have you… I mean, it obviously affected me, Joanna dying, and then people talking about me…”

“Oh, poor you, poor you,” murmured Donna. “Jesus effing Christ. You hate going to the doctor. Six times in two weeks?”

“Donna, come on,” said Douthwaite imploringly, “I was feeling like shit! And then the bloody police come and make out like I was stalking her or something. It was all my health!”

“Did you buy her—?” began Strike.

“—chocolates? No!” said Douthwaite, who suddenly seemed very agitated. “If someone sent her chocolates, maybe you should find them. But it wasn’t me! I told the police I never bought her anything, it weren’t like that—”

“Witnesses said you seemed distressed and possibly angry, the last time you left Dr. Bamborough’s surgery,” said Strike. “What happened during that last visit?”

Douthwaite’s breath was coming fast now. Suddenly, almost aggressively, he looked directly into Strike’s eyes.

Experienced in the body language of suspects who yearn for the release and relief of unburdening themselves, no matter the consequences, Strike suddenly knew that Douthwaite was teetering on the brink of a disclosure. He’d have given almost anything to spirit the man away now, to a quiet interrogation room, but exactly as he’d feared, the precious moment was snatched away by Donna.

“Turned you down, did she? What did you think, Steve—a scrubby little failed salesman had a chance with a doctor?”

“I wasn’t bloody looking for a chance!” said Douthwaite, rounding on his wife, “I was there for my health, I was in a state!”

“He’s like a bloody tomcat,” Donna told Robin, “slinking around behind everyone’s backs. He’ll use anything to get his end away, anything. His girlfriend’s topped herself and he’s using it to chat up nurses and doctors—”

“I wasn’t, I was ill!”

“That last meeting—” Strike began again.

“I don’t know what you’re on about, it was nothing,” Douthwaite said, now avoiding looking Strike in the face. “The doc was just telling me to take it easy.”

“Like you ever needed telling that, you lazy bastard,” spat Donna.

“Perhaps,” said Strike, “as you’re feeling unwell, Mrs. Diamond, I could speak to Steve somewhere sep—”

“Oh no you don’t!” said Donna. “No way! I want—”

She exploded into tears, shoulders sagging, face in her hands.

“I’m going to hear it all now… last chance…”

“Donna—” said Douthwaite plaintively.

“Don’t,” she sobbed into her fingers. “Don’t you dare.”

“Perhaps,” said Strike, hoping to return to the last visit with Margot in due course, “we could go over your alibi for the time Dr. Bamborough disappeared?”

Donna was sobbing, tears and mucus flowing freely now. Robin grabbed a paper napkin off the tray beside the kettle and handed it to her.

Cowed by his wife’s distress, Douthwaite allowed Strike to lead him back over his shaky alibi for the evening in question, sticking to the story that he’d been sitting unnoticed in a café, scanning the newspapers for flats to rent.

“I wanted to clear out, get away from all the gossip about Joanna. I just wanted to get away.”

“So the desire to move wasn’t triggered by anything that passed between you and Dr. Bamborough during your last visit?” Strike asked.

“No,” said Douthwaite, still not looking at Strike. “How could it be?”

“Given up on her?” Donna asked from behind the wet napkin with which she was blotting her eyes. “Knew he’d made a fool of himself. Same as with that young lassie from Leeds, eh, Steve?”

“Donna, for fuck’s sake—”

“He forgets,” Donna said to Robin, “he’s not that cocky little sod in his twenties any more. Deluded, b—baldy bastard,” she sobbed.

“Donna—”

“So you moved to Waltham Forest…” prompted Strike.

“Yeah. Police. Press. It was a nightmare,” said Douthwaite. “I thought of ending it, to tell you the—”

“Shame you didn’t,” said Donna savagely. “Save us all a lot of time and trouble.”

As though he hadn’t heard this, and ignoring Douthwaite’s look of outrage, Strike asked,

“What made you go to Clacton-on-Sea? Did you have family there?”

“I haven’t got family, I grew up in care—”

“Oh, someone pass him a bloody violin,” said Donna.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” said Douthwaite, displaying unvarnished anger for the first time. “And I’m allowed to tell the truth about my own bloody life, aren’t I? I just wanted to be a Redcoat, because I sing a bit and it looked like a fun way to earn a living—”

“Fun,” muttered Donna, “oh yeah, as long as you’re having fun, Steve—”

“—get away from people treating me like I’d killed someone—”

“And whoops!” said Donna. “There’s another one gone, in the pool—”

“You know bloody well I had nothing to do with Julie drowning!”

“How could I know?” said Donna, “I wasn’t there! It was before we even met!”

“I showed you the story in the paper!” said Douthwaite. “I showed you, Donna, come on!” He turned to Strike. “A bunch of us were drinking in our chalet. Me and some mates were playing poker. Julie was tired. She left before we finished our game, walked back to her chalet. She walked round the pool, slipped in the dark, knocked herself out and—”

For the first time, Douthwaite showed real distress.

“—she drowned. I won’t ever forget it. Never. I ran outside in me underpants next morning, when I heard the shouting. I saw her body when they were taking her out of the pool. You don’t forget something like that. She was a kid. Twenty-two or something. Her parents came and… it was a horrible thing. Horrible. I never… that someone can go like that. A slip and a trip…

“Yeah, so… that’s when I applied for a job at the Ingoldmells Butlin’s up the road from here. And that’s where I met Donna,” he said, with an apprehensive glance at his wife.

“So you leaving Clacton-on-Sea and changing your name again had nothing to do with a man called Oakden coming to question you about Margot Bamborough?” asked Strike.

Donna’s head jerked up.