Troubled Blood

“What’s brought this on?”

“I suppose Irene misremembering names… Janice going along with her, covering up the reason for the Christmas party row… it’s such a long time ago. People are under no obligation to tell the truth to us now, even if they can remember it. Factor in people getting wedded to old theories, like that whole thing about Gloria and the pill in Brenner’s mug, and people wanting to make themselves important, pretending to know things and… well, I’m starting to think we’re attempting the impossible here.”

A wave of tiredness had swept over Robin while sitting in the cold, waiting for Strike, and in its wake had come hopelessness.

“Pull yourself together,” said Strike bracingly. “We’ve already found out two big things the police never knew.” He pulled out his cigarettes, lit one, then said, “Firstly: there was a big stock of barbiturates on the premises where Margot worked. Secondly: Margot Bamborough might well have had an abortion.

“Taking the barbiturates first,” he said, “are we overlooking something very obvious, which is that there were means on the premises to put someone to sleep?”

“Margot wasn’t put to sleep,” said Robin, gloomily munching crisps. “She walked out of there.”

“Only if we assume—”

“—Gloria wasn’t lying. I know,” said Robin. “But how do she and Theo—because Theo’s still got to be in on it, hasn’t she? How did Gloria and Theo administer enough barbiturates to render Margot unconscious? Don’t forget, if Irene’s telling the truth, Margot wasn’t letting anyone else make her drinks at that point. And from what Janice said about dosage, you’d need a lot of pills to make someone actually unconscious.”

“Well reasoned. So, going back to that little story about the pill in the tea—”

“Didn’t you believe it?”

“I did,” said Strike, “because it seems a totally pointless lie. It’s not interesting enough to make an exciting anecdote, is it, a single pill? It does reopen the question of whether Margot knew about or suspected Brenner’s addiction, though. She might’ve noticed him being odd in his manner. Downers would make him drowsy. Perhaps she’d seen he was slow on the uptake. Everything we’ve found out about Margot suggests that if she thought Brenner was behaving unprofessionally, or might be dangerous to patients, she’d have waded straight in and confronted him. And we’ve just heard a lot of interesting background on Brenner, who sounds like a traumatized, unhappy and lonely man. What if Margot threatened him with being struck off? Loss of status and prestige, to a man who has virtually nothing else in his life? People have killed for less.”

“He left the surgery before she did, that night.”

“What if he waited for her? Offered her a lift?”

“If he did, I think she’d have been suspicious,” said Robin. “Not that he wanted to hurt her, but that he was going to shout at her, which would’ve been in character, from what we know of him. I’d rather have walked in the rain, personally. And she was a lot younger than him, and tall and fit. I can’t remember now where he lived…”

“With his unmarried sister, about twenty minutes’ drive from the practice. The sister said he’d arrived home at the usual time. A dog-walking neighbor confirmed they’d seen him through the window round about eleven…

“But I can think of one other possibility regarding those barbitu-rates,” Strike went on. “As Janice pointed out, they had street value, and by the sounds of it, Brenner had amassed a big stock of them. We’ve got to consider the possibility that some outsider knew there were valuable drugs on the premises, set out to nick them, and Margot got in the way.”

“Which takes us back to Margot dying on the premises, which means—”

“Gloria and Theo come back into the frame. Gloria and Theo might have planned to take the drugs themselves. And we’ve just heard—”

“—about the drug-dealing brother,” said Robin.

“Why the skeptical tone?”

“Irene was determined to have a go at Gloria, wasn’t she?”

“She was, yeah, but the fact that Gloria had a drug-dealing brother is information worth knowing, as is the fact that there were a stack of drugs on the premises that were ripe for nicking. Brenner wouldn’t have wanted to admit he had them in the first place, so probably wouldn’t have reported the theft, which makes for a situation open to exploitation.”

“A criminal brother doesn’t make a person criminal in themselves.”

“Agreed, but it makes me even keener to find Gloria. The term ‘person of interest’ fits her pretty accurately…

“And then there’s the abortion,” said Strike. “If Irene’s telling the truth about the nursing home calling to confirm the appointment—”

“If,” said Robin.

“I don’t think that was a lie,” said Strike. “For the opposite reason to the pill in Brenner’s cup. That lie’s too big. People don’t make things like that up. Anyway, she told Janice about it at the time, and their little row about patient confidentiality rings true. And C. B. Oakden must’ve based the story on something. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that tip-off came from Irene. She doesn’t strike me as a woman who’d turn down a chance to speculate or gossip.”

Robin said nothing. She’d only once in her life had to face the possibility that she might be pregnant, and could still remember the relief that had flooded her when it became clear that she wasn’t, and wouldn’t have to face still more contact with strangers, and another intimate procedure, more blood, more pain.

Imagine aborting your husband’s child, she thought. Could Margot really have done that, when she already had that child’s sister at home? What had been going through her mind, a month before she disappeared? Perhaps she’d been quietly breaking down, like Talbot? The past few years had taught Robin how very mysterious human beings were, even to those who thought they knew them best. Infidelity and bigamy, kinks and fetishes, theft and fraud, stalking and harassment: she’d now delved into so many secret lives she’d lost count. Nor did she hold herself superior to any of the deceived and duped who came to the agency, craving truth. Hadn’t she thought she knew her own husband back to front? How many hundreds of nights had they lain entwined like Siamese twins, whispering confidences and sharing laughter in the dark? She’d spent nearly half her life with Matthew, and not until a hard, bright diamond ear stud had appeared in their bed had she realized that he was living a life apart, and was not, and perhaps never had been, the man she thought she knew.

“You don’t want to think she had an abortion,” said Strike, correctly deducing at least part of the reason for Robin’s silence. She didn’t answer, instead asking,

“You haven’t heard back from her friend Oonagh, have you?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” said Strike. “Yeah, I got an email yesterday. She is a retired vicar, and she’d be delighted to meet us when she comes down to London to do some Christmas shopping. Date to be confirmed.”

“That’s good,” said Robin. “You know, I’d like to talk to someone who actually liked Margot.”

“Gupta liked her,” said Strike. “And Janice, she’s just said so.”

Robin ripped open the second bag of crisps.

“Which is what you’d expect, isn’t it?” she said. “That people would at least pretend they liked Margot, after what happened. But Irene didn’t. Don’t you find it a bit… excessive… to be holding on to that much resentment, forty years later? She really put the boot in. Wouldn’t you think it was… I don’t know, more politic…”

“To claim to be friends?”

“Yes… but maybe Irene knew there were far too many witnesses to the fact that they weren’t friends. What did you think of the anonymous notes? True or false?”

“Good question,” said Strike, scratching his chin. “Irene really enjoyed telling us Margot had been called ‘the c-word,’ but ‘hell-fire’ doesn’t sound like the kind of thing she’d invent. I’d have expected something more in the ‘uppity bitch’ line.”

He drew out his notebook again, and scanned the notes he’d made of the interview.

“Well, we still need to check these leads out, for what they’re worth. Why don’t you follow up Charlie Ramage and Leamington Spa, and I’ll look into the Bennie-abusing Applethorpe?”

“You just did it again,” said Robin.

“Did what?”

“Smirked when you said ‘Bennies.’ What’s so funny about benzedrine?”

“Oh—” Strike chuckled. “I was just reminded of something my Uncle Ted told me. Did you ever watch Crossroads?”

“What’s Crossroads?”

“I always forget how much younger you are,” Strike said. “It was a daytime soap opera and it had a character in it called Benny. He was—well, these days you’d call him special needs. Simple. He wore a wooly hat. Iconic character, in his way.”

“You were thinking of him?” said Robin. It didn’t seem particularly amusing.