“Did you know Douthwaite well?” asked Robin.
“Not really. Ackshly, I never knew ’im at all until ’e got beaten up. I come ’ome late and found a load of people on the landing with ’im. People knew I was a nurse so—there’s me wiv my son Kevin under one arm and shopping in the other hand—but Steve was in a right state, so I ’ad to ’elp. ’E didn’t want the police called, but ’e’d ’ad the sort of beating that can leave you wiv internal injuries. The ovver geezer ’ad used a bat. Jealous ’usband—”
“Who had completely the wrong end of the stick, didn’t he?” interrupted Irene. “Because Douthwaite was queer!” she said, with a shout of laughter. “He was only friends with the wife, but this jealous idiot thinks—”
“Well, I don’t know if Steve was queer—” began Janice, but there was no stopping Irene.
“—man—woman—two and two makes five! My Eddie was exactly the same—Jan, bear me out, what was Eddie like?” she said, tapping Janice’s arm again. “Exactly the same, wasn’t he? I remember once, I said, ‘Eddie, you think if I so much look at a man—he can be queer, he can be Welsh—’ But after you told me, Jan, I thought, yeah, that Duckworth—Douth-thing —is a bit camp. When he came in the surgery afterward, I could see it. Good-looking, but a bit soft.”
“But I don’t know wevver ’e was queer, Irene, I didn’t know ’im well enough to—”
“He kept coming back to see you,” Irene chided her. “You told me he did. Kept coming back to your place for tea and sympathy and telling you all his problems.”
“It were only a couple of times,” said Janice. “We’d chat, passing on the stairs, and one time ’e ’elped me with my shopping and come in for a cup of tea.”
“But he asked you—” prompted Irene.
“I’m getting to that, dear,” said Janice, with what Strike thought was remarkable patience. “’E was getting ’eadaches,” she told Strike and Robin, “an’ I told ’im ’e needed to go and see a doctor for ’eadaches, I couldn’t diagnose ’im. I mean, I felt a bit sorry for ’im, but I didn’t want to get in the ’abit of ’olding out-of-hours clinics in me flat. I ’ad Kevin to look after.”
“So you think Douthwaite’s visits to Margot were because of his health?” asked Robin. “Not because he had a romantic interest in—?”
“He did send her chocolates one time,” said Irene, “but if you ask me, it was more like she was an agony aunt.”
“Well, ’e ’ad these ’ead pains and ’e was def’nitely nervous. Depressed, maybe,” said Janice. “Everyone ’ad blamed him for what happened to that poor girl ’oo killed ’erself, but I don’t know… and some of me ovver neighbors told me there were young men coming in and out of his flat—”
“There you are,” said Irene triumphantly. “Queer!”
“Might not’ve been that,” said Janice. “Coulda just been ’is mates, or drugs, or stuff falling off the back of a lorry… One fing I do know, ’cause people talked, locally: the ’usband of that girl who killed ’erself was knockin’ twelve bells out of ’er. Tragedy, really. But the papers pinned it all on Steve an’ ’e ran. Well, sex sells better’n domestic violence, doesn’t it? If you find Steve,” she added, “tell ’im I said ’ello. It wasn’t fair, what the papers did.”
Robin had been trained by Strike to organize her interviews and notes into the categories of people, places and things. She now asked both women,
“Were there any other patients you can ever remember giving cause for alarm at the practice, or perhaps having an unusual relationship with Marg—?”
“Well,” said Irene, “remember, Jan, there was that one with the beard down to here…” She placed her hand at waist level, “… remember? What was he called? Apton? Applethorpe? Jan, you remember. You do remember, Jan, he stank like a tramp and you had to go round his house once. He used to wander around near St. John’s. I think he lived on Clerkenwell Road. Sometimes he had his kid with him. Really funny-looking kid. Massive ears.”
“Oh, them,” said Janice, her frown disappearing. “But they weren’t Margot’s—”
“Well, he was stopping people on the street, afterward, telling them he’d killed Margot!” Irene told Strike excitedly. “Yeah! He was! He stopped Dorothy! Of course, Dorothy wasn’t going to tell the police, not Dorothy, she was all ‘load of stuff and nonsense,’ ‘he’s a lunatic,’ but I said to her, ‘What if he actually did do it, Dorothy, and you haven’t told anyone?’ Now, Applethorpe was a proper nutcase. He had a girl locked up—”
“She weren’t locked up, Irene,” said Janice, for the first time showing a trace of impatience. “Social work said she were agoraphobic, but she weren’t being kept there against ’er will—”
“She was peculiar,” said Irene stubbornly. “You told me she was. I think someone should’ve taken the kid away, personally. You said the flat was filthy—”
“You can’t take people’s children off them because they ’aven’t cleaned the ’ouse!” said Janice firmly. She turned back to Strike and Robin. “Yeah, I visited the Applethorpes, just the once, but I don’t fink they ever met Margot. See, it was diff’rent then: doctors ’ad their own lists, and the Applethorpes were registered with Brenner. ’E asked me to go round for ’im, check on the kid.”
“Do you remember the address? Street name?”
“Oh gawd,” said Janice, frowning. “Yeah, I think it was Clerkenwell Road. I think so. See, I only visited the once. The kid ’adn’t been well and Dr. Brenner wanted ’im checked and ’e’d never make an ’ouse call if ’e could avoid it. Anyway, the kid was on the mend, but I spotted right off the dad was—”
“Nutcase—” said Irene, nodding along.
“—jittery, bit out of it,” said Janice. “I went in the kitchen to wash my ’ands and there was a load of benzedrine lying in full view on the worktop. I warned both the parents, now the kid was walking, to put it away somewhere safe—”
“Really funny-looking kid,” interposed Irene.
“—and I went to Brenner after, an’ I said, ‘Dr. Brenner, that man’s abusing benzedrine.’ It was proper addictive, we all knew it by then, even in ’74. ’Course, Brenner thought I was being presumptuous, queryin’ ’is prescriptions. But I was worried, so I called social work wivout telling Brenner, and they were very good. They were already keeping a close eye on the family.”
“But the mother—” said Irene.
“You can’t decide for other people what makes ’em ’appy, Irene!” said Janice. “The mum loved that kid, even if the dad was—well, ’e was odd, poor sod,” Janice conceded. “’E thought ’e was a kind of—I don’t know what you’d call it—a guru, or a magic man. Thought ’e could put the evil eye on people. ’E told me that durin’ the ’ouse call. You do meet people wiv weird ideas, nursin’. I just used to say, ‘Really? ’Ow interesting.’ There’s no point challenging ’em. But Applethorpe thought he could ill-wish people—that’s what we used to call it, in the old days. ’E was worried ’is little boy ’ad got German measles because he’d got cross with ’im. ’E said ’e could do that to people… He died ’imself, poor sod. Year after Margot vanished.”
“Did he?” said Irene, with a trace of disappointment.
“Yeah. It would’ve been after you left, after you married Eddie. I remember, street cleaners found him early in the morning, curled up and dead under the Walter Street bridge. ’Eart attack. Keeled over and there was nobody there to ’elp him. Wasn’t that old, neither. I remember Dr. Brenner being a bit twitchy about it.”
“Why was that?” asked Strike.
“Well, ’e’d prescribed the Bennies the man was abusin’, ’adn’t ’e?”
To Robin’s surprise, a fleeting smile passed over Strike’s face.
“But it weren’t just Applethorpe,” Janice went on, who didn’t seem to have noticed anything odd in Strike’s response. “There was—”
“Oh, tons of people swore blind they’d heard something, or had a hunch, blah blah blah,”
said Irene, rolling her eyes, “and there was us, you know, who were actually involved, it was terrible, just—excuse me,” she said, putting her hand on her stomach, “I must just nip to the—sorry.”
Irene left the room in something of a hurry. Janice looked after her, and it was hard, given her naturally smiley face, to tell whether she was more concerned or amused.
“She’ll be fine,” she told Strike and Robin quietly. “I ’ave told ’er the doc’s probably right tellin’ ’er to lay off the spicy food, but she wanted a curry last night… she gets lonely. Rings me up to come over. I stayed overnight. Eddie only died last year. Nearly ninety, bless ’im. ’E adored Irene and the girls. She misses ’im something rotten.”
“Were you about to tell us somebody else had claimed to know what happened to Margot?” Strike prompted her gently.
“What? Oh, yeah… Charlie Ramage. ’E ’ad an ’ot tub and sauna business. Wealfy man, so you’d think ’e ’ad better things to do with ’is time than make up stories, but there you go, people are funny.”
“What did he say?” asked Robin.
“Well, see, motorbikes were Charlie’s ’obby. ’E ’ad loads of ’em, and ’e used to go on these long rides all over the country. ’E ’ad a bad smash and ’e was at ’ome wiv two broken legs, so I was droppin’ in sev’ral times a week… this would’ve been a good two years after Margot disappeared. Well, Charlie was a man ’oo liked to talk, and one day, out of a clear blue sky, ’e swears blind ’e met Margot, about a week after she went missing, in Leamington Spa. But, you know,” Janice said, shaking her head. “I didn’t take it very serious. Lovely man, but like I say, ’e liked to talk.”
“What exactly did he tell you?” asked Robin.
“Said ’e’d been on one of ’is bike trips up north, and ’e stopped outside this big church in Leamington Spa, and ’e was leaning against the wall ’avin’ a cup of tea an’ a sandwich, an’ there was this woman walking in the graveyard on the other side of the railings, lookin’ at the graves. Not like she was in mourning or anyfing, just interested. Black ’air, accordin’ to Charlie. An’ ’e called out to ’er, ‘Nice place, innit?’ and she turned to look at ’im and—well, ’e swore blind it was Margot Bamborough, wiv ’er ’air dyed. ’E said ’e told ’er she looked familiar and she looked upset and hurried off.”
“And he claimed this happened a week after she disappeared?” asked Robin.
“Yeah, ’e said ’e recognized ’er because ’er picture was still all over the papers at the time. So I says, ‘Did you go to the police about this, Charlie?’ And ’e says, ‘Yeah, I did,’ an’ ’e told me ’e was friends with a policeman, quite an ’igh up bloke, an’ ’e told ’is friend. But I never saw or ’eard anyfing about it after, so, you know…”
“Ramage told you this story in 1976?” Strike asked, making a note.
“Yeah, musta been,” said Janice, frowning in an effort to remember, as Irene walked back into the room. “Because they’d got Creed by then. That’s ’ow it came up. ’E’d been reading about the trial in the papers and then ’e says, cool as you like, ‘Well, I don’t fink ’e done anyfing to Margot Bamborough, because I reckon I seen ’er after she disappeared.’”
“Did Margot have any connection with Leamington Spa, as far as you know?” asked Robin.
“What’s this?” said Irene sharply.
“Nuffing,” said Janice. “Just a stupid story some patient told me. Margot in a graveyard wiv dyed hair. You know.”
“In Leamington Spa?” said Irene, looking displeased. Robin had the impression that she greatly resented having left Janice in the spotlight while she was forced back to the bathroom. “You never told me that. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh… well, it was in ’76,” said Janice, looking slightly cowed. “You must’ve just ’ad Sharon. You ’ad better fings to fink about than Charlie Ramage telling porkies.”
Irene helped herself to another biscuit, frowning slightly.
“I’d like to move on to the practice itself,” said Strike. “How did you find Margot to—”
“To work with?” said Irene, loudly, who seemed to feel it was her turn, having missed out on several minutes of Strike’s attention. “Well, speaking personally—”
Her pause was that of an epicure, savoring the prospect of coming pleasure.
“—to be totally honest, she was one of those people who think they know best about everything. She’d tell you how to live your life, how to do the filing, how to make a cup of tea, blah blah blah—”
“Oh, Irene, she weren’t that bad,” muttered Janice. “I liked—”
“Jan, come on,” said Irene loftily. “She’d never got over being the clever clogs in her family and thought all the rest of us were thick as mince! Well, maybe she didn’t think you were,” said Irene, with an eye roll, as her friend shook her head, “but she did me. Treated me like a moron. Patronizing isn’t it. Now, I didn’t dislike her!” Irene added quickly. “Not dislike. But she was picky. Veee-ry pleased with herself. We’d completely forgotten we came from a two-up, two-down in Stepney, put it that way.”
“How did you find her?” Robin asked Janice.
“Well—” began Janice, but Irene talked over her.
“Snobby. Jan, come on. She marries herself a rich consultant —that was no two-up, two-down, that place out in Ham! Proper eye-opener it was, seeing what she’d married into, and then she has the gall to come into work preaching the liberated life to the rest of us: marriage isn’t the be all and end all, don’t stop your career, blah blah blah. And always finding fault.”
“What did she—?”
“How you answered the phone, how you spoke to patients, how you dressed, even—‘Irene, I don’t think that top’s appropriate for work.’ She was a bloody Bunny Girl! The hypocrisy of her! I didn’t dislike her,” Irene insisted. “I didn’t, truly, I’m just trying to give you the full—oh, and she wouldn’t let us make her hot drinks, would she, Jan? Neither of the other two doctors ever complained we didn’t know what to do with a teabag.”
“That’s not why—” began Janice.
“Jan, come on, you remember how fussy—”
“Why would you say she didn’t like people making her drinks?” Strike asked Janice. Robin could tell that his patience was wearing thin with Irene.
“Oh, that was ’cause of when I was washing up mugs one day,” said Janice. “I tipped the dregs out of Dr. Brenner’s and I found an—”
“Atomal pill, wasn’t it?” asked Irene.
“—Amytal capsule, stuck to the bottom. I knew what it was from the col—”
“Blue,” interjected Irene, nodding, “weren’t they?”
“Blue ’Eavens, they used to call them on the street, yeah,” said Janice. “Downers. I always made sure everyone knew I didn’t ’ave nuffing like that in me nurse’s bag, when I was out makin’ ’ouse calls. You ’ad to be careful, in case you got mugged.”
“How did you know it was Dr. Brenner’s cup?” asked Strike.
“’E always used the same one, wiv his old university’s coat of arms on,” said Janice. “There’d ’ave been ’ell to pay if anyone else touched it.” She hesitated, “I don’t know wevver—if you’ve talked to Dr. Gupta—”
“We know Dr. Brenner was addicted to barbiturates,” Strike said. Janice looked relieved.
“Right—well, I knew ’e must’ve dropped it in there, accidental, when he was taking some. Probably didn’t realize, thought it ’ad rolled away on the floor. There’d have been a lot of questions asked, usually, at a doctor’s surgery, finding drugs in a drink. If something gets into someone’s tea by accident, that’s serious.”
“How much harm would a single capsule—?” Robin began.
“Oh, no real harm,” said Irene knowledgeably, “would it, Jan?”
“No, a single capsule, that’s not even a full dose,” said Janice. “You’d’ve felt a bit sleepy, that’s all. Anyway, Margot come out the back to make the
tea when I was tryin’ to get the pill off the bottom of the mug with a teaspoon. We ’ad a sink and a kettle and a fridge just outside the nurse’s room. She saw me trying to scrape the pill out. So it weren’t fussiness, ’er making ’er own drinks after that. It were precautionary. I took extra care to make sure I was drinking out of me own mug, as well.”
“Did you tell Margot how you thought the pill had got in the tea?” asked Robin.
“No,” said Janice, “because Dr. Gupta ’ad asked me not to mention Brenner’s problem, so I just said ‘must’ve been an accident,’ which was technically true. I expected her to call a staff meeting and hold an inquiry—”
“Ah, well, you know my theory about why she didn’t do that,” said Irene.
“Irene,” said Janice, shaking her head. “Honestly—”
“My theory,” said Irene, ignoring Janice, “is Margot thought someone else had put the pill in Brenner’s drink, and if you’re asking me who—”
“Irene,” said Janice again, clearly urging restraint, but Irene was unstoppable.
“—I’ll tell you —Gloria. That girl was as rough as hell and she came from a criminal background—no, I’m saying it, Jan, I’m sure Cameron wants to know everything what was going on at that practice—”
“’Ow can Gloria putting something in Brenner’s tea—and by the way,” Janice said to Strike and Robin, “I don’t fink she did—”
“Well, as I was on the desk with Gloria every day, Jan,” said Irene loftily, “I knew what she was really like—”
“—but even if she did put the pill in ’is tea, Irene, ’ow could that ’ave anything to do with Margot disappearin’?”
“I don’t know,” said Irene, who seemed to be getting cross, “but they’re interested in who was working there and what went on—aren’t you?” she demanded of Strike, who nodded. With a “See?” to Janice, Irene plunged on, “So: Gloria came from a really rough family, a Little Italy family—”
Janice tried to protest, but Irene overrode her again.
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