by J G Alva
She didn’t say anything, there was nothing she could say, and Sutton was thankful for her consideration, anything she might have been able to conjure up would have been a meaningless platitude, and she had enough heart to realise that…but she held his hand tighter.
“How will you spend Christmas?” She asked quietly.
He shrugged.
“I haven’t decided.”
“Well. If you’d like, there’s always an empty seat around the Richmond family table.”
“Thanks.”
“You shouldn’t be alone on Christmas day. It’s not good for you.”
“I’ve had other Christmases alone.”
She smiled, and there was a measure of hurt in it.
“Not fun, are they?”
“But I only have myself to blame. I contrive to make myself miserable on a regular basis.”
“Well, if you can put up with my parents squabbling, then this one you won’t have to be.”
They sat in a companionable silence a moment, and smiled stupidly at each other. This thing, whatever it was, had all the indications that it was going to be good, and the mindless smiling at each other was just another sign of that. So it made what he had to ask of her all the harder, but as he searched for a way to broach the subject she provided the opening for him.
“What do you do for a living?” She asked. “I was talking about you to one of my girlfriends and I realised I forgot to ask you the last time.”
“What were you saying about me?” He asked.
She shrugged.
“Oh, nothing much.”
“Nothing much like what?”
“You know. That I’d met this man who was funny, good looking.”
He smiled.
“Are you sure you didn’t mean good, but funny looking?”
She shook her head, amused.
“But for all I knew about him he could be an unemployed layabout.”
He laughed.
“Well,” he said, “I earn some money from painting.”
Janice looked surprised.
“Oh. Is that interior decoration?”
It wasn’t an uncommon misconception. He was big enough that people often mistook him for unskilled labour…sometimes it came in handy. Sometimes it was something he could use.
“No. Not interior decoration.”
Her eyes widened.
“Oh, you mean a painter painter. What is that? Portraits? Landscapes?”
“Portraits mostly.”
“Are you any good?”
He made a face.
“Not as good as I’d like to be. Which is why I can’t survive on painting alone.”
“You have another job?”
He made a see-sawing gesture with his hands.
“Something like that.”
“So what else is it you do?”
He thought about how to tell her.
“I’ve got a knack,” he began. “For finding things.”
“What? Are you psychic? Are you in contact with the spirits?”
He laughed.
“No. But if somebody came to me and said something of theirs was stolen, I might knock around a bit, look under a couple of rocks, and put my hands on it.”
She frowned.
“That sounds...strange.”
“It’s unusual,” he admitted. “But I’ve had some success. I’ve found some things for some very rich people, and they have rewarded me handsomely. But it’s not always possessions that I look for. Sometimes people have gone missing. And sometimes all I am able to recover is answers to why it happened in the first place.”
She picked up her cup carefully, but did not drink from it.
“Like a private investigator?”
“I don’t have a license. And I don’t advertise. But when the police can’t do any more, then those people who are in need of help come to me.”
She was staring at him, wariness in her eyes. Did she know what was coming?
“That sounds even stranger.”
“In July, Dr Bodel diagnosed my friend with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. But in September he went to another doctor and was given a clean bill of health.”
Her eyebrows went up.
“No,” she said, shocked.
He nodded.
“You know Dr Bodel. How likely is it that he got the diagnosis wrong?”
“Impossible,” she said immediately. “Dr Bodel is too thorough to mess up something as important as that.”
“And yet there is a doctor in Weston-super-Mare who says that my friend was perfectly healthy. Before he died.”
Janice frowned. She took a drink, set the cup down.
“I suppose it’s possible that Dr Bodel made a mistake,” Janice said, thoughtfully, “but I find it hard to believe.”
“I know he’s supposed to be a brilliant doctor,” he said, “but I don’t know anything about him. What’s he like? As a person, I mean. Is he married?”
Janice shook her head, scooting forward on her chair.
“I don’t think he’s ever been married. He’s a bit of an eligible bachelor in the BRI. You know, brilliant doctor, nice guy, but as far as I know he’s never been out with any of the nurses or any other female member of staff.”
“Gay?”
Janice shook her head emphatically.
“No. He gives off all the right signals. I just think he’s one of those men that are married to their work.”
“Where does he live?”
She frowned.
“I think he has one of those big houses on the hill, behind the BRI. Around the Tyndall’s Park area. That’s what I heard anyway.” She stared at me, a new look in her eyes. “Why are you interested in him?”
He hesitated.
“The police are working on finding my friend’s killer but, doing what I do, I thought I might be able to scuff around and find out some things that’ll help their case a little bit.”
Alarm popped up in Janice’s bright blue eyes.
“You don’t think...” Janice shook her head. “No. He’s a doctor, Sutton. He took the Hippocratic Oath. He’s devoted his life to helping people.”
“He wouldn’t be the first doctor to go off the rails.”
“No,” Janice said darkly, rejecting his accusation. She wouldn’t have it.
“Okay,” he said. “I know it seems impossible. And perhaps I’m wrong. But he has been far too involved in Gavin’s life for me to be able to discount him out of hand. There is such a thing as coincidence, but it would be stupid of me to ignore the association. I’d like to know, for a fact, that he had nothing to do with Gavin’s death – that way I can rule him out straight away, and look elsewhere.”
“You should really leave this to the police,” Janice said.
“This is what I do, Janice.”
“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, it seems like meddling. And dangerous.”
He nodded.
“Perhaps it is,” he conceded. “But I have to know.”
“Why?” Janice said harshly.
“What?”
“Why do you have to know?”
He stopped.
“Because he was my friend,” he said.
She stared at him.
“Alright,” she said.
“Does he keep a log of his whereabouts? A schedule? An appointment book?”
“Most doctors do.”
He hesitated. Now came the tricky bit.
“Is there any way you could check and find out where he was on Wednesday the 12th? If he was on call? If he had to go out anywhere?”
“Sutton,” Janice said uncomfortably.
“If it’s too difficult, if you could get caught, then don’t bother. It’s not worth it. But if it’s just a matter of looking in a book...”
“I can’t imagine it would be too difficult, but...”
“But what?”
She straightened in her chair. Her face was upset.
“Alright,” she said stiffly.
“I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.”
“But only to prove that you’re wrong.”
“Okay.”
She put a hand to her forehead.
“God, what am I doing?”
“Listen, Janice. If you don’t want to do this, just say, and I’ll find another way.”
“No. No. I’ll do it. I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.”
She stood up, all the grace gone from her movements, her body stiff and awkward with itself for the first time since he had met her.
“Jesus, I’m being a sneak for someone I just met. I’ve worked with Dr Bodel for years. I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
He stood as well.
They stared at each other, and there was no longer any foolish smiling, in fact Janice’s expression was almost the exact opposite, tight and unfriendly with hostility.
With enough ice in her voice to freeze running water she said, “while I’m looking, is there anything else you want me to find out?”
Her face was so tight it was a wonder she could work her jaw to get the words out. She didn’t like him in that moment, and in truth Sutton didn’t blame her for that. Maybe she had even regretted inviting him to spend Christmas with her family; maybe the invitation was now rescinded. The thought cost him something.
Was it any wonder he spent his Christmases alone?
He looked at her, debating, but since she had asked...
“Yes. His schedule for the coming week. Where’s he going to be, who he’s going to visit, who’s going to visit him. And anything else you might think is important.”
She nodded, her mouth a grim line.
“You’re wrong about him,” she said.
“I hope so. You’ll call me when you find out?”
She nodded and turned and left without saying goodbye. And that hurt too.
*
CHAPTER 16
SUNDAY
Sutton got the taxi to drop him at the entrance to the industrial park.
A short trip from his flat to Avonmouth shouldn’t have been expensive, but it was. Bristol taxis were notorious for charging high prices.
As the taxi drove away, Sutton admired the lot. It was surrounded by a tired chain link fence. The building, set back from the road, was a dirty non-descript factory block, one of those cheap-to-build structures used as warehouses all over the country. A TO LET sign hung dispiritedly from one wall.
Sutton wandered aimlessly inside. Fin had told him that a nice young man had called about his car, and would he like to collect it?
Sutton found his car just inside the fence. He wandered around it. It seemed fine. He could hardly believe it.
“You come for the series two?” A voice behind him asked.
Sutton turned.
A young man in blue overalls stood wiping his hands on an oily rag. His head was shaven, and he seemed to be slightly stooped. The sleeves had been rolled up, and his arms were covered liberally in oil.
“Yes. It’s my car.”
“What’s your name?”
“Sutton Mills.”
The young man nodded.
“You got any ID?”
Sutton freed his driving license from his wallet.
The man crossed the distance between them, looked at the license, and then tipped his head to signify that he was satisfied.
He held out the keys.
“Here.”
Sutton took them.
“Thanks. How did you know…?”
“Someone left a note inside,” the young man said, shaking his head at the world and its strange ways.
“Can I see it?”
The man shrugged and then pulled the note from his back pocket.
If found, please return this car to its rightful owner, Sutton Mills.
“You piss somebody off?” The young man asked.
“I think I did,” Sutton admitted.
“Well.” The man indicated the car. “They’re soft as shit. There’s nothing wrong with your car. It’s perfectly fine.”
Sutton admired the man’s oil stained arms and said, “are you a mechanic?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a place around the back.”
“Are you any good?”
“Yeah,” the man said, but he seemed a little uneasy with his own pride. “I’m pretty reasonable too.”
“An honest mechanic,” Sutton said, amused. “I didn’t think you existed. It’s like being shown a photo of Bigfoot.”
The man smiled grimly.
“We’re around.”
“What’s your name?”
“Nick. Nick Hannes.”
“Here.”
Sutton gave him a £50 note.
“What’s this for?”
“Your honesty.”
The man stared at the money.
“You didn’t have to own up to anything,” Sutton explained.
Nick Hannes held up the note.
“I’ll take your money, because I need it. But it’s a shame that in this day and age, you have to pay to get honesty. The world is fucked up.”
*
Janice called just after he returned to his flat, at the end of her shift.
Almost as soon as she began speaking, Sutton could tell that her new attitude toward him – because of what he had asked her to do – had not changed, not even twelve hours later. It was a sad thing, to hear a voice that was once warm turn so cold.
“He was working all night on Wednesday the 12th,” she told him, somewhat haughtily. “He had to cover for Dr Morris, who was sick. He never left the hospital.”
“Not even for a break?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
“For fifteen minutes perhaps. That was the longest he had between patients. Other than that, no.”
“Thank you, Janice.”
He listened to silence for perhaps ten seconds before she spoke again.
“Yesterday he only saw one patient. A Grace Chapel. The rest of the day he was off.”
What?
Dr Bodel had seen Grace Chapel. Why? What could they possibly have in common?
“What did he see her for?”
There was a pause.
“I don’t know. I didn’t...there wasn’t any notation as to the nature of his visit.”
“Is that unusual?”
Another shorter pause.
“Slightly, yes. All his other appointments are very specific.”
“But not this one.”
“No.”
“Thank you,” he said again.
“Don’t ask me to do this again, Sutton,” she said. She sounded upset.
Janice, Janice, he thought, and hunched over the receiver.
“What’s he up to today?” He asked.
He waited.
“I don’t know,” she said eventually.
“What? You didn’t look, or-“
“Haven’t you got enough?” She said desperately. “He isn’t involved. He’s a doctor. He’s not some...psychopath.”
“Janice, I want to clear him. That’s all. If he’s innocent then he’s got nothing to worry about, has he?”
But after all that Sutton had accumulated, Bodel’s innocence now seemed highly doubtful.
“This isn’t right.”
“Janice?”
An angry sigh came down the line, electronically reproduced in his ear.
“My shift’s over. I’m going home in a minute.”
“Could you invent some excuse to go back and find out?”
He could feel her agitation coming down the line; it was almost palpable.
“I suppose I could,” she relented.
“Will you call-“
“Yes, yes, I’ll call,” she said, and hung up.
He was pushing her. He knew it, but he didn’t know what else to do.
But if he pushed her too much, might not she alert Bodel? He was testing her loyalty after all.
He hoped she wouldn’t. Not only because
he didn’t want Bodel knowing that he was looking into him, but also because it might also put Janice in harm’s way.
*
Janice called back twenty minutes later.
“He is meeting a Mrs Liza Feltz at the Future Inn at 12.”
“Thank you, Janice.”
A pause.
“Bye.”
There was silence, and then a click, and then she was gone.
*
Who was Lisa Feltz?
The Future Inn was a modern hotel, part of the development in and around Cabot Circus. It was separated from the shopping centre by a busy dual carriageway, but pedestrian traffic lights allowed small trickles of shoppers to cross at intervals.
Dr Bodel was one of them.
Sutton, positioned in the window of the café next door to the Future Inn, watched as he crossed the road over the white lines. Out of his office, he seemed different: no less assured, but less sacrosanct…like a priest without his dog collar. He wore a charcoal grey suit, a white shirt, and a black tie. He was surprisingly short, amongst a crowd. He moved very much as all short men with short legs do: quickly, trying to catch up.
Was Bodel having an affair? Was that what this was?
Surreptitiously, Sutton followed.
The reception of the Future Inn was of a sleek but minimal design: slate grey flooring, cream walls, a bank of lifts (each framed by dark wood), a long sloping marble reception counter built into the wall…with two sleek, modern and attractive receptionists behind it.
Bodel got in one of the lifts, and Sutton waited while it rose, watching the display: it stopped at the seventh floor.
The dark haired receptionist looked up as he neared her. A smile popped on, like a light bulb. She was perhaps twenty two years old.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
She was eastern European, Sutton guessed, judging from the accent; either Polish or Lithuanian.
“I’m meant to be meeting a friend on the seventh floor, a Dr Bodel…”
“Ah yes,” she said. “The Conference Centre, room six. But it is starting shortly, so you must hurry.”
So it was some kind of lecture, Sutton thought, getting into the lift that presented itself at the touch of a button. Sutton rode it in solitude to the seventh floor.