by Angela Arney
‘Problems?’ asked Maguire.
‘The main problem is being unattached,’ said Lizzie. ‘It’s something I’m just beginning to find out. People expect you to step in whenever there’s a gap to be filled. They assume that I’ve got no other plans.’
Maguire clipped on Tess’s lead. ‘You’ll have to find yourself another man.’
‘No thanks.’ Lizzie shot the answer back quickly. A stab of irritation flashed through her. Why did men always think that women needed them? The irritation was short lived. She looked at her scribbled notes. ‘Mrs Matthews, of the House by the Hard, is worrying that the murderer might come back and get her. Do you think she needs to worry?’
Maguire shook his head. ‘No. I’ve got nothing to prove it yet, but I’m pretty certain that Darren’s killing was drug related, not random. The world of drugs is a nasty one. Darren probably hadn’t paid his dues.’
‘Well, poor little devil, he’s certainly paid them now,’ said Lizzie. ‘In the ultimate way.’ She peered out of the window. It was already very dark, and from the light spilling out into the garden she could see that it was raining again. Shrugging herself into an old raincoat, as her other one was still soaking wet, she fished her medical bag out from beneath the table, snapped the lap top shut, and stood the two side by side ready to take with her.
Maguire frowned. ‘Are there drugs in that?’ He gestured towards the bag.
‘Of course. My emergency supplies.’
‘You ought to keep it in a safer place. Under the kitchen table is not particularly secure.’
Lizzie bristled. ‘It’s safe enough with me. I’ve carried drugs around with me for twenty years in London and never had them stolen yet.’
‘There’s always a first time.’ Maguire looked about him slowly. ‘You know this is a very lonely house. You ought to get a burglar alarm, or a dog. Preferably both. Don’t forget there’s a murderer somewhere on the loose in Stibbington.’
‘Thanks a bundle, Chief Inspector. I shall sleep a whole lot easier in my bed tonight because of your words of comfort.’ Lizzie ushered him towards the door. ‘And now I must be on my way. By the way, don’t worry about me. I’ve got a candlestick.’
Maguire looked puzzled. ‘What for?’
‘Hitting anyone who comes into my bedroom firmly on the head.’
Maguire looked at her expression and gave a slow grin. ‘My sympathy would be all on the side of the intruder,’ he said.
It seemed most logical to visit Mr Hargreaves and his daughter first. It was the furthest away. The house was in East Stibbington, and as the water-splash was still flooded the journey necessitated driving the long way round through the forest. The route lay through narrow lanes, which twisted and turned. The wind and heavy rain had wreaked more havoc out in the open countryside than it had in Stibbington. Broken branches lay across the road in many places, and great swathes of brambles snatched at the Alfa like hungry black fingers as Lizzie drove past.
Cursing Stephen and his stomach bug she squinted out into the darkened lanes. It was difficult to see, and she was just thinking that it was merciful there was no other traffic about when, on a sharp bend, she almost hit a motorcyclist. He was driving without any lights, at least, none worth mentioning. Only a feeble beam shone from the front of the bike, and it was going much too fast. By dint of jamming her foot down hard on the brake pedal Lizzie managed to bring the Alfa to a slithering halt, but she ended up at an angle, one wheel in the ditch. The motorcyclist hesitated, but only momentarily, then roared off into the night.
‘Menace!’ shouted Lizzie, lapsing into momentary road rage. Then she slowly edged the car forward. Mike had laughed when she’d bought a four-wheel drive Alfa. ‘Trying to recapture the wild youth you never had,’ he’d sneered. ‘A sporty Alfa doesn’t suit you.’ Now, Lizzie was glad of it. There was no light to be seen in the darkness for miles around, and she didn’t fancy trying to walk and find help. Now, the four-wheel drive came into its own, and she successfully extricated herself from the ditch, eventually arriving at the Hargreaves’ house.
It was only as she sheltered in the porch from the rain, waiting for the front door to be opened, that Lizzie remembered the motorcyclist charging down the lane the afternoon Darren Evans had been murdered. It almost certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with the events of that afternoon, but she’d forgotten to mention it. And Adam Maguire had said he wanted to know everything. However, she couldn’t believe it was either significant or urgent, but it was something to tell him when their paths next crossed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘I’m so glad you’ve come, Doctor. I just don’t know what to do with him.’ A small dark-haired woman practically dragged Lizzie over the soggy mat on the doorstep and into the house.
The house was small, the front door opening into a narrow hall. Lizzie presumed the woman was Peg Hargreaves, daughter of Len Hargreaves, and followed her leaving a trail of wet footprints into a claustrophobically small living room lit by a single light bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling. There was no shade on the bulb and beside it dangled a spiral of sticky fly paper encrusted with black corpses. Through the door she could see into a tiny kitchen with two doors side by side. One was half open and Lizzie could see that inside was a lean-to bathroom tacked on to the back of the house. Cold and damp by the look of it, she thought, but better than a privy at the bottom of the garden, which had probably been the original feature.
Doing a quick recce was second nature to Lizzie after twenty years in general practice. A doctor could tell more about a patient’s family by looking around than by asking questions. The interior of this house shrieked misery. It was the house of people who cared nothing for the outside world and not much for themselves. There were no books, not even a newspaper or a magazine in the living room, nor a television or video recorder, items which were mandatory in most modern homes no matter how cash-strapped the occupants might be. The decor had obviously not seen a lick of paint for thirty years or more, and was dark and depressive. The house felt cold and dank, worse in fact than the lane outside, and there was a faint, peculiarly, sweet smell which Lizzie recognized but couldn’t place.
‘Have you always lived here with your father, Miss Hargreaves?’
‘Not always. I did when I was a child, of course. Mum died when I was ten and I stayed until I was sixteen, then I got away to Southampton as soon as it was legal to go. Dad couldn’t stop me then. I could do as I pleased. But when he had his stroke six years ago, the social worker said that as there was no one else to do it I had to give up my job at the supermarket and come and look after him.’ She paused a moment, then continued rather wistfully, ‘I liked that job. I really did. I had a nice little council flat, and lots of girlfriends. But now I’m back in Stibbington again, stuck out here in this godforsaken place, and there’s no one to be friendly with. I hate it.’ She paused for breath, looked Lizzie straight in the eye and said, ‘I hate him too. I’ve always hated him.’
‘So why did you come back?’
She shrugged. ‘I told you. Someone had to look after him, and there was no one else. He is my father, despite everything. So I came. I thought that once he’d had the stroke he couldn’t do me no more harm. And he can’t, but that doesn’t stop me hating him. Sometimes I think I’ll murder him one of these days.’ She stared at Lizzie fiercely. ‘I suppose you think I’m mad.’
Lizzie shook her head. Six years stuck out here in the sticks with a dependent old man was enough to drive anyone insane. In her opinion the social workers had been quite wrong to ask a young woman to sacrifice her freedom in order to be a full-time unpaid nurse. Sometimes the system was very cruel. ‘No, I don’t think you’re mad,’ she said gently. ‘Anyone in your circumstances would feel the same. What we need to do is organize some help so that you can get away for a bit.’
Peg Hargreaves’s face lit up, and Lizzie mentally crossed her fingers and prayed that social services would be able to find the necessary m
oney from the community coffers to fund a period of respite care. ‘Will you really speak to someone?’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, you don’t know how much I’d love to see a bit of telly.’
Lizzie thought it an odd remark. Watching television was not exactly getting away. ‘I mean that you should leave this house,’ she said. ‘Go away for a few days. You could watch TV here.’
‘Oh no I can’t do that. Dad won’t have it in the house. He says it’s the evil eye. It can see into your soul and corrupt you. And believe me he knows all about corruption and evil.’ She must have seen Lizzie’s surprised expression because she added, ‘Before his stroke he was a preacher at the Forest Saints Gospel Church. Every Sunday, twice a day, he preached about evil. Of course, he can’t go there now. But he’s still dead against the telly.’
‘You could insist that you have one,’ said Lizzie.
It was Peg’s turn to look surprised. ‘No I couldn’t. This is his house. And besides, he gets very nasty when he’s crossed.’ She led the way upstairs. ‘He’s in his bedroom. Oh, and I better warn you,’ she added, ‘he’s got no clothes on. Says I haven’t washed them properly.’
She threw open the door to reveal a tall, scraggy, wild-eyed old man standing by the window clutching a tin biscuit box to his emaciated chest. Not for the first time Lizzie reflected that there was nothing beautiful about some people’s old age. In the nude Len Hargreaves looked as if he were wearing an ill-fitting brownish crepe garment; only the angular bones of his shoulders and hips emphasized that it was skin and not material. Everything else hung limply. Everything, that is, apart from his genitals, and to Lizzie’s dismay she saw he had a sturdy erection. ‘Has he got a dressing gown?’ she asked.
‘Yes, although he won’t put it on. But don’t worry; he can’t move fast enough to poke that thing into anyone now.’ Peg waved at the offending organ dismissively. ‘Time was, though,’ she added on a bitter note, ‘when he could and did.’
Lizzie glanced from demented father to depressed daughter, and realized she was looking at an abuser and the abused. How long had he used his daughter to satisfy his perverted sexual needs? Almost certainly until she’d escaped to her safe little council flat to live alone. Was it courage or weakness, Lizzie wondered, that had made Peg come back?
‘He will wear the dressing gown,’ she said firmly, fixing the shuffling old man with a stern stare. ‘I’ve come to have a little chat and I don’t want you getting a cold while we’re talking. Colds can turn into pneumonia and then you’ll end up in hospital.’ It was unfair, she knew, unethical even, blackmailing an old man into submission, but from his hostile, wild-eyed stare Lizzie deduced that there was no alternative.
His flabby lower lip jutted forward in a childish pout. ‘Don’t want to go to hospital,’ he whined. ‘Not leaving here. Don’t want to go nowhere.’
‘If you put the dressing gown on then you won’t have to go to hospital.’
Peg hurried over to the wardrobe and withdrew a voluminous blue and red check dressing gown and handed it to her father. Lizzie noticed how she avoided actually touching him and didn’t blame her. The dressing gown had the appearance of having been made from a horse blanket, and was much too large, but to her relief he obediently shrugged his way into it, although he never once let go of his biscuit tin.
‘Sorry,’ said Peg, indicating her father.
‘Don’t be. It’s not your fault, my dear.’
‘Shall I stay?’ asked Peg.
‘Yes please.’ The experience of twenty odd years counts for nothing, thought Lizzie ruefully. I still find the thought of being left alone with this crazed old man with a gigantic erection disturbing. She silently cursed Stephen Walters. He should have been here, not me. But now I am here, what to do? Contending with dementia of any kind was not easy, not even with the modern range of drugs now available. ‘Has he got worse recently?’ she asked.
Peg nodded. ‘Yes, he had a funny turn two days ago. It’s since then he’s refused to get dressed. He’s more feeble now, lost his strength, but he’s still aggressive.’ She shivered and glowered at her father. ‘Of course, he was always aggressive, all his life. But at least he hasn’t been able to do anything these last few days. Not now that he can’t hold his stick.’
‘He’s been hitting you?’ Peg nodded. Lizzie sighed. Human nature could still surprise and horrify her.
Lizzie tapped in some notes on her laptop, then steeled herself, and made a physical examination of the old man, doing all the things a doctor should do: listening to his heart and chest, taking his blood pressure, checking his reflexes, looking into the wild, staring eyes, and all the time thinking what a nasty old man Len Hargreaves was, and at the same time mentally chiding herself for not being able to be the consummate professional she always prided herself on being.
Once she’d finished examining him she told Peg that, in her opinion, her father had probably had another small stroke. ‘It doesn’t happen to everyone, but unfortunately it does to some people.’
During their conversation Len Hargreaves sat on the edge of his bed and stared fixedly out of the window, muttering, ‘Not going to hospital. Not going. Not going.’
Lizzie opened her case. ‘Now, Mr Hargreaves.’ She used the same brisk tone she’d used before. ‘You will not be going to hospital if you promise me you will take this medicine.’ He didn’t face her, merely looked at her slyly out of the corner of his eyes, rocking his head from side to side. Lizzie went back to the blackmail. ‘If you don’t take the tablet I’m going to give you then I will have to send you to hospital.’
‘I don’t care if he doesn’t take it.’ Peg hovering by anxiously, sounded hopeful. ‘I’d quite like him to go to hospital.’
Lizzie wished for Peg’s sake that it was possible to ship him off to hospital for a few days, but he wasn’t really a hospital case. And besides, it was a cold wet December, and Lizzie knew that Stibbington Infirmary was already full of elderly patients with chest infections.
‘Take one now,’ she said to Len Hargreaves, and popped a tablet from the bubble pack. She held it forward expecting him to take it in his hand, but he didn’t, he stuck his tongue out instead. There was nothing to do but put the pill on the protruding leathery tongue, which she did, after a moment’s hesitation, at the same time trying not to flinch. The thought crossed her mind that maybe she should give up medicine; it was coming to something when she could hardly bring herself to touch an old man. But, she consoled herself, there were old men and old men, and this one was particularly disgusting. Not only was he dirty, but a lascivious leer hovered around his slack mouth, and, much as she tried to, she couldn’t avoid seeing the pink shaft of his penis still poking through the folds of his dressing gown. Resolutely ignoring it she scribbled out a prescription.
Peg led the way downstairs. ‘What will that pill do?’
‘Quieten him down,’ said Lizzie. ‘Here’s a pack of six which I can give you now. Give him one tomorrow morning and one in the evening. Here’s the prescription. There’s a month’s supply there, but don’t hesitate to call the practice if they don’t work, or if things get worse. In the meantime I’ll see what I can do about getting you some help.’
‘Thanks.’ Peg peered at the sample pack. ‘What are they, some kind of tranquillizer?’
Lizzie nodded affirmation. ‘Yes. They should do the trick.’
‘A friend told me that if I gave him some cannabis that would quieten him.’
It suddenly clicked. That familiar sweetish smell she noticed when she’d first entered the house. ‘And have you tried it?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Oh no,’ said Peg, adding hastily, ‘I haven’t got any.’
Not true, thought Lizzie, but didn’t say so. ‘I wouldn’t advise you to get any or try it on him. It might have unwanted effects. Besides, it’s against the law. You must know that.’
‘Yes,’ said Peg, then added, ‘but you’re a doctor. You could get it.’
‘No I can’t. It’s against t
he law for me as well. I couldn’t prescribe it even if I thought it might do some good, which, as a matter of fact, I don’t. I know there’s a lot of talk about it, but there’s no real evidence that it has any proven medical uses. What made you think about using it?’
Peg shuffled her feet about and avoided Lizzie’s gaze. ‘I only mentioned it because, Darren Evans, you know the one who was murdered, well, he said cannabis was good for calming people.’ She opened the front door and stood back as Lizzie passed. ‘Thanks for coming out tonight. I appreciate it.’
Lizzie stepped outside. The wind had risen, shrieking through the bare branches like so many banshees. As the weather man had forecast, it was a force eight gale blowing straight in from the sea. The salt in the air stung her lips. ‘It’s my job to visit patients,’ she said. ‘And Peg, please don’t even think of using cannabis for your father.’ She paused and added, ‘Or yourself.’
Her words were taken and tossed to the elements. And even if Peg had heard them, which Lizzie doubted, she knew that she was wasting her breath. There was cannabis in the house and one or the other, or both of them, were using it. Had Darren Evans supplied it? Was Peg Hargreaves worried now that he was dead because the supply was cut off? Was that why she’d called a doctor? A bit far-fetched, Lizzie decided, but both Peg and her father were strange. However, patients’ confidentiality prohibited the mentioning of it to anyone, except to one of the other partners. Lizzie resolved to speak to Dick Jamieson about the Hargreaves father and daughter after the weekend.
Emmy Matthews felt restless. What was the point of having a paying guest, if she never saw hide nor hair of her? The policeman on duty at Stibbington Station had told her not to worry about the murder. ‘Your house may be isolated,’ he’d said, ‘but at least you are not alone. You have a guest. There are two of you there.’
‘Not alone,’ sniffed Emmy to herself, and decided to make yet another cup of tea. ‘But I might as well be alone, for all that I see of that woman. Talk about being anti-social. Doesn’t want her evening meal! Doesn’t want this, doesn’t want that! Never lets me in her room. Anyone would think she’s got a man in there.’