Prey to All

by Cooper, Natasha

  He could remember the morning. He’d been discussing young Mary Haskett’s recurring urinary infections and had had to break off his instructions about taking a glass of cranberry juice every day to talk to Helen Whatlam.

  She wouldn’t be soothed, and she’d started to cry when he’d told her to bring Ian into the surgery the following week, as practice protocols demanded, so he’d been forced to say he’d call in on his way home to lunch.

  He’d done it, too. His memory, which had blanked out the whole episode, was tormenting him now with pinpoint accuracy. He’d parked outside the Whatlams’ front door and had been locking the car when she’d emerged, hobbling towards him. Her stick had made the gravel rattle as she’d pushed herself off with it at each step, hurrying as though poor bloody-minded Ian had been chasing her.

  She’d asked if they could sit in the car because she didn’t want Ian overhearing what she had to say. So, they’d sat there, and he’d listened to her and sympathised and done his best to help.

  It had been the angioneurotic oedema causing the problem again. Ian had suffered from one form or another for years, and it hadn’t been possible to isolate any particular trigger. Helen had begged him, with tears in her eyes again, to try some different treatment.

  He could see the picture now: Helen weeping and himself embarrassed and sympathetic. Sweating, he knew he’d reached the crux of it. This was the memory that had been waking him night after night for the past week, and sending his guts into freefall whenever he thought of it during the day.

  He had told Helen Whatlam that he had just seen a drug-company rep, who had given him samples of a particularly effective proprietary antihistamine. He had told Helen that she could have one packet, provided she promised not to exceed the stated dose.

  Helen had agreed, so he had given her a packet of thirty tablets. And that had been it. He hadn’t had time to add it to Ian’s notes there and then. He had fully intended to write them up when he went back to surgery that afternoon, but he had forgotten to do it. He must have forgotten, because there was no record in the notes of anything prescribed at the time of that unscheduled visit.

  Had the tablets been astemizole? He couldn’t remember the names of the drugs companies that had sent reps that week. But the surgery diary would tell him. He looked up astemizole in the British National Formulary and saw that it was made by one of the manufacturers whose names were in the diary.

  He put his head in his hands. His eyes were tight shut. He flogged his memory like the dead horse it had been. Why hadn’t it produced the information before? He thought he knew the answer to that, too.

  Deborah Gibbert had made him so angry with her outrageous behaviour in his morning surgery and the appalling things she’d said to him that he had believed her capable of murder. And his subconscious had buried everything and anything that might have cast doubt on her guilt.

  Carefully he tidied up the archives to show no sign that he had been there. Nasty little tempting devils in his mind were trying to seduce him into erasing all mention of the drug company’s rep from the surgery diary. But he managed to vanquish them.

  He drove home, wondering what to do. It didn’t prove anything, this recovered memory of his. Deborah Gibbert’s fingerprints were still on the plastic bag and her father’s saliva inside it. She had probably suffocated him, even if she hadn’t given him some of her own prescribed astemizole.

  If it hadn’t been for that bloody lawyer and her television-producer friend, he could probably have ignored the whole thing. But if they dug it up for their wretched film, he’d be exposed to all kinds of unsavoury publicity and accusations of goodness knew what.

  He wondered if Molly would be awake when he got back. He needed her. But it wouldn’t be fair to wake her. She couldn’t help with this dilemma. He’d always protected her against all the awful decisions he had to make, and he’d continue to do it. She had to move among his patients and their friends every day in the village. She had to be above it all, safely ignorant. If he couldn’t even protect his wife any longer, then what was left?

  When he reached the house, he opened the front door as quietly as possible and walked silently over the huge doormat.

  ‘Archie?’ she called, from the shadows near the hall fireplace. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yes. It’s me,’ he said, as he switched on the light.

  She was sitting in the leather chair by the empty fireplace, wearing her summer dressing gown. Her grey hair was unbrushed, flying all over the place, and there was fear in her eyes. As he smiled and patted her shoulder, her eyes cleared. But something happened to his smile before he could speak, and his lips started to tremble. His eyes felt hot.

  Molly got to her feet and held out her arms. ‘What is it, my dear? What is it?’

  He let her embrace him, and he tried to tell her.

  ‘I can’t hear,’ she said, pulling back, but still smiling at him. ‘Archie, I can’t hear. Come along.’

  She took him by the hand and led him into the kitchen. When she had made him sit down at the table, she poured him a glass of her home-made raspberry drink from the fridge.

  ‘Now, what is it?’ Her voice was the gentlest he’d ever known and it slid over him, soothing and analgesic, like cough linctus. ‘I’ve known for days that there was something wrong. Tell me.’

  He did. He could see from her face that she was listening, but it showed nothing else. When he glanced at her hands, noticing the new swellings around the knuckles, they were clenched around each other. They must be painful. He should have noticed that thickening of the joints; it was almost certainly arthritis. But she’d never complained. He wondered why not and looked away, trying to remember what he’d been saying. Oh, yes. He finished his grim little confession with difficulty and stared down at the table.

  He felt her hand on his shoulder and looked up again. She was still smiling. It was going to be all right.

  ‘It’s a pity you didn’t make a note of what the sample was when you gave it to Helen, but it sounds as though you did it far too long before his death for the pills to have had any bearing on it.’

  ‘Yes, if Ian took all thirty tablets then. But what if they improved the rash and he stopped? Don’t you see, Molly? If it got better, Helen would have stopped feeding Ian the tablets and put them away. Then she might have got them out again when he was next in need, which could have been much nearer the time I wrote the terfenadine prescription for Deborah.’

  She still didn’t understand. She was pouring more raspberry drink into his glass, and her face was blandly kind.

  ‘Don’t you see? It could have happened like that, Molly. Helen could have given him the last astemizole tablets at any time up till Deborah’s arrival at the house for that last dreadful visit.’

  ‘Yes, Archie, it could have happened like that. But you have no proof that it did. And no one ever suggested it was the mixture of terfenadine and astemizole that actually killed him.’

  ‘Didn’t they?’

  ‘No. You’ve let this get on top of you, my dear. It’s understandable, but it’s not rational. The labs found hardly any astemizole in him. As far as I can remember, at the trial the prosecution lawyer said the trace they’d found went to show that Debbie had drugged her father to enable her to suffocate him, not that it had caused his death in itself. Don’t you remember? You’ve run yourself ragged over this because you’re so tired, and you’ve got it all out of proportion, my dear.’

  He just stared at her. Could it be as easy as this? Could the last week’s agony have been simply a manifestation of long-term stress?

  ‘Come back to bed, Archie. You’re worn out and not thinking straight. Come to bed and get some sleep.’

  ‘Terfenadine,’ he said suddenly, his eyes dilating. He could feel them, as he could feel the shock pumping up his adrenaline levels. ‘Where’s the BNF? There must be one here, too.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The British National Formulary,’ h
e said impatiently. Suddenly Molly was no longer the source of all absolution and comfort; just a middle-aged woman whose mind didn’t work quickly enough.

  He got up, tripping over his unlaced sneaker, and grabbed his black bag. There should be a copy in there. Yes. Thank God for that. He leafed through, looking for the antihistamines. He couldn’t find them. What was the matter with him? He knew his way round this volume as he knew his way round his own surgery. The index would help. Yes. Thank God. There it was.

  He looked at the last paragraph of the entry for terfenadine, searching for the note of the counselling that had to be offered to patients prescribed the generic form of the drug. ‘Driving,’ it said. And that was all.

  His heart was banging in his chest. The rhythm was all wrong. It seemed to stop and start again, as though he’d been taking a dangerous mixture of antihistamines himself. He looked higher up the column for the side-effects. They were all right. The cautions were all right, too, just about pregnancy and breast feeding.

  For a moment he breathed easily, and his heart slowed back to its proper tempo. His memory must be playing up. A sure sign of stress. He really ought to think about another locum so that he could take Molly away for a good long holiday, away from everyone.

  He looked up from the thick red paperback to smile at Molly, to give her some reassurance. But even as his eyes moved up the page, he saw it: ‘avoid grapefruit juice’. It was there, after all.

  No one had known of the problem when he’d handed the prescription to Deborah Gibbert. That wasn’t his fault. But he should have remembered when the news started filtering through that grapefruit juice might be dangerous with terfenadine. He’d been holding to his certainty of the woman’s guilt, knowing she’d given her father an overdose. Now he had to face the fact that she might not have done it. He felt as though the very floor beneath him was unstable. Stemetil, he thought. If you’ve got vertigo, take Stemetil.

  Then the terror retreated, like the sea sucking back over the sand on a shelving beach, and his heart steadied once more. The floor felt solid again. What was he worrying about? No patient with gout and ulcers was going to start drinking something as acid as grapefruit juice, for heaven’s sake. He smiled at Molly.

  He heard her voice buzzing in his ears and tried to listen.

  ‘What’s going on, Archie?’ she said, very clearly. ‘You keep changing colour and you’re sweating. My dear, what is the matter? D’you want me to call one of your partners?’

  ‘Heavens, no, Molly. I’m not ill. In fact I’m quite all right again now. It was just a dreadful moment.’

  Seeing that she still looked worried, he told her, nearly laughing at himself for having been so irrational as to think that grapefruit juice could have been relevant to Ian Whatlam.

  Trish was woken by the phone. Sleepily, she picked up the receiver and said her name.

  ‘Trish? It’s Anna. What’s this fantastically good news you’ve got for me?’

  Trish blinked and felt George turning over at her side. After what he’d said last night, she hadn’t wanted to phone Anna in his hearing. But she’d had an opportunity, while he was reading the paper and she was doing the washing up. She’d rung from the kitchen, only to be answered by Anna’s machine. Trish had left a brief message.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ she said now. ‘I’m just going to the other phone.’

  She kissed George’s rumpled hair and told him to sleep on. Downstairs at her desk, she got back to Anna and passed on the news about the interaction of grapefruit juice and terfenadine. There was an enormous gusty sigh from Anna before she said, ‘Thank God. I’ve got a meeting with the channel this morning so that I can make my pitch. They like the preliminary stuff I’ve sent in, and if they’re satisfied after the presentation, they’ve said they’ll commit to all the money, I need. I can even pay you now, Trish.’

  ‘So this came just in time.’ Trish knew she sounded sharp, but that was too bad. If Anna hadn’t pretended to have researchers, or had got off her bottom to find the information sooner, they could have been here weeks ago. And if Phil Redstone had done his job properly, Deb Gibbert would never have been convicted. If … if … if.

  ‘Yes. I’ve made up a very slick presentation document, but I’ve just got time to add this to the end. It’ll be the perfect final cherry on the cake.’

  ‘Anna, it’s still not certain that it’ll be enough to get Deb out. It’s only given us another possible cause of his death.’

  ‘I know. But it’s all we really needed. You’ve done brilliantly.’

  ‘Don’t get too excited. There’s a long way to go.’ Trish rubbed her eyes to get the sticky grits out of the corners. She tried to push her brain up to speed.

  ‘Oh, bollocks to that, Trish. In any case it’ll make for a fantastic confrontation.’ She sounded excited. ‘I’ve been racking my brains for the climax of the programme. This will be it.’

  ‘Confrontation?’ Trish had taken the phone into the kitchen and was trying to fill the kettle while they talked. The phone was clamped between her chin and shoulder and she was holding tight to stop it falling into the open kettle.

  ‘Yes. With Dr Foscutt. Can’t you just imagine it?’ Anna’s voice was lighter and quicker than it had been for a long time. ‘And so, Dr Foscutt, when you were prescribing …’

  ‘Anna, you’re not to spring this on him on screen.’

  ‘Oh, Trish, grow up. It’s a rough old world out there. If he made a mistake, and it’s looking to me as though he did, don’t you think he deserves to be exposed?’

  ‘Not like this. Evidence has to be tested in court. Not on the screen.’

  ‘You’re too squeamish. I have to fight for my living. I can’t afford your sort of gentlemanliness. I’m going for the jugular: both jugulars.’

  ‘Both?’

  ‘The doctor and the lawyer. You’ve got just what I wanted. I knew you would. We’ll have Phil Redstone on camera, too, and ask him – all sweetness and light – what steps he took to check the effect of the grapefruit juice on a man taking old Mr Whatlam’s medicines.’

  ‘No one knew the danger then, Anna.’

  The sound of George getting out of bed echoed down the cast-iron spiral staircase.

  ‘Anna, I’m going to have to go. But think carefully about this. The doctor is a pain, he treated Deb badly, he was clearly arrogant. But he’s a professional man, and he didn’t warn her about grapefruit juice because no one knew of the problem at that date. You can’t pillory him on TV for that.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. I’ll let you know how it goes with the channel commissioners this morning.’

  ‘Anna, I’ve …’

  ‘Don’t go yet.’ Anna’s voice was dangerous enough to make Trish hold on.

  ‘Be quick.’

  ‘I want your word, Trish – your solemn promise – that you won’t tip off either Phil Redstone or Dr Foscutt.’

  Trish was silent.

  ‘Trish, I have to make you do this. Say you promise.’

  ‘Anna, I can’t deal with this now.’

  ‘Then tell me you promise not to talk to them today. And we can sort it out this evening. Will you at least promise me that much, Trish?’

  Trish felt as though she were being pulled apart.

  ‘Just till this evening. Haven’t we been friends long enough for you to give me that much?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said at once. Put like that, there wasn’t much else she could say. ‘Till this evening.’

  “Bye, Trish.’

  Trish made breakfast and went to dress. It seemed too hot to put on her tights and shoes until she absolutely had to, so she pattered down the spiral staircase in her bare feet. She could feel each bump and roughness in the cold iron treads.

  Downstairs, George was tucking into toast and coffee. ‘Come and sit down and have something to eat for once, Trish. I really don’t know how you get through the day without either breakfast or lunch.’ He set about adding a lavish layer of butter to hi
s next slice of toast. ‘I’d be dead.’

  Trish sat sipping black coffee, watching him tucking in. ‘There’s not as much of me to keep going,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘You are a monster. Who was your call from?’

  She looked at him from under her lashes as she drank her coffee.

  ‘It’s OK, Trish. Last night I was feeling a bit weak, I admit it. But this morning I’m as tough as you like. You can tell me. Something about your Gibbert case, I presume?’

  She nodded and reached for one of his slices of toast. ‘Tell me about what you’ve got on today,’ she commanded, ‘while I eat this.’

  He laughed, but he did sketch in a light-hearted account of the clients he was supposed to see later, and a couple of his more difficult partners, and a new outdoor clerk.

  ‘I wish we could persuade him to take up the law as a career,’ he added. ‘He’s a bright lad, but he’s on his way to drama school in September. Clearly thinks we’re all barking mad. He can hardly keep from laughing at the lot of us all day.’

  ‘He’s got something, George. No solicitor is entirely right in the head.’

  ‘At least we’re not a bunch of leaky mountebanks like you lot at the Bar.’

  ‘Mountebanks!’ Trish was laughing as she tried to swallow the last corner of naked toast. ‘What a ludicrous word! Anyone would think you were a hundred and ten.’

  George was about to retaliate when they heard the post thump on the mat. He wiped his mouth on his napkin and went off to fetch it for her. Trish accepted the pile, which included a fattish Jiffy-bag, with a smile and put it at the far end of the table.

  ‘Oh, go on, open it,’ he said, hauling open The Times, which he had picked up from the mat at the same time. ‘I don’t mind.’

  Trish raised her eyebrows at the unresponsive newspaper and ripped open the envelopes, piling bills in one heap, letters to be answered in another, and dropping the empty envelopes and the exasperating circulars and advertisements on the floor. At the bottom she came to the Jiffy-bag.