by Candy Denman
Gerry nodded, and he turned to leave the room with a look that suggested to Callie that he wasn’t going to let matters rest there and she would be wise to watch her back, particularly in view of his prior stalking of Kate.
“Good, now I suggest we get on with our work and remember that our patients must always come first,” Dr Grantham said firmly as he showed Gerry out of the room, and, presumably, made sure he left the premises.
“At least we won’t always have his car taking up space in the carpark.” Gauri was practical and unfazed by it all, as usual.
“Yes, but we will have to cover his surgeries.” Callie felt tired just thinking about it.
“We ended up seeing most of the patients he saw again, to actually do something or put right what little he had done, so it won’t be that much extra work.”
“I’ll get back onto the agency and see if they have anyone on their books.” Linda hurried back to the main office.
“If they did, we wouldn’t have ended up with Dr Brown,” Gauri said to the closing door.
“I’m sorry,” Callie said.
“What have you got to be sorry about?” Gauri seemed genuinely not to know.
“Well, it’s my fault he’s left,” Callie explained, but Gauri waved her response away.
“It’s not your fault, Callie. It’s Dr Brown’s. Perhaps he should have learnt to keep his trousers buttoned.”
Callie sat down at the terminal next to her and started sorting her work into piles: one for repeat prescription requests, another for hospital letters, then further piles for test results and post-it notes. She started with the pile of post-it notes. The third note was from Dr Simms, the GP who had agreed to take on the Hollingsworths as patients; he had left a message asking her to give him a call.
Callie reached for one of the phones before stopping. Hugh had just entered the office having seen Dr Brown out and this call would probably be better done without an audience. Hugh would not be impressed that she was still involved with the Hollingsworths after the complaint of harassment and she was already on the naughty step over Gerry, so it would be much better if he didn’t know she was in touch with their new doctor. She packed all her paperwork back into her basket and left the room with a breezy, “I have some phone calls to make and don’t want to disturb you all,” and hurried out, but not before Hugh had given her another look of disappointment. He clearly didn’t believe for a moment that she was anxious about disturbing the others.
* * *
Once she was safely in the privacy of her own consulting room, Callie picked up the phone and called the mobile number that Dr Simms had asked her to use.
“Hello? Dr Simms?” she said when he picked up and answered in his recognisable Scottish brogue. “This is Callie Hughes returning your call.”
“Ah. Thank you, Dr Hughes. Let me just take this outside.”
Callie heard the sound of doors opening and closing before he continued.
“Yes, thank you for getting back to me so promptly. I received your email with the summary notes on both Mr and Mrs Hollingsworth, and having read them I realised that I needed to see the lady as some tests were overdue, as you pointed out. I would have called the woman herself, but we only seemed to have a note of the husband’s phone number, a mobile, and no landline or mobile number for the wife. So, I phoned the husband and left a message asking him to get his wife to make an appointment, and got no response. I called again a couple of days later without result, and so got my practice manager to try. She left another message, saying that it was practice policy for all new patients to have a check with the practice nurse and please could he make appointments for them both.”
“Did you get a response to that?” Callie asked.
“Well, you could say that, yes. This morning my practice manager got a call to say they had changed their mind as I was too far away and they were going to find a GP in Hastings, which is, of course, what I suggested they do in the first place.”
“Did he say what practice they were going to?”
“No, he said he’d let us know when he found one.”
“And meanwhile they are in limbo with no one looking after Mrs Hollingsworth and monitoring her thyroid and with her having no way of getting her medication.”
“Exactly, which is why I thought I would let you know. I have real concerns about that poor woman.”
“Me too.”
“Not that I’ve ever met her of course.”
“And it’s a while since I’ve seen her,” Callie told him. “A long while,” she added thoughtfully.
Of course, Callie had many patients that she never saw from one year to the next, but that was usually because they were not sick or they were avoiding her because they didn’t want to hear her advice to stop smoking, cut down the drinking or lose weight, but Jill Hollingsworth didn’t fall into any of those categories. She had a chronic disease that needed medication in order for her to remain well. She had been delighted with how much better she had felt once her thyroid function levels improved. So why would she stop taking her drugs? And why was David Hollingsworth being so obstructive? What possible reason could he have for stopping his wife from being treated properly?
All the while she was trying to push down the thought that had come to her when Dr Simms had said he hadn’t met Jill – what if something had happened to her? What if she was dead? It would certainly explain why she wasn’t responding to letters or calls and, if David was involved, it would explain why he was going to such great lengths to keep everyone from checking up on her. Callie continued with her paperwork, finishing it as fast as she could whilst still making sure it was done correctly. It was all too easy for a doctor to lose concentration and miss something important, too easy to cause harm, or even kill a patient because of a decimal point in the wrong place or a failure to spot drugs that interact.
By the time she had finished the last repeat prescription, she had made a decision. She was going to go and visit the Hollingsworth farm and hope to find Jill there on her own, despite knowing that if she bumped into David, he would make another complaint and she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. After all, Jill wasn’t even her patient anymore.
* * *
Callie drove up the long track that led to the Hollingsworth farm, carefully watching for signs that David was working in the fields as she passed in case he spotted her, but everywhere seemed deserted. She parked by the farmhouse and once again she was struck by how unloved and uncared for the place looked. It was a grey, damp day although it wasn’t actually raining and somehow the weather seemed to suit these surroundings. There was no sign of David anywhere, she could hear no tractor engines or dogs barking, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in the house having a late lunch.
Callie gave herself a mental shake, she couldn’t stay in the car forever, apart from anything else she had to get back for evening surgery, so she got out, being careful to shut the driver’s door quietly and keeping the keys in her hand in case she needed to make a quick getaway. Looking and listening as she walked, she approached the silent house and knocked on the door. Her heart was hammering and her hands felt damp with sweat. She had no idea what she would do if he answered rather than Jill. Run for it probably.
There was no answer, so Callie knocked again, a little louder, and still hearing nothing, gently tried the door. It was unlocked, and she opened it wide enough to go in and stand just inside the doorway. The door opened straight into the large farmhouse kitchen. When Callie had visited here before, she had always been struck by how warm and welcoming it was with the big range cooker pumping out heat and cooking smells, the well-used, solid wood kitchen table, pretty chintz curtains and a large, saggy armchair draped with a hand-crocheted blanket. Now, the room seemed cold and untidy, the range wasn’t lit and washing up was piled high in the sink. The armchair was still there though and Jill was fast asleep in it, with the blanket wrapped around her.
“Hello?” Callie said quietly, relieved to find out th
at her worst fear, that Jill was dead, was unfounded. There was no response other than a little snort from Jill, so Callie went up to the chair and gave her a little shake.
“Jill? Jill? It’s me, Dr Hughes.”
Jill woke with a start and stared at Callie without recognition for a moment before realising who she was.
“Dr Hughes, of course, yes.” She struggled out of the chair. “I must have fallen asleep,” she said with a little laugh. “I’ll put the kettle on. I must have forgotten you were coming.”
“I was just passing, thought I’d drop in. Is that okay?”
“Oh, of course. My memory’s so bad these days, I just assumed–” Jill turned back to the sink and slowly filled the kettle. Callie was disappointed that, despite the layers of clothing she seemed to have on, she could see that Jill had put back on all the weight she had lost once her thyroid function had been stabilised.
“How are you feeling, Jill?” she asked her ex-patient.
“Oh, I’m fine, just a bit tired, that’s all,” Jill explained as she put the kettle on the range before realising that it was cold. “Damn! I must have let it go out. Not to worry, I’ll just stick the electric one on.”
“Jill, stop a moment.”
Jill turned to look at Callie, surprised at her stern voice.
“I don’t need a cup of tea. I know you are no longer my patient, but I’m concerned−”
“What do you mean?” Jill was genuinely surprised. “No longer your patient? Have you taken us off your list?”
“No.” Callie was equally taken aback. “You changed doctors. Moved to a practice the other side of Winchelsea. Did you not know?”
Jill sat back down in the armchair.
“Why would I change doctors?”
“I don’t really know,” Callie said. “Except that you haven’t been to see me in ages, despite repeated requests to do so. Look, I’m concerned, Jill, are you taking your tablets?”
“Of course. Every day, just as you said I had to, although I don’t think these new ones are as good as the old ones.”
“What new ones?”
“The new make of thyroxine you’ve started me on.” Jill levered herself out of her chair again, went over to a cupboard and took out a small brown bottle containing white pills and gave it to Callie. Callie looked at the label. It had a pharmacy label on it, slightly askew, claiming the bottle contained Levothyroxine 125 mcg and that one tablet was to be taken each day before breakfast.
“Pharmacies have to dispense medicines in calendar packs these days, Jill,” Callie explained. “You know, those foil strips with fourteen tablets in? So that patients can see if they’ve missed a dose.”
“I did wonder why they seemed to have changed,” Jill replied.
Callie opened the bottle and tipped a few of the tablets out into the palm of her hand. They were round rather than lozenge shaped and there was nothing etched on the back of them as she had expected. They definitely didn’t look like thyroxine tablets, and Callie tentatively rubbed one between her finger and thumb and then licked the residue off her thumb. Just as she did that, the door was flung open by a furious looking David.
“I don’t know what this is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not your thyroid tablet,” she said to Jill with conviction as she looked him in the eye.
Chapter 26
They sat around the wooden table in the kitchen drinking cups of tea that Callie had made once she had calmed the situation down. There was still a lingering atmosphere, but at least David had stopped shouting at her once he realised that it was too late and Jill finally knew what had been going on.
“I still don’t understand why you did it, David,” Jill said. The anger that she had felt once she realised that her husband had been substituting her medicine with sweeteners had subsided and she had reverted to her previous lethargic state.
“Because of who you became when you took ’em.” David rubbed his face and tried to explain.
“When we met, you was lovely, a bit quiet maybe, but we had a good life here and you never complained. Then the Doc here” – he gestured at Callie – “said you needed tablets ’cos your thyroid wasn’t working proper, like, and you changed.”
“How do you mean?”
“Suddenly you was rushing round and arguing with me all the time.”
“No, I wasn’t!”
Callie could see that Jill wasn’t sure.
“Telling me to do this, do that, fix the windows, paint the kitchen. Nag, nag, nag. That’s all you did. You weren’t the same woman I married.”
Jill looked at her husband in shocked silence, but he couldn’t hold her gaze.
“All I wanted was a bit of peace and quiet.” He stood up and turned towards the door. “I’ve got things to do.”
“Just you wait one minute, David Hollingsworth.” Jill stood up so suddenly her chair tipped over and David turned back to her in surprise. “Are you telling me that you like me tired, overweight and depressed because it means you get a quiet life, to the point that when the doctor here made me better with the thyroid pills you switched them to make me ill again?”
“Well” – David did look ashamed of himself and he struggled to find a better way of expressing it – “yes, I did. I didn’t want you to be ill, though, but, I suppose, I mean, I’d’ve been happy if you were a bit better, more cheerful like, but I just couldn’t take your constant–”
“Nagging, yes, I’ve got the picture.”
Jill sat down again.
“Why didn’t you say?”
David came back to the table and sat down again as well.
“It weren’t easy, like. You was so busy doing stuff all the time. Rushing here, rushing there.”
“For the first time in years, I had energy. I wanted to get things done.”
“I know.”
Jill gave a little laugh.
“Now you mention it, I must have been hell to live with. I never stopped, hardly slept.”
David nodded.
“It weren’t easy.”
“But I can’t live like this.”
“No. I know that.” David sighed.
“What do you say we give it another try?”
He nodded agreement, but looked miserable.
Callie cleared her throat and they both turned to her.
“It might just be that the dose was too high and made you a little hyperthyroid,” Callie suggested. “Perhaps we could start with a lower dose? Monitor it carefully and see how things go. Make sure you don’t get so, um, hyperactive?”
Jill nodded.
“That sounds a good idea.” She turned to her husband. “What do you think David?”
“All right.”
He still didn’t seem sure.
“You’ll need to re-register with me though, Jill.”
“Of course.”
Callie looked directly at David.
“Where you are registered is entirely up to you, but you need to know that if Jill stops coming in for her regular reviews, I’ll be up here in a flash. And if I suspect you have started messing with her tablets again, I’ll have no option but to involve the police.”
Callie wasn’t quite sure what crime he could be charged with but she was sure there would be something.
“I won’t do that again, I promise.”
David looked honestly ashamed of what he had been doing and Callie believed him.
“Don’t you worry, Dr Hughes, now I know what he’s been up to, I’ll be keeping a close eye and making sure I see you regularly.”
Callie was pretty sure Jill would, now she knew what had been going on.
“Right, I’ll just go and get my bag so that I can do a prescription for you, and I’ll leave a blood test form. You need to get that done in a couple of weeks, so we can see how you are responding. Okay?”
As Callie went to her car, she wondered how they were going to get on. Whilst she had some sympathy with David if Jill had been as bad as he was making out, had Calli
e found out her own husband had been deliberately keeping her in a state of hypothyroidism, she would have left him without hesitation. Provided she had the energy to leave, once she was better. Perhaps Jill would do that, or maybe, she had other plans to exact her revenge. Either way, Callie had a sneaky suspicion that Jill was never going to let David forget what he had done.
* * *
Callie’s hair was still damp from the shower, and her face had a rosy glow brought on by exercise and self-righteousness as she sipped her green tea and watched Kate tuck into a slice of Bakewell tart, slathered in cream. They were in the small café area of the gym where they both had membership. Kate’s hair was dry, not just because she hadn’t showered, but also because she hadn’t exercised either.
“Yum,” Kate murmured. “Are you sure you don’t want to try some?”
“No, thank you. Not after working out for an hour.”
“Go on. Loosen your stays and live a little.”
“It’s not because I’m treating my body as a temple, I can assure you, it’s just that I’m too tired to eat.” Callie stretched and groaned quietly. “I should do this more often and then it wouldn’t hurt so much.”
“Nonsense. It would just hurt more often. Exercise isn’t good for you.”
“I don’t understand why you keep paying for gym membership when you never use it.”
“What do you mean, never use it? I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yes, but–”
“And I’m enjoying myself, eating cake and watching all these fit young men in shorts getting all hot and sweaty.”
“You are awful.”
“But you like me.” Kate finished the catch phrase for her and ate more cake. “So, have they charged the fireman yet?”
“Not as far as I know. I heard they had found a match book similar to the ones used in the crimes, in a drawer in his desk, I think, but they haven’t linked him to the website yet or identified the last victim either, if my informant is right, which I think she is.”
Kate clocked the fact that Callie’s information was not coming from Miller direct.
“They probably won’t charge him until at least tomorrow lunchtime, if they have any sense. They’ll want to do as much as they can before having to commit themselves.”