by Candy Denman
‘Yes, but she’d had a lot to drink. You can’t expect people to think clearly when they’re drunk.’
Jo knew only too well that people didn’t think clearly when they were drunk and that they often did stupid things, but that didn’t stop her from thinking that Miller was trying too hard to fit the facts to his theory rather than the other way around.
‘I don’t see it.’ Jo told him. ‘It just seems so unlikely.’
He sneaked a look at his watch and quickly gulped the last of his coffee.
‘Well it’s all we’ve got at the moment, let’s wait and see if Tun- bridge Wells turn up any more evidence to support it.’
‘Any evidence to support it would be good.’ She clearly didn’t be- lieve his theory at all.
Got to go,’ he explained as he jumped up, signalled to the waitress for the bill and started putting his coat on. ‘It’s not a day off for me, after all.’
‘I’ll get this,’ Jo told him and he waved a hand in thanks as he hur- ried out, glad to get away from her awkward questions. Jo sat there, nursing the last dregs of her coffee and pondering what she had just heard. The thought of a drunken Mrs Cole driving her husband’s body around the countryside was totally absurd, but then, sometimes life was totally absurd.
Chapter 16
Having finished her coffee and paid the bill, Jo wandered back into the main town and her second appointment of the day. Penny Thomas had agreed to meet her for a coffee and a sandwich. Jo thought she had better start drinking decaf or she would be buzzing by the end of the day at this rate. It was clear that Miller was not going to get involved in John Dixon’s case and was desperately trying to persuade himself, and his senior officers that any investigation into Adrian Cole’s death should be undertaken by Kent police. Jo understood the constraints he was under with budgets and staffing, but with different police forc- es investigating each incident, including Hampshire police following up on Doreen Ponting and the CPS, there was a danger that no one would put the pieces together unless she did. She was sure that they did fit together, but the question was how? It was frustrating that Mill- er had not been able to answer her questions on John Dixon’s condi- tion. She was going to have to get that information some other way.
The café chosen by Penny Thomas had a selection of salads, sandwiches and homemade soups, which pleased both women as it meant they wouldn’t be breaking too many diet rules. It looked as if Penny was still being conscientious about her fat club regimen as her figure was as slim as ever.
Once the formalities were over, and Penny had assured her that she was doing fine and yes, the police had contacted her again but she really couldn’t remember anything about the nice lady downstairs, and wasn’t it strange that she had disappeared? Jo agreed and then asked her about working at Townsend Bartlett.
‘How long have you worked there?’ ‘Nigh on a month now,’ Penny told her.
‘And did you know the person you took over from? Or why she left?’
‘No. I don’t know her. I don’t really know anyone who has worked there.’ Penny thought for a while. ‘If you look back at the payroll ...’ she glanced at Jo ‘... I’m allowed, I sometimes have to check things on it,’ she explained, just in case Jo thought she had been snooping. Not that she would have minded if Penny had been snooping, in fact, it might have been quite useful if she had. ‘And I must say I noticed that there have been quite a few people in my job in recent years. Not that it’s anything unusual, I mean, receptionists often move jobs.’
But Jo thought she knew exactly why they changed so often. ‘Perhaps they didn’t like having to go to Mr Townsend’s flat?’ she ventured.
‘Could be,’ Penny agreed. ‘It was a bit weird, now you mention it, I can see some people objecting. Not that anyone would expect to find him strung up like that.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember any of the names of people who worked there before you?’ Jo asked. ‘From when you checked the payroll?’
Penny shook her head and then looked sheepish.
‘Well, I do remember one, actually. I was at school with her, she was the year above me. Right cow, she was. At least I thought so at the time, but that was probably because she was going out with a boy I’d set my sights on. Helena Dyrda. Polish, or half Polish, I think she was.’ Jo managed to get enough details out of Penny to be fairly confi- dent she would be able to track this Helena down. There couldn’t be too many people around with a name like Helena Dyrda.
When not on call for the surgery or police, Jo liked to spend her Satur- day afternoons at the gym. A workout, a Pilates class and a swim made her feel virtuous and justified a meal out with Kate, who was supposed to be her workout buddy but somehow always managed to only turn up for the swim at the end.
Over fish cakes served with salad (Jo) and steak pie with mash and gravy (Kate) at their favourite haunt, Porters, Jo updated her friend with her thoughts on the cases and her plans to speak to the ex-receptionist.
‘Speaking of which,’ Kate interrupted, ‘have I got news for you!’ She paused for dramatic effect. ‘Antonia Hersham has been announced as the new partner at Townsend Bartlett.’
‘What? That was quick!’
‘Too bloody right. Very quick to jump in, I’d say.’ ‘And wouldn’t that make it Bartlett Hersham now?’ ‘Yes, they might change it, but I suspect not.’
‘Why? Not to honour Giles Townsend, surely? A sort of a “lest we forget” thing?’ Jo couldn’t see them doing that.
‘Hardly. They really do want everybody to forget him and how he died. But much more importantly, to change the name might confuse customers and would also mean they’d need a complete rebrand. If they keep the name and just add Antonia as a partner instead of Giles it will be much cheaper.’
‘Personally, blow the expense and possibly losing a few customers, I’d want to erase Giles from corporate memory whatever the expense.’ They both thought about that for a moment, while they ate.
‘Anyway, the really good bit of gossip isn’t the fact that she was made partner so soon after Giles died, but that she had expected it to happen earlier.’ Kate looked round to check they weren’t being over- heard before revealing the really salacious bit of her news, ‘Seems she’d been screwing him almost since she started there, on a promise of a partnership, but that somehow Giles always made excuses and didn’t follow through with his side of the bargain.’
‘Eeuw! She was sleeping with him?’
‘I don’t think there was much sleep involved.’ Kate laughed. ‘Maybe she turned a blind eye to his other peccadilloes as well.’ Jo
was thoughtful.
‘Like flashing the receptionists when they were sent to deliver pa- pers to his flat?’
‘Exactly – she seems to have been the one who sent them. It was definitely her who sent Penny round the morning he died. Penny told me so and I couldn’t understand why she would do that at the time. Now it’s a lot clearer.’
‘Maybe she killed him because he was delaying her becoming a partner and she wanted him found quickly by someone other than her?’ Kate seemed pleased with this theory as it was clear she didn’t like Antonia Hersham.
‘Now that’s slander, Ms Ward. You can’t say things like that out loud without something to back it up.’
‘Okay, but you can say it, to the hunky police detective. That’s called giving him important new information and therefore it’s not slandering someone.’
Jo had to admit, she had a point.
‘Do you really think she could have killed Giles for not making her a partner?’
‘If he was standing in her way? She’d mow him down without a thought. And causing him to die during an orgasm? That sounds like just the sort of fitting retribution she would think up.’
Kate was right, Jo thought, it was rather fitting.
It was only after they had finished their food and were lingering over coffee, decaffeinated in Jo’s case but not in Kate’s, that Jo went back to the issue of Antonia b
eing made partner.
‘Why do you think she’s been made partner now? Is she sleeping with Mervyn Bartlett as well?’ she asked.
‘Doubt it. Not because she wouldn’t, but because he hasn’t got the balls to commit adultery. Not with her, anyway. No, I suspect she’s bullied him into it. Said she’ll go public about Giles and his peccadil- loes, as you so quaintly put it, if he doesn’t.’
Jo thought about that for a moment before nodding her agreement. ‘Makes sense. You know, women like that, who help men get away with sexual harassment, are as guilty as the men themselves in my book.’
‘I agree. In fact, in some ways they’re worse. They are betraying the rest of us as well as facilitating the assault in the first place.’ She took a sip of her coffee. ‘Nice arse on the waiter by the way.’
Jo instinctively turned around to where a young man was bent over a table taking an order for the couple sitting there.
‘You are awful.’
‘It’s why you like me,’ Kate responded as she waved at said waiter, once he was facing them, and asked for the bill.
After a lot of research online on Sunday morning, Jo had found out that Helena Dyrda currently worked at a hairdresser’s in St Leonards and, even more helpfully, she had discovered that one of her old friends from medical school, Kathryn, now worked in ICU at the hospital where John Dixon was currently a patient. The hairdresser’s would not be open until Monday, so London it was. Having made a few calls and ensured that Kathryn was on duty, Jo hurried across town, trying her best to keep dry. The spring sunshine of earlier in the week seemed a lifetime ago. Her raincoat and umbrella helped keep the worst of the wet from her top half, but her ankles and feet were soaking by the time she got to the station.
With her feet still damp, and clutching her dripping umbrella, it was early afternoon before Jo reached her destination. She had arranged to meet Kathryn in the coffee shop near the main entrance, and it was a relief to sit down in the warmth with a cup of coffee and a prawn salad sandwich whilst she waited. She had expected to be kept waiting a long time. On-call registrars have a lot of people calling on their time, all of them, well, most of them, more important and more urgent than Jo, so she was pleasantly surprised to see her friend striding across the main entrance atrium soon after she sat down.
‘Jo!’ Kathryn called out as she carried her tray over from the counter. ‘Good to see you, haven’t changed a bit.’
Kathryn hadn’t changed either and seeing her made Jo remember just how much she had liked her when they were studying together, Kathryn was always supportive, never a rival; her good-natured belief that she wanted to help people and her honesty had always impressed. She was also known for being to able to drink everybody under the table, even the rugby crowd, which was no mean feat and something that Jo was never likely to be able to manage. As she took a bite of her sandwich, Jo realised that she seemed to be having a lot of conversa- tions over food recently. It seemed to make asking questions easier somehow, but even so, she knew she wasn’t going to find this an easy conversation.
‘So, tell me, what can I do for you?’ Kathryn asked, and when Jo hesitated, added. ‘Much as I am really pleased to see you and we should meet up for a drink sometime, because it would be great to keep in touch, this isn’t just a friendly meeting is it? And I could be called away at any minute.’ Kathryn was straight to the point as always, and Jo understood the concern that they might not have much time.
‘You have a patient who was brought in having collapsed in an embarrassing place.’ Kathryn looked as if she was going to protest but Jo held up her hand. ‘Hear me out, I’m not looking for gossip, but this relates to a case of mine,’ which was stretching the point a bit, but Jo felt she was justified under the circumstances. Having glanced round to make sure no one was listening to their conversation, she continued, ‘ I have seen several cases of people, lawyers, being target- ed, through drugs or in other ways, so that they are found in extremely embarrassing circumstances, unconscious – in some instances, dead – with details and photos released to the press. I have reason to believe someone is deliberately choosing these people to target and I need to know if this fits with how your patient was found, because not only is he a lawyer, but he was also the person who dealt with a complaint against one of the other victims.’
Kathryn thought for a moment before deciding that Jo’s request for information was kosher.
‘Okay, yes, that would fit with the circumstances around the admission of our patient, who shall remain nameless at this point.’ Jo felt that was a bit unnecessary, as they both knew full well who they were talking about, but she respected her friend’s need for discretion. ‘The press had photos of him entering the establishment as well as of him being carted off in an ambulance, so either they were told he was going to be there or someone else took them and sent them in when he collapsed.’
‘Is there anything iffy about his collapse?’ Jo asked, more in hope than in expectation. Kathryn looked up from her bacon butty and eyed her shrewdly.
‘It’s funny you should say that. His blood pressure was through the floor when he was admitted, and it took a while to get it up to normal levels and stabilise it, by which time most of his organs had shut down. We’re just using supportive treatment at the moment, giving every- thing the chance to get working again, but his kidneys are still giving cause for concern.’
Jo frowned.
‘Wouldn’t you only get a situation like that if he had sepsis, or a massive bleed or something?’
‘I have seen some elderly patients react in that way, but they usually have something else wrong with them that their body is reacting to. We have found absolutely nothing in this case.’
‘Did he have a history of problems with his blood pressure?’ Kathryn smiled and Jo felt she had asked the right question.
‘Yes. He had a history of hypertension and had been prescribed an ACE inhibitor and a calcium channel blocker, so we checked their levels early on.’
‘And?’
‘He’d taken a big overdose of an ACE inhibitor along with quite a bit of alcohol. All of which, of course, he denies.’
‘Of course.’ Jo’s mind was buzzing. How easy it would be to slip some extra tablets to someone, in a drink, perhaps, just enough to get them to pass out in the heat of the sauna. There might not have even been any intention to kill, just make him insensible and for an am- bulance to be needed. It worked if the point was to cause maximum embarrassment rather than death. Kathryn looked down as her bleep went off, checking to see who was calling. She looked tempted to leave it.
‘Dr Goodhew, Dr Goodhew!’ A young man in a white coat who didn’t look old enough to have left school, let alone qualified as a doc- tor, was hurrying across the café, giving her no chance of hiding any longer.
‘Got to go,’ Kathryn said as she gulped the last of her coffee and held onto what was left of her sandwich, clearly meaning to eat it on her way to whatever emergency she was being called to. ‘Do keep in touch, Jo. It would be interesting to hear how this pans out. Maybe we can go for that drink?’ And with a wave she was gone, swallowed up by the crowds that seemed to be pouring into the hospital from all directions.
Jo sat for a while longer, finishing her late lunch and thinking about the information she had been given and also wondering if she missed the drama and urgency of working in a hospital. As she looked at the staff, hurrying this way and that, with hardly time to have an uninterrupted meal, she decided not. No, she did not miss this or the indigestion that came from never being able to sit still and finish your food.
Chapter 17
It was Monday morning and Jo was sorting through the forms relating to patients who had been seen by the out of hours service over the weekend when she came across one that made her heart sink. Mr Her- ring had been admitted after an episode of slurred speech and confu- sion. The doctor who saw him thought he might have had a stroke and sent him straight in to hospital.
Jo checked her
watch. She had time to ring and get an update be- fore morning surgery if she was lucky. Grabbing her notes for the ses- sion she hurried down to her consulting room so that she could have peace and quiet while making the call, knowing that she could also start her prep for the morning rush while she inevitably hung on, wait- ing to be put through to the right person.
She was still sitting, phone tucked under her chin as she waited, when she had finished all her preparations. She was anxiously look- ing at the time, thinking that she was going to have to give up, when she finally reached the Medical Registrar who had been on call at the weekend and who had admitted Mr Herring.
‘Yeah,’ he told her, ‘we did think at first that it might have been a stroke, but there were no other signs and his CT was clear. The stroke consultant wasn’t overly impressed and then his urgent bloods came back and we decided it wasn’t a cardiovascular event.’
‘Let me guess, he was hypercalcaemic?’
‘Off the scale. Highest I’ve ever seen, so we decided that was the cause of his symptoms.’
‘I’ve been investigating him for this problem for a while but hav- en’t found why it’s so high, as yet.’
‘We’re going to keep him in for a few days, bed situation permit- ting, see if we can get to the bottom of it, but he’s already improving so …’
Jo knew exactly what he was saying. If a patient with a more urgent problem needed the bed, Mr Herring would be discharged and would once more become her responsibility. It was a sad fact that hospital beds were almost always in short supply these days.
Before she left at lunchtime, Jo found time to seek out Richard and tell him about Mr Herring.
‘We’ll need to keep an eye on him once he’s out of hospital. I’ve asked them to let me know if they plan to discharge him, but we all know that it can get missed.’
‘I know someone in the discharge team. I’ll make sure she lets us know,’ Richard answered. At last he was proving useful!