A Family Affair Read online

  ‘Thank you, Dorothea. I’ll get over there right away.’

  The foreboding thickened into very real anxiety. It enveloped her in a fuzzy cloud as she hastily got rid of her patient, who was suffering from nothing more serious than an attack of sinusitis, and drove over to Ida Lockyear’s cottage.

  From what Dorothea had said it sounded as if Ida might already be dead – but why? It could be she’d had a stroke or a heart attack, of course – at her age that was by far the most likely explanation. And yet …

  Helen thought of all the times Ida had visited the surgery, all the times she’d dismissed the woman as a ‘heartsink patient’. Was it possible there had been something seriously wrong with her all the time and Helen had missed it? Dorothea suspected as much; that was why she had warned Helen before calling the ambulance. And Helen knew that deep down she thought so too. That was the reason she was trembling with anxiety.

  As she turned into the lane – little more than a track – where Ida lived, Helen saw the Co-op bread van parked outside. It was one of the new motorised ones; though horses and carts were still used for deliveries on some rounds, motorised vans now served the more outlying districts.

  Charlie Gregory and Annie Tiley, the neighbour to whose home he had run to use the telephone, were on the path. Annie had thrown a coat on over her working dress and pinafore and Charlie’s hands were thrust into the pockets of his donkey jacket.

  Helen pulled up behind the bread van and they came down the path to meet her.

  ‘Thank goodness you’m here, Doctor!’ Charlie’s face was red and his eyes watering from the cold; a heavy dew-drop hung pendulously from the end of his nose.

  ‘Not that there’s much you can do,’ Annie Tiley put in. ‘She’s gone all right and the place is full of fumes. That’s why we’m out here in the cold. I reckon we should be treated an’all, after what we breathed in in there.’

  ‘It’s her boiler,’ Charlie supplied. ‘That’s what’s done it, all right. Goodness only knows when she last had the thing seen to.’

  Helen felt sick as all her worst fears came back to haunt her. The boiler. Carbon monoxide poisoning. It added up. That was what had been causing Ida’s symptoms. And she had dismissed them as the psychosomatic results of an old woman’s loneliness.

  ‘I’d better have a look at her,’ she said.

  ‘Mind how you go in there, Doctor! Though it shouldn’t be so bad now. We opened all the windows.’

  As Helen passed the front door she noticed how the brass knob and knocker gleamed against the sun-faded paintwork. Ida must have polished it quite recently – perhaps as recently as yesterday – and Helen realised with a pang of guilt just how little she really knew about the woman who had been her patient. She’d never been here, to Ida’s home, before. Ida had always come to the surgery – and even then she hadn’t really listened to her, simply tried to sort out her symptoms and then dismissed them because they had seemed so innocuous and insignificant, nothing more than an attempt to secure attention.

  The back door was ajar – obviously Charlie had gone in this way when he had knocked and got no reply. It led directly into a kitchen-cum-living room. One wall housed the sink and a motley collection of cupboards, all of different levels, a tall kitchen cabinet faced her, its pull-down working surface open. In the middle of the room was a table, covered with well-scrubbed oilcloth, and three dining chairs with tall backs and leatherette seats.

  Ida was in an easy chair beside what must be the offending boiler. Her head rested against one of the wings, her hands were folded in her lap and her legs splayed out in front of her as if she had simply fallen asleep. But one glance was enough to tell Helen she was not asleep. Ida was dead, and had been for some time.

  Helen made a cursory examination but there was nothing the body could tell her that the fumes still lingering in the room could not. She went back outside, glad, for once, of the chilling fresh air. She felt slightly sick and her legs were trembling as they sometimes did when she was upset.

  Charlie and Annie looked at her expectantly and she answered them with a small shake of her head.

  ‘I knew it,’ Charlie said. ‘Soon as I looked at her, I knew she’d gone. Knew even before that really. She’s always on the lookout for me. I mean, there’s a lot of folk just leave their money on the side and I’ll take it and put their pound loaf or their lardy cake or whatever down where’twas and never set eyes on’em. But Ida, she’d always catch me, whether she wanted anything or not. Always wanted a word.’

  ‘Oh, that were Ida,’ Annie agreed, but she looked a little shamefaced and it crossed Helen’s mind that she, too, might be feeling a little guilty, wishing, perhaps, now that it was too late, that she had given more of her time to her admittedly irritating neighbour.

  A clanging bell announced the arrival of the ambulance, closely followed by a police car. Dorothea had wasted no time in making her phone calls to the emergency services. The two ambulance men started purposefully up the path. Helen stopped them.

  ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t touch her.’ She turned to PC Dowding, young, fresh-faced and eager. ‘This is one for you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Sudden death?’ Dowding ran his fingers through springy ginger hair, pausing to scratch his head in a way that reminded Helen incongruously of Laurel and Hardy. For a horrible moment she teetered on the brink of totally inappropriate laughter, and knew that it was reaction.

  ‘I can’t issue a death certificate. You’ll have to inform the coroner.’

  She nodded briefly to Charlie and Annie, returned to her car and started the engine. Then, with much revving and jerking, she squeezed out of the space between the baker’s van and the ambulance, reversed into a gateway opposite, and drove away ‘As if,’ Annie said later when she recounted events to her husband, Len, ‘all the little devils in hell was on her tail!’

  Carrie saw the mortuary van when she was on her way to work. It passed her in the steep part of the lane and she recognised it at once.

  Somebody must have died, she thought, and briefly wondered who. But it didn’t occupy her mind for long. That was too busy with other things. Namely Jenny and her very unsuitable romance.

  From the beginning, Carrie had had deep misgivings. She hadn’t cared at all for the idea of Jenny going out with a serviceman – here today and gone tomorrow – and about whom she, or anybody else for that matter, knew anything. But Jenny was sixteen now, she’d always said she’d allow her to go out with a boy when she was sixteen and, for all her reservations, Carrie was a woman of her word.

  It wouldn’t last, she’d told herself. She’d see him once or twice and that would be it. She only hoped Jenny wouldn’t get hurt. When the boy had been so-called posted somewhere in the wilds of East Anglia Carrie had felt enormous relief and vindication. She had been sorry for Jenny but not surprised when at first no letter had come. It was just as she’d expected. The letter and the flashy card with the cheap-looking brooch had been something of a set-back, but she had still not been overly concerned. Perhaps the posting had been genuine and not just an excuse, but Carrie felt confident that with him so far away it would all peter out in time.

  The trouble was, it hadn’t. Letters had continued to come at the rate of one or two a week and Jenny had even asked if this Bryn could come down to stay for a few days. Carrie hadn’t known what to say. She didn’t want him in her house, didn’t want the two of them under one roof, but didn’t know how to refuse. She’d hedged: ‘We’ll see, when the better weather comes,’ but Jenny had taken that as a yes and thanked her so effusively, with hugs and even tears, that Carrie had been completely thrown.

  She still didn’t know what to think, and this morning, when yet another letter had arrived, she had succumbed to temptation.

  Jenny left just before eight in the morning to catch her bus to college and the post didn’t usually arrive until quarter or twenty past. When the letter with the East Anglian postmark had fallen on to the mat along with the elect
ricity bill she’d taken it in and propped it up on the table as usual, ready for Jenny to find when she got home in the evening. But it had seemed to be mocking her. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, and in the end her curiosity had got the better of her.

  Trying to justify her actions by telling herself she was only doing it for Jenny’s good, she had boiled a kettle and steamed the letter open.

  The trouble was she hadn’t made a very good job of it. The paper had wrinkled a bit and there were a couple of tiny tears where the glue had held. But Carrie had gone ahead anyway – it was too late now to give up – and what she had read when she extracted the three sheets of cheap ruled paper from the envelope had made her hair curl.

  Whatever next! Carrie thought as she read the endearments and too-personal-for-her-liking sentiments. Dear oh dear! I don’t like the sound of this at all!

  It was as she tried to reseal the envelope that the idea came to her – and really she had no option, she told herself. If she gave it to Jenny looking like this, Jenny would know at a glance that it had been tampered with. Carrie hesitated, looking at it and wondering if she dared tear it up and throw it in the fire. That way Jenny would never know – she’d come to the conclusion in the end that this particular letter had been lost in the post.

  But somehow, for all her bad feelings about it, Carrie couldn’t quite bring herself to destroy the letter. She thought some more, then took it upstairs and hid it in her underwear drawer. At least that left her options open. If she changed her mind she could always retrieve it on a Saturday when Jenny was here, take it downstairs and pick it up with the rest of the post. Then if Jenny was suspicious about it having been opened, she’d think it had been done elsewhere – even at the post office, perhaps – and the date stamp would prove it had been delayed.

  But Carrie was still thinking about it as she walked down the steep lane towards the Jolly Collier, still worrying, still busy justifying herself – though the word guilt would never have crossed her mind. She’d do her best for Jenny, just as she always had, guide her away from all the pitfalls by persuasion, heavy-handed ultimatums and, if necessary, guile and deception. The ends justified the means, especially when she knew she was in the right, Carrie always thought.

  She could be a very determined woman.

  ‘There’ll have to be a post-mortem, of course, possibly an inquest,’ Reuben Hobbs said.

  He looked and sounded grimly displeased.

  ‘I realise that,’ Helen said. ‘I’m no happier about what’s happened than you are, Reuben. I keep asking myself whether there was something I could have done. But I ran all the usual tests and they came up negative. The fact that her symptoms might indicate carbon monoxide poisoning in small frequent doses never crossed my mind. Like the rest of us, I thought she was malingering.’

  ‘That’s no excuse.’

  ‘I realise that too and I don’t think I shall ever forgive myself.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Reuben turned his pen over between his fingers, looking at it with intense concentration. ‘This is always the danger, of course, in general practice. Becoming complacent.’

  Helen bridled slightly.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve become complacent. If I thought that, I’d give up the profession tomorrow.’

  Reuben let this go without comment.

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to play it by ear. I suggest you go over every detail of Mrs Lockyear’s case now, whilst it’s fresh in your mind, and compile some sort of statement. As I said, I think it’s quite likely there will be an inquest and it’s as well to be prepared. Then try to put it out of your mind. You don’t want to be so preoccupied that you give your other patients less than your full attention. We don’t want any more disasters.’

  He didn’t add that this sort of thing was very bad publicity for the practice, but he didn’t need to. Helen was already all too aware of the implications. Quite apart from word of mouth, the whole tragic incident would receive full press coverage in the Mercury – already Walter Evans had been on the telephone looking for a comment to add to the story that would no doubt be the front-page story on Friday. Dorothea had fobbed him off for now, but if there was an inquest he’d be there, with his pencil sharpened and his quick inquisitive mind missing nothing. Feeling as she did herself, that somehow she had failed Ida Lockyear, Helen didn’t see how she could blame others for reaching the same conclusion.

  For the first time Helen wondered miserably whether she was in the wrong job, and wondered whether Reuben thought so too. He hadn’t been exactly supportive. She’d felt his criticism hanging heavy in the atmosphere between them. And he had every right to be critical. However one looked at it, a patient had died because she hadn’t investigated fully enough. And who was to say it couldn’t happen again?

  The full weight of responsibility settled heavily upon Helen’s shoulders, and she felt bowed down by it. Later, she would think about the possibility that this unhappy episode might scupper her chances of the partnership she hoped for. But for the moment her thoughts were all with Ida, who had put out a cry for help and been misunderstood – a misunderstanding which had cost her her life.

  She tried to ring Guy. Usually so self-sufficient, on this occasion Helen desperately needed to talk about what had happened to someone who would understand. But Guy was unavailable, and his secretary, who was based at the private clinic from which he sometimes operated, was evasive.

  ‘If I could take your name and address I’ll pass the message on.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ Helen said, ashamed, already, of having run to Guy for support, and also wary about giving the woman her name. Guy had his own flat now, in Clifton, but they were still being discreet.

  ‘That’s not Susan, is it?’ the secretary enquired.

  ‘No, it’s not.’ Helen almost, but not quite, fell into the trap. Crafty secretary, using a trick like that to try to get her to disclose her identity. ‘I already said – it’s not important. I’ll catch up with him later.’

  She put down the phone and picked up the list of house calls Dorothea had left on her desk. Reuben had been right to say she must not let this unfortunate business distract her from giving her other patients her full attention. But it wasn’t easy to concentrate on sorting the wheat from the chaff with something like this hanging over her.

  Somehow she got through the day, the usual mish-mash of infections and minor complaints interspersed with the occasional more serious one. But now she felt less than confident about the simplest diagnosis and imagined, too, that she saw doubt in the faces of her patients. If she felt like this now, what would it be like when the story got around – particularly if the coroner decided some blame should be attached to her. Helen’s face burned as she imagined the word negligence being bandied round.

  By the time she finished afternoon surgery she was shaking with fatigue. The constant worrying seemed to have drained all her last resources.

  Helen sighed, pulled herself together and looked at her watch. Six thirty. Perhaps this would be a good time to call Guy again. He should be home by now. She dialled the number, imagining him relaxing with a gin and tonic, perhaps in the bath even, soaking away the smells of the hospital. But the phone rang and rang and suddenly she realised she wouldn’t have known what to say to him anyway. Wasn’t this just what she had always tried to hide from him – her doubts, her insecurities, her failures? Just hearing his voice would have been a comfort, of course, but when had he ever been there when she had needed him? Tears of self-pity pricked in the corners of her eyes. For as long as she could remember, it seemed to her, she had fought her battles alone.

  She blinked fiercely, annoyed with herself for her weakness. If she was alone, it was her own fault. Her choice. Maybe the first time around she hadn’t known what she was letting herself in for, getting involved with him. She’d been too naive, too trusting, too much in love. But this time she hadn’t been under any illusions. She’d thought she was battle-scarred enough to cope, that she�
��d just play along and see how things developed. She’d let him flatter and cajole his way back into her life, and pretended to herself that she was the one in control. But all the time she’d been walking back into the same peat bog, falling into the same trap. All over again.

  Who did you think you were kidding, Helen?

  Too weary and depressed to be able to make the effort to clear up and go home, Helen folded her arms on her desk and lay her head on them. The events of the day were still going around in her mind, overlaid now with depression about her feelings for Guy – such unwanted, treacherous feelings, yet so totally out of her control – but they were blurring, becoming oddly distant and confused. She could hear the rain beating on the window and the wind moaning softly, she could hear the murmur of voices, but they too were distant, muzzy.

  Exhausted from overwork, broken nights and too much emotion,

  Helen slept.

  The sound of the door being opened jolted her awake. She raised her head sharply, jarring her neck. Her vision was slightly blurred and her mouth tasted stale.

  ‘Helen? Are you all right?’

  It was Paul, standing in the doorway.

  ‘Yes – yes, I’m OK. I must have fallen asleep.’ She massaged her sore neck, squinting at him.

  ‘Strange place to choose.’

  ‘I didn’t choose it, I just …’ She rubbed her eyes, leaving a dark smudge of mascara on her lower lid, ‘I was just sitting here thinking and I …’

  ‘I saw your car was still here – and your light on,’ he said, by way of belated explanation. And then: ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Ida Lockyear? You’ve heard then?’

  ‘Reuben phoned me.’

  ‘I cocked up,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘You did, didn’t you?’ He came in, closing the door behind him. ‘You shouldn’t be too hard on yourself, though. It could happen to anyone.’

  ‘Carbon monoxide poisoning. It never even crossed my mind …’

  ‘It’s pretty unusual. You weren’t to know the state of her boiler. If anyone’s to blame it’s her son for not making sure it was safe. And it has to be said, Ida herself must take some of the blame. She’d bunged up all the ventilation in that kitchen with rags. To keep the warmth in, I suppose, and the draughts out.’