Go Not Gently

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘MAN CHARGED IN ACHEBE SLAYING. HUSBAND RELEASED,’ brayed the evening paper. Front-page news. Complete with one of the shots I’d taken of the man I’d seen at the hotel with Tina Achebe.

I sank into the chair, my coat still on, and scanned the text. He was named as Bill Sherwin, forty-two, a local businessman. There was nothing about why he might have murdered Tina, though much was made of the fact that they were both married. A police spokesman was quoted as saying forensic reports were still being prepared. No further details could be released at present. The paper rehashed details of Tina’s death, included quotes from neighbours and family about their response to both Jimmy’s release and Sherwin’s arrest, and showed a photo of the terraced house complete with police tape across the gate.

The police were also eager to hear from anyone who had been in that area of Levenshulme that day, who might have seen anything, perhaps without realising it, that could help build up a picture of the events that morning. It was clear that Bill Sherwin had not confessed to the killing and that they were still building the case against him.

I felt a wave of relief that Jimmy was innocent, and by implication that the murder of Tina Achebe had not been the result of my revelations. Unless…a fresh grub of guilty worry hatched as I wondered whether Sherwin had killed Tina because of the chain of events I’d set in motion: I told Jimmy, Jimmy confronted Tina, Tina told Sherwin…

Oh stop it, I admonished myself. Jimmy was free. And what horror had he been through these past days? Losing Tina, brutally murdered – that was enough to destroy anyone. But then to be accused of that murder, to be suspected, held, questioned. The rage he must have felt, the agony of it.

I made myself a strong hot toddy – whisky, water, lemon and honey – and watched the television news, waiting for the regional slot that followed. There was a report on Jimmy’s release with a brief film clip of him getting into an unmarked car, and shots of the house in Levenshulme and of Manchester Crown Court.

I retreated to bed. I looked in on the children on the way up. We don’t expect to outlive our children but Tina Achebe had died before her time. And Lily Palmer, she had lost her three-year-old daughter. How had she borne it? Had it been any more bearable back in the days when so many children died in infancy? I didn’t think so, although perhaps the rituals were there then, the means to acknowledge and mark the deaths of young ones. A child had died in Maddie’s class the previous year, a road accident. The whole neighbourhood had reeled with the shock. He had older brothers at the school too. They’d held a special assembly for him, Maddie had been full of it. I hadn’t known the family, I hadn’t felt I had any right to speak with the mother, not even to offer condolences. I’d bought a bunch of flowers instead and left them in the pile of cellophane bundles by the lamppost beside the road where the accident had happened.

I pulled the covers over Tom and picked up the bath towels from the floor. Once in my own bed I lost myself in the Louisiana swamplands with James Lee Burke as I sipped the pungent brew. The dog down the road was barking loud enough to waken the dead. I fantasised half a dozen ways to silence it and lulled myself to sleep.

I couldn’t put off a supermarket trip any longer. We were out of all the basics. After the school run I drove round there and stocked up. No matter how frugally I intended to shop I always ended up with items that weren’t on the list. I had once tried going to one of the new super-cheap outlets but there were so many things they didn’t sell that I’d had to do another shop the following day and spent just as much in the long run.

With the cupboards and fridge full I felt a small glow of satisfaction and as I’d used my credit card to pay I didn’t need to worry about the bill until next month.

I pottered through the afternoon. Ray had done a load of washing. I transferred it to the dryer. I tidied and cleaned the lounge, hoovered round. My cold was getting better but was still bad enough to slow me down. My energy was low. I sat in the kitchen with a cuppa. I really ought to think about winding up the case for Agnes. It all seemed to be petering out.

The phone rang.

‘Sal? Moira. Where the hell did you get those tablets?’

‘I told you, from a client. This GP, Goulden, had prescribed them for the woman in the rest home, the one we thought might have acute confusion. Her friend found them in her things. Is there something the matter?’

‘Should think she did have bloody confusion.’

‘Why?’

‘For a start they’re four times the marked dosage. Each tab’s got a hundred milligrams of thioridazine in. She’d be getting two hundred milligrams a day, not fifty. Were they giving her anything else?’

I thought back to the conversation at Dr Goulden’s surgery. ‘She got nitrazepam at night sometimes – to help her sleep.’

Moira snorted. ‘Classic. Adverse reaction. She’s getting massive doses of thioridazine – that’s enough in itself to make her disoriented and confused, induce panic attacks, breathing difficulties alternating with drowsiness – then they’re topping her up with nitrazepam. That’s making her even worse. She’ll be staggering around, peeing the bed, maybe even hallucinating, showing signs of psychosis. Enough to make anyone demented.’

They give me poison, that’s what Lily had said. They want my soul.

‘He said he’d look again at the dosage, Dr Goulden, when we talked to him. He said sometimes it took a while to get the balance right.’

‘Sal, all they needed to do was stop the medication and the symptoms would have stopped. It’s one of the first things that should be considered in cases like this but some GPs are that bloody cocksure. What’s he called? Goulden?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t know him. Where’s he based?’

‘Didsbury.’

‘The poor bloody woman probably hasn’t got Alzheimer’s at all.’

‘No, she has. They’ve just done a scan at the MRI and she’s got the lesions apparently.’

‘Well, I don’t know where this Goulden chap had the script prepared but it must be some Mickey Mouse setup. Four times the stated dosage. I ask you.’

‘Which chemist does it say on the label?’ I couldn’t remember.

‘I haven’t got them here,’ she snapped. ‘They’re still with the lab. They’ll be notifying the police as a matter of course.’

‘The police?’

‘Christ, yes. This sort of slipshod practice just isn’t on. These are powerful drugs being dished out by some incompetent pharmacist who shouldn’t be allowed to make up lucky bags, let alone medicines. I’ve left my name as a contact seeing as I sent the sample in but I’d better check with you I’ve got the facts right.’

We went over dates and times, names and places until Moira was clear about the sequence of events that had led to me leaving the tablets with her.

It was ironic really. If the scan that Mr Simcock had done hadn’t shown advanced organic changes to Lily’s brain then Agnes’ early suspicions that her decline was too rapid and could be due to some external factors could have been spot on. The high dosage and the combination of drugs would be enough to make anyone demented, Moira had said. Take her off the medication and the symptoms will go. It seemed terribly unfair that Lily actually had Alzheimer’s. I needed to tell Agnes about Moira’s news, although given the outlook for Lily and her current illness I thought there’d be cold comfort in the knowledge that there had been something amiss with the thioridazine tablets.

Something else niggled too. Goulden’s reaction to the tablets going missing. Was it simply over-zealous housekeeping or had he realised there was something wrong with them? Maybe he’d simply never got round to reducing the dosage as he’d promised us, and was covering his tracks. Or perhaps he’d realised there’d been some big cock-up at the chemists and didn’t want anyone to know. Why? No skin off his nose, surely. If he wanted to protect his own reputation as a doctor it’d be in his interest to have the chemist struck off for such negligence.

I wondered what Mrs Knight, the matron’s, part in all this was. She who lied about the retrieval of the bottle. What had prompted that? Had Goulden confided in her? I checked the clock. Ray was collecting Maddie and Tom, Friday afternoon being an early finish, in the time-honoured tradition of the building trade. If I set off now I could probably catch Mrs Knight before she left for home.