Go Not Gently

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Back in the garden I set to weeding and rehearsed what I could tell the police. It didn’t amount to anything they’d want to hear – a mishmash of connections, suspicions and concerns. The only hard evidence of any wrongdoing was the falsely labelled pills and the police were already looking into that.

I struggled with a crop of dandelions along the edge of the flagged path. It wasn’t a crime for a GP to be eager to refer patients to a well-regarded local psycho-geriatric unit, even if his brother-in-law did work there. It wasn’t a crime for the same GP to order drugs from his wife’s pharmaceutical company or for the city’s neurosurgeon to sit on the board of that company. It wasn’t a crime for a GP to lose his temper.

I was right. There were too many coincidences for comfort. But I wasn’t going to go making a fool of myself in front of the police. Let them look into the mix-up with the tablets, meanwhile I needed more idea of how this all connected to Lily Palmer. Suppose she had been pushed – she was very ill now in hospital – did somebody want Lily dead? I threw down the trowel, washed the soil off my hands and rang Agnes back.

‘Did you ever check whether Charles was the only beneficiary in Lily’s will?’

‘No.’

‘Can you check for me, find out where the will’s held and if she made any recent changes?’

‘I can do. He’s up for the weekend, I’ll be seeing him at the hospital. You think that might be behind it all? Lily only had the house, nothing else. That was sold off so there would be enough to pay the charges at Homelea.’

‘And she wasn’t there very long so there’d be quite a lot still left. I’m sorry, it’s a horrible thought, but I think we should check.’

‘But Charles would contest it, if there was anything like that, surely.’

‘Let’s wait and see what he says.’

I was filling the watering can when the doorbell rang. If I’d been back out in the garden I probably wouldn’t have heard it.

Dr Ken Goulden was on the doorstep. My stomach lurched. I wanted to run. How the hell had he got my home address? He was bigger than I remembered, built like a rugby player.

‘What do you want?’ I was hardly civil.

‘Just what do you think you’re playing at?’

I opened my mouth but it was a rhetorical question.

‘I don’t know what your game is, Miss Kilkenny, but you’ve been making wild allegations, upsetting staff at Homelea and interfering in business that doesn’t concern you.’ His jaw was taut as he reined in his temper.

‘But it does concern me,’ I replied. ‘It concerns me a great deal actually. Mrs Palmer was being given enough drugs to make-’

‘You’ve no right to go around meddling in medical affairs,’ he said fiercely. ‘You stay away from my patients, is that clear?’

‘Those tablets were dangerous,’ I retorted. ‘Doesn’t that concern you?’

‘Mummy, who is it?’ Maddie called from the kitchen.

‘Just someone from work. You go back in the garden.’

‘I want a drink.’

‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

‘Mistakes happen, human error,’ Goulden said. ‘It’s regrettable but that’s no reason for this sort of vindictive harassment. I’ll be speaking to my solicitor. I have a reputation to think about and I’m not going to let you jeopardise that with your cheap innuendo and your wild accusations.’

Bloody hell! What on earth had Mrs Knight said to him? ‘I work with facts,’ I began, my anger mounting. ‘You prescribed those drugs, your wife’s firm supplied them and when we came to you worried about Mrs Palmer you did nothing-’

He didn’t let me carry on. ‘You stay away from my patients.’ He pushed his finger at me, emphasising the words. ‘Any more harassment…’

‘Mummy?’ Maddie was coming down the hall.

I moved to go in. Goulden grabbed my wrist, his hand large and hot. ‘Do you understand?’ he hissed at me. I could smell whisky on his breath. It mingled with a citrus aftershave. ‘Any more meddling from you, missy, and my brief will be down on you like a ton of bricks. We’ll do you for theft, trespass, defamation, libel, the works. Your feet won’t touch the ground.’ His nostrils whitened and his cheeks reddened as he spoke. ‘You can kiss goodbye to all this.’ He jerked his head towards the house. ‘You won’t know what’s hit you.’

‘Let go.’ I enunciated clearly through clenched teeth.

He dropped my wrist and I moved inside, slammed the door shut. My wrist ached. I was as livid as I was scared. The arrogant, bullying bastard. To come here and threaten me. Just wait, I thought. The police will soon be knocking on your door, matey, asking awkward questions.

‘Why was that man and you shouting?’

I steered Maddie back to the kitchen. ‘We were having an argument about work. He’s gone now. So, you want a drink?’

‘Blackcurrant.’

I unscrewed the lid. My hand was shaking so much it was all I could do to pour the dark syrup into the cup.

On Sunday Agnes rang me. Lily’s will was in Charles’ safekeeping. She’d updated it just before her move to Homelea so it would take account of the change in her circumstances. Charles was the sole beneficiary.

‘We’ve put the wind up Goulden,’ I said. I told her about his unwelcome visit. ‘I don’t think he’s realised that the police have been informed. I’d love to see his face when they turn up on the doorstep.’

‘Sal, hadn’t you better talk to them soon, if he’s been to your home, threatening you?’

‘I will.’

Then I rang Moira to find out who was handling the investigation.

‘DS Wignall – you can get hold of him at Bootle Street. Won’t be there today. Why?’

‘I’d like to talk to him. There’s a lot of questions that could do with looking into. I’ve had Dr Goulden round, telling me to lay off.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. Got quite nasty.’

‘Sal, you didn’t tell him about the police?’

‘No. But he knows about the lab results.’

‘How?’

I felt sheepish. ‘Well, I went to see the matron at the home, after I’d spoken to you on Friday. I didn’t mention the police or anything. Anyway, she must have told Goulden.’

‘Well, I shouldn’t think DS Wignall will be best pleased.’

‘Maybe not but I don’t think Goulden realises how far it’s gone. He’s not about to flee the country or anything. As far as he’s concerned I’ve had an analysis done which threatened his precious reputation and he came to warn me off.’

Maddie and I spent a couple of hours sorting out the toy boxes. While she rediscovered lost treasures I ended up reuniting Lego, removing rotting fragments of crisps and apple and chucking obscure bits of plastic and broken toys in the bin when I was sure she wasn’t looking. It all looked neater and cleaner when we finished. It was now possible to tell which box held jigsaws and games and which was Duplo and other little figures. It’d stay like that for all of forty-eight hours until Tom and Maddie had time to redistribute it all thoroughly.

By then I was ready to put my feet up. There was a feature in the Sunday paper which highlighted the shortage of NHS beds for people with Alzheimer’s and the lack of psycho-geriatric units. Most people were being cared for in private homes, many staffed by inexperienced workers. Manchester and the Marion Unit was one of the examples. A local GP was quoted: ‘It’s now virtually impossible to refer a patient to the Marion Unit and have any hope of their getting a place. There’s a ridiculous waiting list. The unit only has sixty beds, twenty-five of those are for acute cases and short-term stay where people need to see a consultant and have proper assessment. We’ve a growing elderly population and shrinking resources. No one’s suggesting a return to the old days of the large psychiatric hospitals but we desperately need more facilities. It’s an intolerable situation.’

But Dr Goulden managed to get his patients in, six in one year. It stank.

First thing Monday morning I rang the registry office, got put through to deaths and gave them Ernest Theakston’s name and date of birth. Asked them to search for a death in the last six mouths. Normally they want you to make a written application, or go in and spend hours there yourself searching through index cards, but with recent deaths they can call them up on the computer.

He was there. He’d died at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, about ten days after he’d left Homelea.

‘I can’t verify that for you,’ said the clerk. ‘You’d need to come in for verification.’

‘No, it’s OK,’ I said. ‘That’s him. I’m sure that’s him.’

I didn’t know what had killed him. But it sure as hell wasn’t old age.