Guilt at the Garage

FIFTEEN

‘So,’ asked Carole, ‘are you suggesting that Billy Shefford was involved with this Dr Rawley in some kind of cover-up?’

‘I don’t really know what I’m suggesting,’ said Jude. ‘It just seems odd to me. How did Bill Shefford get in touch with Dr Rawley? Because, do you remember, when we were with Frankie in the Crown and Anchor, she said Bill had been seeing the doctor who signed the death certificate? She didn’t mention the name, though.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘I mean, you, with your Home Office background, do you know what happens after an accidental death? Does there have to be a police investigation or an inquest?’

‘I don’t think there has to be,’ said Carole judiciously. She wanted to maintain her professional image, but in fact this wasn’t an area in which she had any specialized knowledge. ‘There might be an investigation from the Health and Safety Executive … though Frankie said they’d recently had an inspection from them.’ Finally, she confessed, ‘I really don’t know.’

‘Hm. Well, if there’s anything you can find out while I’m away …’

‘Away?’ Carole echoed, puzzled.

‘I told you, I’m going to Leeds in the morning.’

‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Carole. ‘To your lesbian conference.’

When Carole came downstairs the following morning, the Friday, there was a piece of paper on the High Tor doormat. The message read: ‘DON’T THINK YOU’RE SAFE, YOU BITCH!’

Her first instinct was to ring Jude. Then she remembered her neighbour had already left on her trip up North. It wasn’t worth calling her on the mobile. Carole didn’t want to sound needy.

But she did want to find out who was responsible for this campaign of harassment against her. Though, perhaps surprisingly, her stronger imperative was to find out the truth about Bill Shefford’s death.

So, with her neighbour away, she thought she might do a little investigation on her own. The idea of presenting Jude with new information – or even, dare she hope, a solution – on her return was rather appealing.

Somehow, Jude’s absence increased Carole’s confidence. She started her research online, at the laptop in the spare room, seeking out alternative therapists in the local area. The number of listings surprised her. All kinds of services were offered in Fethering and Fedborough, extending to Worthing and Brighton to the east, Chichester and Portsmouth to the west. She went through them meticulously. Some were individual practitioners, others attached to therapy centres. It took a long time to find the name she was looking for.

Having found it, she was faced by a dilemma. Jude, of course, had a strict code of ethics in medical matters, but Carole was not restricted by such considerations. And, in spite of the level of success she’d seen her neighbour achieve with various clients, her own level of scepticism about the whole healing business remained high. Though she would never have dreamt of lying to anyone in the NHS, she thought alternative therapists were fair game.

So, she rang through to the Magic of Therapy Centre in Smalting and made an appointment that afternoon to see Dr Robert Rawley.

‘So, it’s the right knee, is it, Mrs Seddon?’ he asked.

The Magic of Therapy Centre operated from a converted – and presumably deconsecrated – church. Smalting was a small seaside village to the west of Fethering. Its residents thought they were socially superior to Fethering’s. Mind you, Fethering’s thought they were socially superior to Smalting’s. But Smalting didn’t have a cultural excrescence like the former ‘council housing’ of the Downside Estate within its boundaries, so its residents reckoned that settled the argument.

Dr Rawley was a long thin man, dressed in a black shirt and black jeans. Carole preferred her doctors in sports jackets like the ones at Fethering Surgery. But then what could you expect from practitioners who embraced alternative as well as traditional medicine?

Carole had not yet taken her knee to the proper doctors. She knew what would have happened if she’d gone to Fethering Surgery. She almost definitely wouldn’t have secured an appointment with the one doctor she trusted there – and whom she used to think of as ‘her doctor’. She would instead have been fobbed off with some eleven-year-old trainee, who would have looked at her knee and referred her to St Giles’s Hospital in Clincham for an X-ray. Whose inconclusive results would take weeks to arrive back at the surgery. And when they did arrive, the surgery would forget to tell her and she’d have to ring them.

She wasn’t expecting anything very different going private at the Magic of Therapy Centre, but she reckoned the expense was justified as part of her investigation in Bill Shefford’s death.

With a view to having her knee examined, she had worn a skirt rather than trousers and, in spite of the cold weather, no tights. Just socks under her sensible shoes. She didn’t relish the indignity of having to take any clothes off.

Once she had confirmed that the right knee was the one causing her problems, Dr Rawley asked her to stand and move her foot in various directions, first with shoes on, then without. She had to tell him which positions caused pain, and he noted the result on an iPad.

Next, as requested, she lay down on the treatment couch while he felt and manipulated the offending limb, once again noting the movements which made her wince.

He asked her to get off the couch and take a chair. Then he announced, ‘I would say it is definitely arthritis.’

This was far from good news for Carole. The word ‘arthritis’ carried such heavy connotations of age and decrepitude. She didn’t think she was old enough to be even distantly associated with the condition.

‘Presumably,’ she said, ‘your diagnosis could be confirmed by an X-ray?’

‘It could be,’ Dr Rawley agreed, ‘though it would be a waste of effort to take one.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, as you observed, it would only confirm what I’ve just told you. What is causing the pain in your knee is arthritis.’

‘I’m sure, if I’d gone to my usual doctor, he would have recommended having an X-ray taken.’ She didn’t mention the unlikelihood of her actually getting an appointment with her usual doctor.

Dr Rawley shrugged. ‘That would have been his decision, and I am not about to question the decision of a fellow practitioner. It is my view, however, that an X-ray is unnecessary and a waste of expensive resources.’

‘Oh.’

‘And, incidentally, I think I would be justified in asking, if you so favour the methods of your usual doctor, why aren’t you at their surgery consulting them? Why have you come to see me?’

This was too direct a question, and one for which Carole had not really prepared an answer. She replied evasively, ‘I’ve had your services recommended to me.’

‘That’s good. From a satisfied customer?’

To say ‘No’ would sound stupid. She wished she hadn’t started off down this particular track. So, she said, ‘Yes.’

‘May I ask who?’

She was stuck with it now. ‘Bill Shefford.’

There was a momentary silence before Dr Rawley said, ‘Well, I’m glad he was a satisfied customer. Before … what happened to him.’

‘Very sad.’

‘Yes.’ The doctor seemed to feel that enough had been said on that subject. ‘So, the question I’m sure you want to ask is: What do we do about it?’

‘What do we do about what?’ asked Carole, whose mind had been developing other scenarios.

‘Your knee.’

‘Ah. My knee. Yes.’

‘That is, after all, why you came to see me.’ Again, a small silence. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ Carole moved into realist mode. ‘Well, there’s no cure for arthritis, is there?’

‘There are many treatments that can alleviate the symptoms.’

‘Yes, I’m sure. But there’s no cure.’

‘Never say never.’ Dr Rawley grinned thinly. ‘There’s a lot of research going on at the moment, so a cure might be possible at some point.’

‘When you say “research”, do you mean research into new drugs? Or alternative therapies?’

‘I was referring to alternative therapies. Drugs have their place in medicine, but doctors rely too much on them. I only prescribe drugs when I have exhausted all other possibilities.’

‘Oh,’ said Carole. ‘And in my case, for arthritis, what other possibilities are there?’

‘Acupuncture can be very effective.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Carole, unconvinced. ‘For pain relief?’

‘And general well-being.’

That got one of Carole’s ‘Huh’s. ‘Any other suggestions?’

‘Your manner suggests to me that you don’t believe in “healing”.’

‘That’s very observant of you.’

‘You mean I’m right?’

‘You are.’

‘It’s not my place to comment on your opinions. I will simply say that I have seen spectacular results achieved by the work of healers.’

Carole was about to say that she lived next to one but curbed the instinct. This was her bit of the investigation. Leave Jude out of it for the time being. Instead, she observed, ‘It seems to me that healing is an area that attracts a lot of charlatans.’

‘That is sadly true,’ said Dr Rawley.

‘So, how do you know how to get a good healer? One who’s interested in your welfare rather than your cash?’

‘It’s a difficult area, as you say. You can go online and find websites for thousands of them. All with glowing testimonials. But it’s very easy to forge testimonials online. About the only way you can guarantee to find a good healer is by word of mouth. Recommendation from someone who’s benefited from their treatment.’

‘Hm.’ Carole took a risk. ‘I’ve heard, through a friend, of one practising round Fethering … called Jeremiah. Do you know him?’

‘We have met. I hear very good reports of his work. I’m sure, if you don’t warm to the idea of acupuncture …’

‘Which I don’t. The idea that you can cure one part of the body by sticking needles into another part of it is—’

‘Yes, thank you, I’ve heard all of the popular arguments against acupuncture. Many times. All I’m saying is that someone like Jeremiah could give you effective treatment for your knee. Certainly relieve the pain. Would you like me to give you his contact details?’

‘No, thanks. I can get them through my friend … if I were to decide to go down the route of consulting a healer …’

‘Which, your tone of voice suggests, is very unlikely.’

‘Perhaps.’

Dr Rawley stood up. ‘Well, I think that probably concludes our consultation, Mrs Seddon. I have given you a diagnosis of what is wrong with your knee. I have given you a couple of suggested treatments … which do not seem to fill you with enthusiasm. If you could settle up with the receptionist on the way out, that would be fine. I would normally say also sort it out with her if you want to book further appointments, but in your case, I don’t think that is going to happen. Is it?’

‘Probably not.’

‘No.’ He suddenly looked at her very intently. ‘Mrs Seddon, why did you really come to see me?’

Oh dear. She hadn’t planned for this. Was he really about to call her out as a fraud, whose not-very-painful knee was being used simply to further a criminal investigation? Carole floundered.

But, before she could give herself away, Dr Rawley revealed that his thoughts weren’t going in the direction she’d feared. ‘It’s a common syndrome that we doctors recognize well.’

‘Oh?’

‘A patient makes an appointment to consult about some minor condition … like, say, your knee … and then shows no interest in the treatments we recommend for it. And the reason for that is that … it wasn’t really the knee they had come about.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Frequently, there’s another, much deeper, anxiety that brings them to the surgery. Some life-threatening illness that they believe they may have contracted. Something so terrible to their mind that they daren’t talk to their closest family or friends about it. They make an appointment with a doctor either to get the all-clear or to have their worst imaginings confirmed.’

‘What, you’re saying they imagine they’re ill. You mean they’re hypochondriacs?’

‘Not necessarily. There might be a genuine cause for concern. And their worry about the secrecy of their condition might well lead them to make an appointment with a doctor who is not the one they see regularly … just as you have done.’

‘Well, I—’

He overrode her. ‘Quite often, it’s cancer they’re really worried about. I just wondered whether that might be the case with you, Mrs Seddon …?’

‘Certainly not!’ said Carole.

The bill she paid to the receptionist was, to Carole’s mind, pretty steep. She was glad she wasn’t about to book further appointments. But she thought she might possibly have got value for money in terms of information gained.