Guilt at the Garage

TWENTY-FOUR

His hand was cold as he palpated Jude’s generous right breast, but there was nothing sexual in the contact. Dr Rawley knew the standards required by his profession. As it had been for Carole’s appointment, his thin body was clad in black.

‘And you say it’s not causing you pain, Mrs Nicholls?’ For the personal details at the Magic of Therapy Centre, she had reverted to one of her married surnames and registered as ‘Mrs Judith Nicholls’. At the reception desk she had also done a very convincing performance as a woman unhinged by anxiety. In one period of her varied life, Jude had made a living as an actress, and the experience was not wasted in her current situation.

‘No pain exactly. I’m just kind of aware of it all the time.’ She judged finely the tremor of ill-suppressed panic in her voice.

‘Hm.’ The doctor removed the contact from her breast and washed his hands before turning back to her. ‘Do you mind if I just check out a few details about your life and lifestyle?’

‘No.’ With a little nervous giggle, she added, ‘Well, to get one of them out of the way, I probably drink more than the recommended government guidelines.’

Jude knew how to play this game. She’d been the one asking the questions to innumerable clients over the years. And she’d seen enough of them terrified to know how to do it.

‘You can do up your brassiere if you like,’ said Dr Rawley. She had deliberately worn a front-fastening one, which she now hooked up, before rearranging her top and scarves over it. Again, she fumbled with unsteady hands.

As she answered his routine questions, the doctor made notes on an iPad. It was all straightforward stuff. All she had to do was remember to sound paranoid.

When he’d finished the questionnaire, Dr Rawley put the iPad down on his desk. ‘It’s a scary disease, cancer.’

‘I know.’

‘Often scarier in the imagining than in the reality.’

Jude, who knew perfectly well what he meant by that, asked, ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I mean that it’s still the great bogeyman of illnesses. People worry disproportionately about the risks of developing cancer. Much more than other equally threatening diseases. And the worry particularly affects people who live on their own. Which, from what you’ve said, I gather you do.’

‘Yes,’ said Jude truthfully.

‘Particularly women who live on their own. And particularly women round your age.’

Jude made no objection to this categorization. She didn’t mind being written off as menopausal. She was playing a longer game.

‘Have you been worrying about the possibility that you’ve got breast cancer, Mrs Nicholls? Having sleepless nights over it?’

‘I have a bit,’ Jude conceded, mendaciously.

‘Hm.’ Dr Rawley was silent for a long moment. ‘As a matter of interest, why did you come here with this anxiety? Presumably, you’re registered with your local GP?’

‘Yes, but there’s always such a palaver there about getting an appointment, and then you might have to wait up to three weeks. I wanted a quick response. I wanted to know for sure whether or not I’ve got breast cancer.’

‘I can understand that. And you were prepared to pay for this speedier response?’

‘Of course. Money’s never been a problem for me,’ she lied.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He looked her straight in the eye. ‘And is that really the reason you didn’t want to go to the GP?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘For some people, Mrs Nicholls, health is a very private matter.’

‘Yes?’

‘Particularly if it’s something potentially serious.’ She nodded. ‘So, some people would rather keep their condition a secret, at least until they’ve had it professionally investigated.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘And those same people might prefer not to go to their regular GP with their anxieties, because they’d have to sit in the waiting room, probably surrounded by acquaintances, with all the locals speculating about what’s wrong with them.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you one of those people, Mrs Nicholls?’

‘I think I probably am.’ Her voice wobbled appropriately. ‘I live just along the coast in Fethering, which is a terribly gossipy place. I don’t want everyone in the village knowing what’s wrong with me … that is, if there is anything wrong with me.’

‘Hm.’ Again he gave her a very direct look. ‘And you do still think there’s something wrong with you, Mrs Nicholls, don’t you?’

Jude managed to manufacture a sob, before saying, ‘Yes, I’m afraid I do.’

He grimaced wryly. ‘If I told you it was all in your head …’

‘I still wouldn’t believe you,’ said Jude. Which was true. But not in the way Dr Rawley would have understood it.

‘All right. Well, the first thing that’s important to say is that, if you do have cancer – and I’m certainly not saying you do – the illness is far from the death sentence it used to be. Remarkable advances in treatment are being made on an almost daily basis, particularly with breast cancer. And, increasingly, the role of alternative medicine – or what I prefer to think of as complementary medicine – in curing the disease is being recognized. A lot of therapists who would once have been dismissed as charlatans are beginning to be taken seriously. As in many areas of contemporary life, a holistic approach is proving beneficial.

‘So, Mrs Nicholls, if I were to find you had cancer, and if you were prepared to let me treat that cancer, then you would have to agree to a course of treatment which involved both conventional and alternative therapies. So, I have to ask you – do you believe in the efficacy of alternative medicine?’

‘Yes, very strongly,’ said Jude. Which again was true. But again, not in the way Dr Rawley would have interpreted the answer. But then she embellished her statement with some half-truths. ‘I have lots of friends who’ve benefited from alternative therapies. And one who was completely cured of breast cancer by healing.’

‘Good. I’m glad to hear that. Every successful outcome is a small triumph over the sceptics. Well, first I think I must set your mind at rest. I don’t want you leaving the Magic of Therapy Centre this morning still convinced that you’re suffering from undiagnosed breast cancer. So, would you mind taking your top off for me again and we’ll have one final check …?’

Jude did as requested, removing her clothes with trembling fingers. Again, his palpation of the right breast was expert. ‘I really can’t feel anything,’ he concluded. ‘I think you have to accept you have a clean bill of health there.’

He turned, as if about to wash his hands again, then changed his mind. ‘But, Mrs Nicholls, since I suspect that you’re the kind of woman who’s going to worry anyway …’

Jude was flattered that her performance had been so convincing. ‘I’m afraid I am. A real worry-boots.’

‘… then I will just check the left breast to be absolutely certain.’

Her left breast was subjected to the same professional examination. His fingers touched a spot to the right of the nipple and then glided on. They came back to the same location. He pushed gently into the yielding flesh. He repeated the movement three more times. Then he moved round to sit at his desk.

‘I’m afraid,’ he announced, ‘that I have felt something there that could be a tumour … or, to be more accurate, something that could be becoming a tumour.’

Jude managed to produce real tears as she mumbled, ‘I knew I’d got it. I’ve known for months.’

But her real mood was far from sad. It was exultant.

Now Mrs Nicholls’s anxieties had been vindicated and she actually did have breast cancer, she asked Dr Rawley whether she should have a confirmatory X-ray. He said that might be necessary in time, but a new technique had recently been developed which could detect cancer in the system from a simple blood test.

Accordingly, he dabbed alcohol on to her thumb and withdrew a sample of blood into a small plastic bottle, which he sealed and wrote her details on. ‘That’ll go to the lab,’ he said. ‘I’ll phone you with the results within twenty-four hours.’

‘And if the diagnosis is confirmed?’

‘Then, Mrs Nicholls,’ he said with a thin smile, ‘we will embark on the process of getting you cured. For which, let me tell you, the prognosis is very good. I’ll give you the details when I call you with the results, but basically your cure will involve intensive therapy sessions with a healer and taking various prescribed dietary supplements.’

As she walked down to Smalting seafront, where Carole was waiting in the parked Renault, Jude still felt triumphant at having her speculation proved true.

But she also felt furious at the abuse of the healing profession.

‘It falls into place,’ said Carole when she’d heard about the consultation. ‘When I went to see him with my knee, he went through this routine about people going to the doctor’s with some minor ailment and not mentioning the symptoms that were really scaring them. He referred to cancer then. I think he was testing me out, seeing if I’d rise to the bait.’

‘Quite possible.’ Then Jude said, ‘Incidentally, if you’d like me to take a look at that knee of yours, I—’

‘It’s on the mend, thank you,’ said Carole crisply. To punish her for the lie, she felt a painful twinge from the knee as she changed gear.

Jude didn’t say anything else on the way back to Fethering. Her mind was buzzing. She now felt sure she knew what crime had been committed. But she couldn’t for the life of her work out how to prove it.

Talking again to Red was a starting point. He sounded very guarded as he answered his mobile. Jude didn’t think he received many calls. But he relaxed when he heard who it was.

‘Couple of things I should have asked you when we met …’

‘About Bill?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go ahead then.’

‘You said you weren’t surprised to hear that he was dead. And I assumed at the time you meant you thought he’d committed suicide.’

‘That’s what I did think. That’s what I still think.’

‘And you think he did it because of the cancer diagnosis?’

‘Yes. He said he wasn’t getting better, the treatment was costing a lot of money, and he wanted it to look like an accident for Malee’s sake.’

‘So she didn’t think she had driven him to suicide?’

‘No, no, for money reasons. He had a life insurance policy. There was something in that meant she wouldn’t get anything if he topped himself.’

‘I see. You knew Bill a long time. Had you ever known him have problems with his digestion?’

There was a cackle of laughter from the other end. ‘All the bloody time. Always got some kind of gut-rot, old Bill.’

‘And did you ever hear him say he thought it might be cancer?’

‘No. It was his diet. He ate badly. His own fault. Never could resist anything deep-fried.’

‘Do you know if he ever went to the doctor about it?’

‘Never mentioned it to me. We didn’t talk about stuff like that. Certainly never went to Fethering Surgery with it, though his daughter-in-law Shannon kept whingeing on at him.’

‘Do you know if he ever took her advice, consulted someone she recommended?’

‘Not while I was in touch with him, no.’

‘In the autumn?’

‘Wasn’t talking then, were we?’

‘Of course not. But he must’ve changed his mind, mustn’t he?’

‘How d’ya mean?’

‘You said last time you saw him, when he came to say goodbye, he told you the treatment wasn’t working.’

‘Yes.’

‘So that means he was actually having treatment.’

‘Yes. But not proper treatment.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘He wasn’t on the NHS. He was just seeing some bloody healer.’

Jude curbed what would have been her normal response to that. In this case, she thought Red’s response was justified.