Private London

Chapter 114

‘When did you find out about him?’ Kirsty asked.

Doctor Lloyd looked up at her for a moment or two, then sighed. Her whole body relaxed, as if an intolerable burden that she had been carrying for some time had been lifted from her. Her eyes were still desolate, however. Filled with the kind of pain that can never go away.

‘About the sort of monster he was?’

Kirsty waited for her to continue.

‘You’d think a wife would know. It’s the sort of detail, after all, that…’ Doctor Lloyd shook her head, letting the words trail off. The enormity of what she had discovered seemingly beyond her power to articulate it. ‘She came to me. The whore…’

‘Andrea Kisslinger?’

Anger sparked in the surgeon’s eyes. ‘Alistair was paying her. But not enough. It never is enough for people like her, is it? She figured the shame and the scandal. But she didn’t realise…’

The older woman bent over and straightened the new flowers, not speaking for nearly a minute. Kirsty waited, letting her compose her thoughts, find the words she needed to say.

‘She was nine years old, inspector, and she hung herself.’

Kirsty nodded – she already knew. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Have you any idea what it is like for a mother to walk in to her child’s bedroom and discover that?’

‘I can’t even imagine.’

‘I watch people die every day, Inspector Webb. It’s my job. As much as I… as we try to save them. We can’t. We can’t save them all.’

‘I know.’

‘Some people don’t deserve to live, it’s as simple as that. You see a cancer, you cut it out, you stop the infection spreading if you can. People say we doctors play God, and in some ways we do. Once you have had the power of life and death… well, it wasn’t hard to do what I did. At least they gave something to others in the end. One of them even saved a life. A deserving life. Shame it couldn’t have worked like that with the others.’

‘Why take the organs, then?’

‘Evidence, inspector. Just enough, no more. The final nail, if you like, in his coffin.’ Doctor Lloyd smiled humourlessly, her lips thin with more than the chill in the air. ‘I know the police like things tied up as neatly as we surgeons do.’

Kirsty Webb looked at the older woman’s eyes. To her, she seemed perfectly sane. Sounded perfectly rational. Who knew… maybe she was. Compared with her husband and people like him – maybe she wasn’t mad at all.

‘You confronted Alistair?’

‘I gave him a choice, inspector.’ She looked down at the small grave. ‘Which was more than Emily had.’

‘You should have come to us.’

‘You’d think it would be hard for this kind of people to find each other, wouldn’t you? But it isn’t. And do you know why, Inspector Webb?’

Kirsty shook her head.

‘Because there are so damn many of them. And you all know that.’

Kirsty didn’t reply. She didn’t need to. The woman was right. Doctor Lloyd straightened herself. A half-smile played on her lips for a moment and she squared her shoulders.

‘So are you going to place me under arrest?’ she said. ‘You have no proof, I take it, other than that a woman who looked like me was seen in a pub with Colin Harris?’

‘You seem quite confident of that.’

‘You’re on your own, inspector. I know how these things work. You’d have squad cars, lights flashing, sirens. There’d be a news crew filming you making the arrest of your career. All you have, after all, is a barman’s vague recollection prompted by yourself. I think it’s called leading the witness. And your instincts, of course. But I don’t think you’ll find that they are recognised as evidence in a court of law.’

‘My instincts aren’t important now.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘Because I resigned from the force this morning. I’m not in the police any more.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘Because I needed to know.’

‘Either way, it’s over now.’ But the surgeon’s shoulders sagged again, contradicting her words. It could never be over for her.

‘Turn yourself in, Doctor Lloyd.’

‘And who is that going to help?’

Kirsty looked at her sympathetically as tears welled in the older woman’s eyes. ‘You,’ she said softly.

‘And who would bring Emily flowers? Who would look after her then?’

The woman couldn’t hold the tears back now and Kirsty put her arms around her. Doctor Lloyd’s heart was pounding, her fragile form fluttering within the younger woman’s embrace. She felt as though her bones were hollow.

In some ways, ex-Detective Inspector Kirsty Webb was glad she had resigned earlier that day. Justice as far as the law was concerned was a matter of science. But people weren’t machines. She didn’t know what the other woman, even now crumpling in on herself, deserved. That was way beyond Kirsty’s area of expertise. Police didn’t get to make that call. Their job was to unearth the facts, and Kirsty didn’t believe she had the moral compass to put these facts in order and make a judgement. She was glad she didn’t have to.

She’d made a call to Detective Inspector Natalie James just before she had handed in her notice.

She figured things would fall as they did.