Chris Collett - [Tom Mariner 01] (39 page)

Anna was stunned. He was more traumatised than she’d realised. ‘Jamie! It’s all right. It’s Dr Payne, Jamie’s friend,’ she tried to reassure him, casting the doctor an apologetic smile. ‘I told you. He’s all over the place.’ After a few minutes, she managed to calm Jamie by fetching him a drink and putting on a video.

Dr Payne dismissed Jamie’s reaction with his customary understanding. ‘He’s been through a lot. It’s not at all surprising that he should be reminded of the last ordeal. It might help if I prescribe you something to help him sleep, just for a few nights, until he’s back into a normal routine again.’ Sitting down at Anna’s kitchen table, he took out his prescription pad and pen and scribbled down something. ‘Now, let’s go and have a look at him.’

This time Jamie remained passive while Anna took off his shirt, and he allowed Dr Payne to listen to his chest.

The phone rang.

‘I’ll take it in the kitchen,’ Anna said, to minimise the disruption.

It was Mariner, ‘Hello, I got your message. How’s it going?’

‘All right, thanks.’ Now that he was on the line, Anna didn’t know quite what to say to him. ‘Look, I wanted to…’ but as she spoke something caught Anna’s eye.

Something embossed in gold on the leather case of Dr Payne’s prescription pad: BDP, the capital letters all interlinked.

That was interesting; he must know the company too. Perhaps he’d have some idea Snippets of a past conversation crept uninvited into her head. Who would Eddie have told about this? Who would he have trusted? Anna’s mind raced as she grappled to achieve some kind of coherency to the invading thoughts.

Jamie shouting No black mouth!

‘Are you all right, Anna?’ Mariner asked, at the other end of the line.

‘Yes,’ Anna said, immediately distracted by further remembrance. How did they get in so easily? The voices echoed. Eddie went out leaving Jamie … Maybe he always left the door on the latch. Or somebody else had a key to Eddie’s house.

Who would Eddie have trusted? Who had she trusted?

The person who knew her family intimately and would have known her mother’s medical history, who knew about Jamie’s obsessions with Hula Hoops and radio transmission masts, and knew about the spare key to Eddie’s house.

Anna shivered violently as understanding took shape.

‘Look I’ve got to go,’ she said suddenly. ‘The doctor is here examining Jamie.’

‘Okay,’ said Mariner, uncertainly.

‘We’ll keep in touch.’

‘Sure.’

Terminating the call so abruptly, Anna could sense Mariner’s confusion at the other end of the line but she had to give herself time to think this through. She must be wrong about this. There would be a reasonable, rational explanation for everything. All she had to do was ask.

‘Dr Payne,’ Anna walked back into the lounge, but unexpectedly the doctor and Jamie weren’t there. She went through to the bathroom, and as a last resort, Jamie’s bedroom, but the flat was empty. They had gone.

As weird phone calls went, that one was off the scale, thought Mariner. She hadn’t even told him what her original call was about. With Jamie safely recovered, he’d anticipated an opportunity to patch things up, but he’d got it wrong, again. It was becoming a habit. But the last few days had been a hell of a strain on her. She must be exhausted. And so was he. He couldn’t do this any more.

He’d have a quiet drink at the Boatman, pick up a takeaway and head for home. Then Knox appeared in the doorway, like a familiar picture in its frame.

‘Dr Payne?’ Anna called out, bewildered. What the hell was happening? Then she noticed that the front door was slightly ajar. Struggling to quell a rising panic, Anna rushed out into the hallway, her fears beginning to crystallise.

This late at night, everything was deathly quiet, there was no one around. She ran towards the lifts, but saw that they were both at ground floor level. Surely there hadn’t been time—then, deafening in the silence, the door at the other end of the hallway, the one leading up to the roof garden, banged shut on its spring.

Anna’s blood ran cold. ‘No,’ she gasped out loud.

‘Jamie!’ Anna raced up the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time. She burst on to the roof, to see Jamie and Dr Payne standing by the waist-height railings, like a couple of old friends admiring the view.

Dr Payne turned towards her. ‘Anna,’ he said, mildly.

‘Come and join us.’

Anna walked slowly towards them. ‘What’s going on?

What are you doing?’ she asked, hoarsely, her voice barely audible, even to her own ears.

‘You must have already worked that out, Anna,’ smiled the doctor. ‘I’m protecting myself. I have to make sure that no one will ever know.’

Anna was chilled to the marrow. She’d been right. ‘I can help you,’ she said, urgently, hating herself for pleading with him. ‘I can keep it to myself. I won’t tell a soul. I promise.’

The doctor shook his head. ‘It’s too much to expect. I need to be absolutely certain that I will never be implicated in what has happened to your family.’ In the white glow cast by the floodlights his face took on the grotesque appearance of a gargoyle.

‘What can you hope to do?’ Anna said, finding sudden strength. ‘That was Inspector Mariner on the phone. He knows you’re here. If anything happens to us…’

‘But I’m here to help, Anna. I’m your family doctor, an old friend, and when I tell Mariner what happened, he’ll think the same thing as everyone else.’ He smiled grotesquely. ‘That it was a tragic accident. He’ll have no reason to think otherwise. It’s the kind of thing that could have occurred at any time, especially now, when Jamie is so traumatised.’

‘What accident? What are you talking about?’ But even as she spoke, Anna knew.

‘You’ve come a long way in the last few weeks, Anna,’ he said. ‘Eddie would be proud of you. But how far would you go? How far would you really go for Jamie?’ And he took a step nearer to the edge.

‘Christ, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. It’s been there all the time, staring us right in the face!’ Mariner talked as he ran, long strides towards the area car, Knox running to keep up. Within seconds they were on the road and speeding towards Brindley Place. The streets were steady with traffic even at this time in the evening, but with enough slack to clear the way ahead. Mariner dreaded to think what they were going to find. ‘Please God, let us not be too late,’ he murmured under his breath. As they drove he asked CAD to run a vehicle check. Moments later the radio crackled with the information that the car registered to Dr Owen Payne was a green metallic Lexus. The officer recited the registration.

‘And there it is,’ said Mariner, as they squealed into the parking bay below Anna’s flat, to see it looming alongside Anna’s bright red Mazda. There was even a ‘Doctor on Call’ sign resting audaciously on the dashboard. Knox skidded to a halt.

‘Have we got back-up, boss?’ he asked, but Mariner didn’t hear. He was already out of the car and running towards the building where he hammered on the doors loudly until the doorman appeared.

‘All right, keep your hair on,’ he grumbled, as Mariner and Knox thrust identification in his face.

‘Has anyone left the building during the last fifteen minutes?’ Knox asked him.

‘No.’

‘You sure?’

‘Positive. What is—?’

‘What about the back entrance?’

‘I locked that up hours ago.’

So they must still be here.

‘Don’t let anyone out of this building until we say you can,’ ordered Knox, running after Mariner who was already racing up the stairs.

‘I can’t…’ But the protests went unheard.

The third floor was surprisingly undisturbed. Emerging from the stairwell Mariner and Knox moved slowly along the landing towards Anna’s flat. Seeing the door slightly ajar, Mariner pushed it, gently. ‘Anna? Is everything all right?’ There was no reply. The flat was deserted. They checked each of the rooms in turn. ‘So where the fuck are they?’ said Mariner.

He walked through Anna’s flat and into the kitchen, trying to figure it out. Looking out of the window on to the car park, everything was quiet and normal. What he’d expected to be a siege was beginning to look like another abduction. ‘But if Payne’s car is still there,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘Where have they gone?’ His gaze swept over the canal, its towpath dark and empty at this time of night.

‘Go and talk to the doorman again,’ he said, to Knox.

‘Make sure there isn’t any other way of getting out.’

‘Right boss.’ Knox disappeared down the hallway.

Then, turning away from the window, Mariner happened to glance down at the table. Knox!’ he yelled. ‘Get back here!’

Anna had always considered the roof garden beautiful.

An effort had been made to create a soothing green oasis away from the stress of city living. But in the light of the horror unfolding before her it had become monstrous and ugly. She was exhausted and part of her just wanted this over. She wanted to close her eyes and for this to end. But she had to keep Dr Payne talking. If he let go of Jamie now, it would be disastrous. But she needn’t have worried. The last couple of days had reaped one advantage at least, and Jamie was clinging to the doctor like a leech.

‘So you were the one Eddie trusted,’ Anna said, advancing slowly, straining to form the words.

The doctor smiled ruefully. ‘Eddie and your parents, yes. I do regret that Anna. I hope you can believe me. I’m truly sorry for the way things have worked out.’

He was sickening. Anna couldn’t imagine now how she’d ever even liked the man. ‘So why didn’t you put a stop to it?’ she said, coldly. ‘You could have. You could have warned my parents and Eddie that they were in danger.’

‘No, Anna. I couldn’t afford to allow your father or Eddie to make that information public, any more than the drug company could. When it was first suspected that there might be a problem with Pinozalyan, Bowes Dorrinton sent out a memo, warning of the dangers, long before I prescribed it for your mother. Oh, other GPs probably ignored the warning too, but if your father’s little campaign had succeeded, I would have been the one singled out and accused of negligence. Bowes Dorrinton would have made sure of that. They’d have needed a scapegoat. Not to mention the details about Pinozalyan I later removed from your mother’s medical records. I’d be struck off for that.’ He was becoming agitated, his breathing coming fast and uneven. ‘Bowes Dorrinton knew it, so they used me to keep an eye on your father and provide them with any additional inside information they needed to get things under control.’

‘Like where Dad was giving his lectures. And Jamie’s obsession with transmission masts,’ Anna said, bitterly.

‘You have to understand my position, Anna. I was a young GP, just starting out. I had my own family to think of, debts to pay off. Alongside that warning were the financial rewards for prescribing drugs. What was I to do? I was offered good incentives for my cooperation, too; holidays abroad, the odd bonus payment to supplement my pension fund. I’d have been a fool not to go along with it. And up until your parents’ accident, I really had no idea of how far they would go. That came as quite a shock, believe me, but by then it was too late.

When Eddie started pursuing the same line of enquiry, I was in too deep. I had to stop him.’ Beads of sweat had broken out on the doctor’s upper lip. Anna was close enough now to see them glistening in the light.

‘Did you kill Eddie?’ Anna asked, her voice a whisper.

‘No, Anna, I didn’t kill Eddie. I merely provided access to the house and a sterile syringe. It wouldn’t even have been needed if Eddie hadn’t come back so soon. All they wanted were your father’s notebooks.’ Jamie moaned and struggled at his side. ‘Jamie’s getting bored,’ he said. ‘We should get this over with.’

‘And the people at Bowes Dorrinton?’ Anna persisted. ‘Is this their idea, too?’

‘Oh no, this is what you might call simple self-preservation.

I’ve no other option. But the final decision is yours, Anna. Who is it going to be? Jamie, or you?’

‘How do I know that you won’t let Jamie fall anyway?

After all that you’ve done, why should I trust anything you say?’

‘That’s your choice, of course. But you’re his only chance, Anna.’ Payne relinquished his grasp slightly and Jamie struggled to wrench himself free.

‘Wait!’ Anna blurted, desperately. ‘I’ll do it. You don’t have to hurt him. He won’t give you away. Look, I’ll do it.’ Feeling suddenly weightless with fear, her legs shaking almost uncontrollably, Anna stepped up on to the first and then second rung of the railings. Payne watched, urging her on with his eyes. She glanced below to where the city streets swayed and blurred. So this was how her life would end, in ultimate, futile sacrifice.

‘Anna, stop!’ Another voice rang out over the roof and with overwhelming relief Anna recognised it as Mariner’s.

‘You don’t have to,’ he said. ‘It’s over. Walk away from the edge, Payne. And bring Jamie with you.’ Everything on the rooftop froze. ‘It’s the only sensible thing, Doctor,’ Mariner continued, persuasively. ‘You can’t win this. We know what you’ve done. We have records of your calls.

We’ve just heard your confession. You have nothing to gain by this now. There’s nowhere else to go.’

For what seemed an eternity nothing happened as Payne hesitated, weighing up his situation. Anna halted, poised on the precipice. Seconds ticked by, everything deathly silent, but for the background hum of an ignorant city amplified by the light rain that had begun to fall. Then miraculously Dr Payne began, inch by inch, to move back across the roof towards the policeman. For a moment it looked as if he would comply, until suddenly, as Anna’s foot touched back down on the roof, he shoved Jamie to one side, turned and lunged for the railings.

Mariner and Knox exploded from the doorway as Jamie, panicked by the sudden activity started running towards the outer edge of the roof.

‘No!’ Anna screamed. Mariner took a flying leap at Jamie, bringing them both crashing heavily onto the concrete, but for Dr Payne it was too late. Blocked by furniture and plant pots, Knox couldn’t get to him fast enough to prevent him from hurling himself over the edge to certain death.