Desperate Measures (15 page)

There were so many questions. Norma sat in an anteroom with a psychiatric social worker who went through the forms. Evaluation. Risk assessment. Care package. There was talk of a rehabilitation programme. Perhaps some people did turn their lives around, make a fresh start. For her it seemed like a fantasy. What would she do with her life? Even if she battled the addiction and won, her only work experience was teaching piano. Money wasn’t an issue, anyway, the mortgage was paid off and Don had life insurance. She’d be able to manage. And what was the point, really? There was no hunger in her for anything but oblivion. She’d no close friends or family to cheer her on. The pit was waiting, wider and deeper than ever.

‘Have you had any suicidal thoughts in the past twenty-four hours?’ the woman said.

Too harsh, that word, it made Norma recoil. All she wanted to do was sleep, sleep and not wake. Already her skin was itchy and her stomach cramping. She felt wild and anxious. One of the nurses said she’d be able to have some medication for the symptoms only after she’d been evaluated. Without Don, without the medicine, what was there to live for?

‘Sometimes,’ Norma said.

The social worker made a tick on the form. ‘Have you made any attempt to act on these thoughts?’

‘My husband has just died,’ Norma said, suddenly sick of it all, cross with the way they were treating her.

‘I know. I am sorry,’ the social worker said, ‘this must be very, very difficult for you. But we need to go through this so we can get you in the system, access services to help you.’

Norma didn’t want to be in the system, she didn’t want to be here at all. Lonely, widowed, sixty-two years old. Yes, people built new lives, like the police inspector had said, they joined clubs or volunteered, they lunched and golfed and started charities. Other people. Not her. She’d never been a joiner, never had any interest.

She wanted to go back, to the woods in France and the time when Pierre played the harmonica, and kissed her neck. When life lay ahead like a promise, or before the baby when she and Don were giddy with love and punch drunk from studying and working. He would test her at the breakfast table, regions of the brain or indications of pulmonary heart disease.

She wanted to go back, not forward.

The woman repeated the question. ‘No,’ Norma said, ‘no attempts.’

And there was no chance in here. The medicines came round in the trolley, two nurses carefully unlocked it and measured and ticked off what was dispensed.

The social worker carried on. Norma answered the questions, she had to because the hunger was growing and she was more and more desperate, her throat dry and tight, her vision pitching and blurring. She must do as they said to get the methadone or whatever they would put her on. For now that was all that mattered.

When Howard came into the living room, Adele had all the papers from the inquest and all the cuttings from the papers strewn around on the couch and the coffee table.

The laptop was on her knee and she was copying something onto a pad of paper.

‘What’re you doing?’ Howard said.

‘Research,’ Adele said. She tapped her pen on the pad. ‘All the groups who are campaigning for a change to the drugs law.’

‘Seriously?’

She turned to him. ‘You think I should just give up now, because Halliwell’s dead?’

‘You’re exhausted,’ he said, ‘and all this…’ He waved his hand across the papers.

‘This keeps me going,’ she said, ‘I’m doing it for Marcie, for all the others who end up shooting up in some rat hole because they’re treated as criminals not patients. Because the politicians decide that they’ll win votes if they keep banging on about a war on drugs. Never mind that it doesn’t work.’

‘You don’t need to tell me,’ Howard said.

‘There’s people talking about a return to the English system,’ she said, ‘when addicts were registered and managed by the doctor, they weren’t forced onto other drugs or weaned off stuff too quickly. They lived with the addiction, safely. It worked. They weren’t out robbing and mugging people to buy drugs. In Portugal they’ve legalised drugs, all drugs, ten years it’s been like that and addiction rates have fallen.’ Adele realised her voice had risen and Howard was looking at her with a half-smile on his lips.

‘You go girl,’ he said.

‘You watch me,’ she said.

The wind was cold, coming from the east. It made his eyes water. The priest finished the final prayer and sprinkled more holy water down onto the coffin. There had been a fantastic turnout at the mass and maybe half had come on for the burial. The programme made it clear that there’d be no gathering afterwards. It had all happened so quickly that people probably imagined Roy hadn’t been able to hire a venue, though the church hall might have been available at short notice. Anyway there would be no tea and finger buffet, no sherry and swapping of shared memories and words of comfort.

He took the box of earth and picked up a handful, let it fall into the grave, and passed the box on. When everyone had taken their turn, the priest blessed them and sent them on their way.

People came to him, taking leave, hands grasping his, or touching his arm. Finally the priest left and Roy stood alone.

He saw the cars arrive, sensed they were here for him, surprised, if he were honest, that they had put it all together so quickly. He hadn’t wanted witnesses. If they’d only taken half an hour longer. No one should have to witness this.

When Simon died, when the police came with that dreadful news Roy had felt anger and grief, but more than that he felt awash with guilt. Because he’d not fought harder for his son, because when he challenged Don Halliwell about the treatment, about the known dangers of that medication and Halliwell had dismissed him, Roy had not done more.

Peggy hated the strife between them. ‘He’s a doctor, Roy, we have to trust him.’ Even when Roy had shown her the evidence, the headlines, the cries for reclassification, the stories of teenagers made even more sick by this very same medicine, Peggy had said, ‘Well, he knows now, and if he thinks it’s not working, surely he’ll change it.’

But he wouldn’t, Roy realized when it was too late. He wouldn’t because the man was stubborn and arrogant and he would rather sacrifice a child’s life than admit he was fallible.

It had just happened again with Adele Young’s daughter. The man had learned nothing. What good were complaints procedures and inquests in the light of such a wilful disregard for other opinions?

Halliwell would not listen, he would not learn. He set himself up as being above all that. Better than his patients. Always right. And he never said sorry, not once in all the horror of Simon’s death had Halliwell ever taken them aside or stopped for a moment to say, I am sorry, you tried to tell me.

He accepted not one shred of responsibility but acted as though Simon’s desperation, his paranoia, his desire to die, to escape it all, was some force of nature. Random and inexplicable. Not directly linked to the drug he prescribed. Never mind the fact that Roy had run himself ragged before it happened trying to get Halliwell just to look at the studies, begging him to consider the concerns, warning him that lives had been lost.

Halliwell had fobbed Roy off and sent him home where a look at Peggy’s face confirmed his fears. Simon was worse.

Now at the cemetery, a gust of wind blew and Roy felt it cold against the back of his neck, on his ears, nipping at his shins.

That last time, after Halliwell had almost lost his temper, snapping, ‘For God’s sake, Roy, we’ve been over this. I’m Simon’s doctor. There is frequently a period of adjustment and if things have not levelled out in another week I will be happy to review the prescription then. Now, please, I have work to do.’ Roy saw that Halliwell was immovable. Roy could not bear the prospect of another week with Simon living in terror, seeing demons and hearing voices, rocking and sobbing. Simon, so scared that he bought a gun. It was a situation, a world, that Roy could barely comprehend. His boy with a gun in his bedroom. What would he shoot with it? The monsters that his illness had conjured up?

Roy found it by accident when Simon was in the bathroom. Peggy had been persuading him to have a shower or at least a wash. Simon said he couldn’t. He asked Roy to cover the mirror up. Roy was exasperated. What should he do? If he went along with this latest delusion, would he be reinforcing it? Should he refuse, insist that there was nothing sinister in the mirror, or behind the shower curtain? In the end he ran some hot water, so the steam covered the glass.

‘It’s all right, Simon,’ he said, ‘you’ll be all right. I’ll just be here, I’ll wait here.’

‘But Dad—’

‘Go on now. You’ll feel better for a wash.’

The boy smelled of sweat and tobacco. His hair was messy, his face angry with spots. Simon had gone into the bathroom and Roy went to change his bed and found the gun under his pillow. He felt a shock, like a blow to the heart, as he saw it and understood that it was real, that his son had brought a gun into the house. Roy picked it up. It was heavy, cold to touch, hard. Roy had never seen a gun close up before. He wrapped it in a small towel and put it on top of the wardrobe in his and Peggy’s bedroom. Then he stripped Simon’s bed and made it up new.

He went to the bathroom and knocked and passed Simon some clean jeans and underwear and a T-shirt.

Roy sat on the edge of the bed and waited. He could hear water running in the sink, and Peggy moving about downstairs. When Simon came back in, shivering, his arms thin sticks poking out of the T-shirt, Roy patted the bed beside him. ‘Sit down.’

Simon did.

‘I found the gun,’ Roy said.

‘What?’ Simon looked alarmed.

‘I put it somewhere safe,’ Roy said.

‘I need it.’

‘No. You’ll hurt yourself or someone else.’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Simon said, his voice louder, eyes frantic, ‘You don’t understand.’

‘I know this is hard,’ Roy said.

Simon was crying again.

Roy moved to put an arm around him, miserable himself.

‘Don’t!’ Simon flinched away.

‘Your mum and I—’

‘Just go. Leave me alone.’ Simon’s knee was jerking up and down, a measure of the anxiety.

‘Simon?’

‘Go away!’

Roy sighed and got to his feet. He thought about telling Simon what the doctor had said, that another week might see a change in his mood and they could try another drug if not. Was that offering false hope? Roy didn’t believe things would improve. Should he tell Simon what he thought they should do in the meanwhile?

He said nothing.

Peggy was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. The washing machine was on, the spin part of the cycle, deafening. She looked at Roy, eyes busy with questions and gestured for him to come in the other room to talk. When he told her about the gun she lost her breath and had to use her inhaler.

‘Listen,’ he said as soon as her breathing had eased, ‘I’ve had an idea. Dr Halliwell wants to leave it another week. I don’t think— look, we could see about getting him in somewhere.’

‘Mental hospital? How?’

‘I don’t know, but I can find out.’ Did you call the police or an ambulance? He feared it would need a referral from Simon’s own GP. ‘If it was an emergency,’ Roy said, ‘which it is…’

‘Have him committed, sectioned?’ Peggy said.

Roy took her hand. ‘He’s not safe,’ he said, ‘he’s getting worse, Peggy.’

‘I don’t know,’ Peggy said.

‘We’ve got to do something,’ Roy said, ‘even if Don Halliwell won’t.’

Peggy frowned, she didn’t like it when he criticized the doctor. Roy wondered why, when she stood up against the rules and regulations or her religion in order to be with him, to have a family, then why did she still kowtow to the GP?

‘I’ll find out,’ Roy said, ‘somewhere like that, they must deal with this sort of thing all the time, they’re specialists.’

She gave a nod, eyes riddled with worry.

‘Mr Gant, Roy?’ They were here for him now. The police.

Roy looked down at the grave, the artificial grass. Down the hill he saw movement, two men smoking, rough clothes, spades leaning against a tree. The grave diggers waiting for him to leave.

Shap came downstairs holding up Dr Halliwell’s briefcase. ‘I don’t think we’ll need the gun if we’ve got this,’ he said.

‘Why keep the briefcase?’ Richard said, ‘Why didn’t he get rid of it?’

‘Thick?’ Shap said.

‘It would be watertight if we had the gun as well,’ Richard said, ‘keep looking. I’ll ring Janine and tell her we’ve got the briefcase.’

It was a cold, blustery, miserable day for a funeral, or maybe an appropriate one.

Janine parked some distance from the crematorium, eyes roving over the grounds. She saw the group of mourners drifting away from a graveside down the hill.

‘I don’t think there’s anything in the PACE rules says at what point you interrupt a funeral,’ Janine said, getting out of the car.

‘Looks like they’re done,’ Lisa said.

Still no word from Richard but Janine reckoned they had enough to question Gant while the search for the weapon continued. She saw Gant look up and notice them but he stayed by the grave.

They walked along the path and down the slope to the freshly dug plot. The priest took his leave and once he had moved far enough away to be out of earshot Janine spoke to Roy Gant. ‘Mr Gant, Roy.’

Roy had been too late in the end. He’d rung round helpline numbers in the phone directory. Most of them told him the GP should set an emergency admission in motion; failing that he could ring the local social services. A mental health social worker working with the police could arrange a section.

He explained to Peggy. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I just don’t know.’

Roy had gone upstairs to tell Simon his tea was ready, would he come and have some, to find his bedroom deserted.

He had driven round with no idea where to look. Simon had not wanted to leave the house recently, the outside world as scary as the one in his head.

Roy went home when it got dark. Peggy had reported him missing and as he was known to be vulnerable the local police were alerted to be on the lookout for him.

Roy hadn’t been back ten minutes when they had come to the door, a man and a woman, very serious and ill at ease. They asked Peggy and him to sit down and Roy felt dread scrabble up his spine, clutch at his guts. The woman spoke, ‘A young man matching Simon’s description was involved in an accident earlier this evening. I’m afraid he didn’t survive his injuries.’

‘Simon,’ Peggy said. She began to gasp for air. Roy passed her inhaler, helped her to use it.

‘What accident?’ Roy said, clasping Peggy’s hand. The words hurt his throat.

‘A fall from a motorway bridge.’

‘He didn’t fall,’ Roy said.

Peggy’s breathing worsened.

‘Mrs Gant?’ said the police officer.

‘You’d better get an ambulance for her,’ Roy had said.

Now someone else was calling him. ‘Mr Gant?’

Roy turned away from the grave.

‘Leave me,’ he said, ‘please?’

It wasn’t meant to be like this, they were too soon.

‘I can’t do that. I’m DCI Lewis, I’m investigating the murder of Dr Halliwell. I’m sorry to intrude on your grief but we’re going to need you to come with us.’ Then she began the caution.

‘Roy Gant, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything—’

‘He never listened,’ Roy Gant interrupted, not looking at Janine but staring down at the coffin, the wind snatching at his clothes. ‘There was stuff all over the internet, I printed it off, I showed him. Increased risk of suicide in young people...messing with drugs was what made Simon depressed in the first place. When he started the tablets...’

‘You might want to wait until you’ve seen a solicitor,’ Janine said.

Roy Gant dismissed her concern with a toss of his head. ‘He didn’t even read the damn journals. If he’d ever said, “Sorry, I got it wrong—”‘ He broke off. He rubbed his fist on his forehead. ‘Simon was my world, and then he was gone.’

‘And Peggy?’ Janine said.

‘She wouldn’t hear a bad word said about the man. She was there when I begged Halliwell to come and see Simon for himself. “Give it time,” he said. We didn’t have time. How she trusted him, Peggy. All the way to the motorway bridge, still following doctor’s orders.’

‘You never made a complaint?’ Janine said.

‘Peggy was so sick, I couldn’t make it worse for her,’ Roy Gant said. ‘The doctor would call round with his smiles and his crumbs of comfort.’ He glanced at Janine, eyes narrowed. ‘You heard about Marcie Young?’

Janine nodded.

‘He’d learnt nothing,’ Gant said. ‘He still didn’t listen. Masking his ignorance with arrogance.’

‘Why now, Roy?’ Janine said.

‘He came on Tuesday, after Peggy had gone. You know what he said? “It’ll get easier, Roy. Life goes on.” Smug bastard. His life would,’ Gant said. ‘
They
were my life. I knew then.’

‘You had Simon’s gun?’ Janine said.

‘‘I took it off him.’ Roy Gant hesitated, blinked several times.

‘Why did Simon have a gun in the first place?’ Janine said.

‘He was petrified. He thought it would protect him. How can you protect yourself when the demons are inside?’ Gant’s voice broke. Janine waited and eventually he cleared his throat and said, ‘The demons grew with that drug, they fed on it. But Halliwell was blind and deaf and dumb to it.’ Roy Gant shifted, looked up to the sky. ‘He was usually the last to leave the surgery,’ he said, ‘so I went down there. It was easy.’

‘You took his briefcase?’ Janine said.

‘Yes, well, children might have found it, taken stuff and hurt themselves,’ he said.

Oh God.
‘And where did you put the gun?’ Janine said.

He moved then, his face set as he pulled the gun from his pocket and pointed it at them. Janine’s heart leapt into her throat. She felt sick inside. She heard Lisa take a quick breath and Janine put out a hand, instinctively, to prevent Lisa moving towards Gant.

‘Stay there!’ Roy Gant said and he began to back away, across the grass, gun trained on them all the while.

Janine’s mouth was dry, her pulse racing. He wouldn’t get far, she told herself, even if he did shoot at them, the whole force would be out after him in minutes. Same if he fled.

She watched, her legs like jelly, as he reached a stand of trees, dark green yews, their branches shivering in the wind.

Beside her Lisa was gasping, whispering, ‘Oh, God, oh God, no.’

Would he hit them from this distance? Janine thought of Charlotte, of Tom and Eleanor, of Michael and clamped her mouth tight, determined to keep watching, not to close her eyes.

‘Roy, wait,’ she called out but the wind seemed to rip her words away. ‘Roy, we can talk about this, about Simon, and Marcie Young, you could help her family—’

He turned quickly, facing the trees and raised the gun to his head.

‘No!’ Janine screamed and Lisa echoed her.

The shot, a crack of thunder, echoed round the cemetery.

‘No!’ Janine yelled as the blood and brain burst from his head and he pitched forward onto his knees and then onto his face.

Birds rose screeching from the trees. Lisa was howling and Janine grabbed her, held her, turning her away.

‘Come on,’ Janine said, ‘this way. Come on.’

Shaking violently, Janine thought she would collapse, but she walked with Lisa up to the car, aware of the gravediggers shouting, and someone running and the starlings crying as they wheeled overhead.

Janine called it in.

And then she sat with Lisa in the car, waiting for the police and the ambulance. Waiting to give a witness statement. Waiting until she could go home and see her kids and try to forget the image strobing in her mind, of the heartbroken father with a gun to his head.