Authors: Janet O'Kane
‘He was worried about you.’
‘He had no right to make such a fuss. People were watching.’
‘I think it’s sweet.’
Zoe turned away. ‘Well I don’t.’ She continued to walk towards the car.
‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that,’ Kate shouted after her. ‘What did you say?’
Zoe stopped and took a deep breath. She turned back to Kate. ‘No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m taking my annoyance with Neil out on you.’
‘People often forget I need to see their faces when they’re talking.’
‘I didn’t forget. I was being rude.’
It seemed like Kate was retaliating when she looked away as Zoe spoke. Then Zoe also spotted the figures approaching them.
The woman leaning on Erskine Mather’s arm was nearly his height. Dressed in a camel coat and taupe trousers, she wore coordinating animal-print hat, gloves and scarf, and her handbag and boots were of perfectly matched tan leather. She dragged her right foot very slightly.
‘Mother, this is Doctor Moreland, who I told you about. And you’ll remember Kate.’
‘Of course I remember Kate.’ Bette Mather threw her arms wide like an opera singer reaching a high note.
Kate stepped forward to be hugged. ‘Hello Bette. It’s lovely to see you again. I was sorry to hear you haven’t been well.’
Bette released Kate and waved her hands, dismissing the idea that a stroke could be anything but a minor inconvenience. Mather smiled apologetically at Zoe as his mother positioned herself close to Kate and spoke to her.
‘Etta tells me your eldest has reached double figures already. That must mean the girls are, what, six and eight?’
‘Eva is nine and Mhairi was seven yesterday.’
‘How time flies. Of course your mother hasn’t brought any photographs round recently, so I’ve lost track.’
Mather cleared his throat and said, ‘Speaking of birthdays, it’s Mother’s today, so I’ve brought her out for a meal.’
‘I don’t think they’re doing food here tonight,’ Zoe said.
‘I phoned earlier and Mrs Anderson said they were.’
‘She must have had a last minute change of plan,’ Zoe said. ‘I don’t think she’s even in now. Her car’s gone, anyway.’
‘It was Hazel’s – Mrs Anderson’s – car that Zoe saw yesterday morning passing Jimmy on his way to the water meadow,’ Kate said.
‘You’re sure of this?’ Mather asked Zoe, the dutiful son abruptly replaced by the diligent policeman.
‘I was until Ray Anderson told us it couldn’t have been.’
‘You told him you’d seen it? I wish you hadn’t done that.’
Kate said hurriedly, ‘Blame me. I asked him who the car belonged to.’
‘And when Ray said it was theirs and asked why we wanted to know, I saw no reason not to tell him,’ Zoe added.
‘Did he say why it couldn’t have been their car you saw?’ Mather rubbed his bare hands together against the cold.
‘Hazel drove it to Kelso that morning,’ Kate said. ‘But we’re not convinced he was telling the truth.’
Mather turned to Bette, who had just asked Zoe how she was enjoying life in the Borders.
‘I think we should go inside, Mother. If they’re not serving food we’ll have to find somewhere which is, but at least we can warm up with a drink.’
‘I’m not the one who’s cold, Erskine,’ Bette said. ‘But if we’re going in, will you join us, Kate? And your friend too, of course.’
‘Thanks, Bette, but I need to go home. I promised Mum and Dad I wouldn’t leave them babysitting for long.’
‘I’m so pleased to have seen you again. Come for tea one day, will you?’
After extracting a promise from Kate to visit soon, Bette smiled goodbye to Zoe and allowed her son to lead her towards the front of The Rocket.
‘Now I see where he gets his dress sense from,’ Zoe said when the pair were out of earshot.
‘Bette always dresses impeccably, and Erskine was never able to do anything else, however much he tried. At university he was the only one with creases ironed into his jeans.’
‘He took his laundry home?’ Zoe said. ‘Typical man!’
‘Oh no, he did it all himself. Come to think of it,’ Kate said, smiling, ‘he was the only one of us who owned an iron.’
‘Will you visit her?’ Zoe asked while they sat waiting for the car’s windscreen to clear.
‘I’m tempted to, but it might not be a good idea. What do you think?’
‘If you do, just be sure it’s Bette you’re going there to see.’
Kate looked in her rear view mirror. ‘Uh oh, here comes Neil. I take it you don’t want me to hang about for him to reach us?’
Without waiting for an answer, she put the car into gear and drove towards the car park’s exit. Neil stuck out his arm as though wanting to flag them down, then must have thought better of it and waved instead. Zoe did not wave back.
What was she going to do about that exasperating man? Things were difficult enough, without Neil Pengelly complicating them further
.
Penny put down the phone and waved excitedly at Zoe, who had been hoping to reach her consulting room unobserved.
‘Doctor Zoe, are you all right?’
The telephone rang again. Mondays were always like this, the genuinely unwell joined by people seeking the slightest excuse to remain off work after the weekend.
Zoe had to wait while the young receptionist took another call before replying. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Did you have a nice weekend?’
‘Margaret told me what happened. How awful for you.’
‘It was a bit of a shock.’
‘But you didn’t hurt yourself?’
Zoe stared at her, perplexed, then light dawned. ‘You’re talking about my car going into that gatepost, aren’t you?’
‘Of course. What else has happened?’
‘You haven’t heard about Jimmy Baird?’
‘Yes, but –’
Margaret appeared at the reception desk. ‘Penny, we’ll never catch up if you keep gossiping.’
Penny traipsed back to the post she had been opening and sorting into piles before the rash of phone calls started.
‘We’re very behind,’ Margaret said, ‘what with Jean still being off.’
‘How is she?’ Zoe asked. ‘I set out to see her on Saturday but the weather got the better of me.’
‘So she said, when we spoke yesterday. She sounded a lot better, though there’s still the ordeal of the funeral for her to get through.’
‘When is it?’
‘Wednesday afternoon.’
‘Will you be going?’
‘Yes, if Penny thinks she can look after things here on her own for a while.’
Penny nodded without looking up from her work, and Zoe was at last able to move towards her consulting room. Margaret followed, her thick tights swishing as her legs rubbed against each other.
‘And you, Doctor, how are you after your adventure at the weekend?’
‘As I was telling Penny, I’m absolutely fine. My car slid on the snow and hit a gatepost. It’s damaged, but I’m not.’
Margaret shook her head, setting her chins wobbling. ‘I was talking about finding Jimmy Baird.’
Wrong again
. ‘I didn’t actually find him. I took the police to where I’d seen him earlier, and they found him.’
‘And poor Talisker was killed too.’
Jimmy Baird’s dog was getting more sympathy than its owner. ‘Mr Baird was still holding the lead,’ Zoe said. ‘He must have pulled the dog in after him.’
‘My Hector says it’s all very peculiar and probably not over yet.’
Zoe sensed Margaret wanted to say more, but the older woman was distracted by a queue of patients which had formed at the front desk while Penny was taking another telephone call. ‘Oh dear, I’d better go and help.’
Alone at last, Zoe went into her consulting room and checked through the list of patients she was due to see. A name at the bottom jumped out at her, but before she had a chance to open his file on the computer she was distracted by a knock on the door. It was Margaret again.
‘Doctor, I meant to tell you that I’ve slipped an extra patient in at the end of your session. He insisted on having an appointment this morning. I think you’ll understand when you see who it is.’
‘I saw his name on my list. So he’s still registered with this practice?’
‘Never goes far, that one.’
‘It sounds as if you don’t like him.’
Margaret pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘Thinks he’s God’s gift to women. Always has. He’s losing his touch now he’s older, but there’s still lots of silly girls who welcome the attention of a man like him. As my Hector says, lovers fool awfy easy.’
Zoe called up Gregor Baird’s medical records on her screen. ‘It doesn’t look as though he’s a regular visitor.’
‘No, but his conquests are.’
‘Broken hearts?’
‘Unplanned pregnancies. Gregor obviously isn’t keen on using condoms. He’s been the cause of at least three abortions and two bairns that I can think of. One of those is ten now and was the saving of her mother’s marriage, mind, so perhaps some good came out of it.’
‘Do people think he killed Chrissie?’ Zoe asked.
‘My Hector says it’s unlikely, because he’s not clever enough. But you’ll not find many prepared to stand up and defend him.’
‘I hear he didn’t get on well with her.’
‘If I’d had to share a roof with that woman, I may have been tempted to murder her myself.’ Margaret pointed at the clock above Zoe’s desk. ‘It’s gone nine. You don’t want to be behind from the start.’
Zoe worked steadily through the morning’s patients. It was all pretty routine, except for another adult presenting with the symptoms of chickenpox, making the third in a week. She would have to ask Walter and Paul if they had seen anyone else with it. They may have a mini epidemic on their hands.
She went out to the waiting room to collect her last patient of the morning. As she called his name, the practice nurse glanced up from pinning a poster on the notice board and an elderly woman nudged the man sitting next to her.
Gregor Baird followed Zoe silently along the corridor and slid into the chair she indicated, not once making eye contact. She studied his turquoise check shirt which hung outside a faded pair of jeans but could not entirely hide an incipient beer belly. Although his clothes were crumpled, probably thrown on without being ironed, they were clean and gave off a wholesome smell of fabric conditioner.
Then he lifted his head and looked straight at her for the first time.
Zoe felt a jolt of surprise. His eyes were a Mediterranean blue, blurred at the edges by thick blond lashes, while his lips were full, almost feminine. Gregor Baird had once been beautiful, and even now, in his late thirties, would need nothing more than his face to capture many women’s hearts.
‘Mr Baird, I’m sorry for your recent loss,’ Zoe said.
Or should that be ‘losses’?
‘It was you who found him, weren’t it?’ His voice was disappointingly high pitched, boyish even.
‘I was there, yes.’
‘You found Chrissie too.’
‘Yes.’ Zoe paused. Unsure where Gregor was going with this conversation, she steeled herself for hostility, but he leaned back in the chair, stretched his legs and crossed them at black-booted ankles, and said nothing more.
‘So, how can I help you?’
‘You have to give me something.’
‘What for?’
‘To make me to sleep at nights.’
‘I realise you must be quite stressed at the moment, what with –’
‘“Quite stressed”?’ Gregor uncrossed his ankles and sat up straight. ‘I’ll give you quite stressed. I go away for a few days and come back to the news that my stepmother’s been killed. The police drag me over to Hawick. They put me in a room, leave me for hours, then tell me my dad’s dead and kick me out.’
‘It’s little wonder you’re having difficulty sleeping.’
Gregor snorted. ‘Want to know the worst part?’ Twisting his torso round and pointing at the door, he said, ‘Half of ‘em out there think I did it, the other half think I’m next. Dunno which is worse.’ He sank back into his chair and gnawed at a fingernail.
‘Do you have anyone you can talk to?’ Zoe asked. ‘You may find that helps.’
Straightaway he was on his feet, glaring down at her. ‘Are you trying to do the coppers’ job for them, make me confess when I haven’t done anything?’
‘Please sit down, Mr Baird.’ Zoe glanced beneath her desk at the panic button Walter had demanded for every consulting room after being physically threatened by a patient. She wondered what would happen if she pressed it.
Gregor glowered but did as she asked. ‘He was my dad. And Chrissie kept him happy enough.’
‘What about your step-sister?’
‘Alice? What about her?’ Gregor was braced to leap up again. Zoe had touched another nerve.
‘I only wondered if you’ve been in contact with her.’
‘I told the police and now I’m telling you, me ‘n’ Alice haven’t spoken for ages.’
‘Not even to discuss funeral arrangements?’
‘Who for? They’re not releasing either of the bodies yet. Not finished cutting them up, I s’pose.’
Zoe sometimes offered bereaved patients out-of-hours appointments to talk through their feelings without the time constraints of a normal surgery. Gregor would probably be suspicious of her motives if she made such a proposal to him, and she did not relish the idea of spending any more time with him than she was obliged to.
If he wanted drugs, he could have them
.
‘I’ll prescribe you a short course of tablets to help re-establish your sleeping pattern,’ she said, skimming through his medical history, checking for contraindications. The only recent entry she could find was a routine notification from a hospital out of the area that he had been treated for a badly sprained ankle a fortnight earlier. She asked if it was still giving him any trouble.
Gregor tensed again, and Zoe readied herself for another outburst. She would be relieved when this consultation was over. ‘I’m only asking in case you’re taking painkillers for it.’
‘No, it’s fine now.’ His shoulders relaxed.
Zoe pointed the arrow on her screen at the appropriate box and clicked. When the prescription whirred out of the printer behind her she signed it and passed it over to Gregor. ‘These should do the trick, but if you’re still having problems when you’ve finished them, come and see me again.’