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  June lay back and closed her eyes. Jo was relieved that the old lady was at least giving it some thought. As the silence lengthened, Jo hoped she hadn’t fallen asleep, or worse, slipped into unconsciousness, but at last June opened her eyes.

  ‘Go on then. Call those ambulance people up. Let’s get this over with.’ And she closed her eyes with a sigh.

  Suppressing a cheer, Jo went to the door.

  ‘Can you come on up, please? Mrs Springfield’s decided to go to hospital,’ she called to the paramedics and Ben.

  There was a rush of feet on the stairs as they all hurried up to help the old lady down to the waiting ambulance.

  His Wednesday evening ritual was sacrosanct. It started with a bottle of very expensive red wine in his favourite wine bar. He drank it slowly, building the anticipation of what might happen later. His little secret. The very discreet sauna he had been frequenting once a week for the last two years. It wasn’t as if there were any problems at home. No, he had a very satisfactory love life, but there was no doubt it was helped by his visits to a very experienced young man who did things, and let him do things, his wife would never dream of allowing. If his wife only knew what he was fantasising about when they made love, she would be horrified. He was sure that he wasn’t homosexual per se, it was just that he liked variety. He loved his wife, but he desired this young man, and, under the circumstances, there was no way his wife would under- stand. She spent every Wednesday evening with her Bible study group. Not that they seemed to study the bible much, just sat around drinking coffee, eating cake and bitching about their husbands.

  He was feeling tipsier than usual as he rang the bell and waited to be let into the sauna, and he almost stumbled on the stairs that led down to the changing room; he had to grab hold of the banister to steady himself. Maybe he should ration himself to just half a bottle of wine in future, but part of the attraction of the regular night out was that he acted con- trary to his norm: he had too much to drink, he spent too much money, he had sex with a young man and he paid for the experience. He giggled slightly as he thought what his friends and colleagues would think if they knew. Dear, dependable, boring John. Drunkenly shagging a boy!

  He took off his clothes in the changing room and exchanged them for a towelling robe. Very few of the lockers seemed to be in use. Must be a quiet night. That was good; he wouldn’t have to wait long, and could maybe have longer than usual with Georgio, who said he was Italian but definitely wasn’t. His accent and looks were more North African than Roman. But first he would have a sauna, build up the anticipation and sweat out some of the alcohol that was making him feel a bit drowsy. Wouldn’t do to fall asleep on the job now, would it?

  Hanging up his robe, John grabbed a clean, white towel, and almost fell into the sauna, glad that there was no one in there to see him stum- ble. God, it was hot tonight! The sweat was pouring off him already as he put the towel on a bench and lay down. He wouldn’t stay in long, it was too hot for that, but he’d rest a short while and then he would go and find Georgio or whatever he was really called. Just a little rest until he felt better…..

  Chapter 12

  There was a blast of Mozart’s 40th in the otherwise silent office. Jo grabbed her mobile from her bag and headed out of the room, anxious to disturb her colleagues as little as possible. As she answered it, she saw that it was Mike Parton, the Coroner’s Officer, calling.

  ‘Hello Mike, what can I do for you?’

  There was a slight groan from Hugh Grantham and a sigh from Gauri Sinha as they guessed who was on the end of the phone and anticipated that Jo was being called to a body and would leave them having to cover all the visits. Again. Jo closed the door behind her so that she wouldn’t have to listen to their complaints.

  ‘Hello, Dr Hughes. I thought I’d let you know that the police have decided to call in a home office pathologist to redo the PM on Mr Townsend, now that it is being classed as suspicious and The Royal Sussex are sending over one of their pathologists to do the same for Mr Cole.’

  ‘Has Lucy gone then?’ Jo asked, knowing that Mike had put in a formal complaint against her.

  ‘Yes. I believe she has tendered her resignation and that it has been accepted with immediate effect.’

  Jo had to admit she admired the pathologist a tiny bit for not refusing to go which would have meant the hospital having to suspend her on full pay pending an enquiry. She could probably have spun it out for years.

  ‘Good. Let’s just hope whoever they get to replace her is better.’ She didn’t honestly think they could be worse. ‘Any idea when the PMs are scheduled?’

  ‘I understand that they are both being prioritised due to the amount of time that has passed. Professor Wadsworth will be coming over for Mr Townsend and a Dr Iqbal is on his way from Brighton as we speak.’ Jo felt a little sad that her godfather, the pathologist whose sudden death had led to Lucy Cavendish’s appointment, was no longer around to moan to her that ‘Wally’ Wadsworth took all the best cases. She still missed him terribly.

  ‘Will Dr Iqbal be reviewing any other cases?’

  ‘The Coroner is looking back over all the inquests he has presided over during Dr Cavendish’s tenure to see if the verdict was in any way contentious, but he is hopeful that there will not be many cases where he feels a review is necessitated. After all, it would appear that it is only in recent weeks that things have deteriorated.’

  Whilst Jo conceded that Lucy had seemed quite competent when she first started – bitter and dissatisfied with her work, true, but fully functional – that still seemed a little optimistic. People don’t become alcohol dependent overnight, as a rule, and Jo wondered if the reason Brighton had been so keen to second her to Hastings was because they already knew she had a problem. If so, the Board might have cause for complaint, and a claim for Brighton to fund any work needed to review her work and ensure the correct cause of death had been found. Jo knew that it would be an absolute nightmare if there were many cases. With a large proportion of the bodies cremated there could only be a paper review of the findings unless specimens and slides were on file, and if the bodies had been buried, exhumation was costly and dis- tressing for the relatives. Perhaps the speed at which they were sending Dr Iqbal over indicated a degree of guilt on the Royal’s part.

  ‘Can you send me a list of the cases the Coroner is worried about?’ she asked Mike. ‘In case any of them affect me?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll do that as soon as I have it.’

  There was a degree of relief that Jo was not going to disappear and leave her colleagues to cover her work, and Hugh was happy to let her take a reduced number of visits to allow her time to drop into the mortuary and introduce herself to the new locum pathologist. It was important for Jo to speak to him as she felt she might be able to help him with information on some of the cases he would need to assess, and in particular on Adrian Cole.

  As she walked along the corridor to the pathologist’s office, Jo saw the mortuary technician in the prep room, sorting out some specimens.

  ‘Hi Jim,’ she called out to him and he gave her a grin in return. ‘You heard then?’

  ‘That Lucy has gone? Yes, Mike called me with the news.’ Jo went into the prep room; she wanted to get as much of the story as possible. ‘What exactly happened? Do you know?’

  ‘After Mike Parton had a go, that police bloke – Miller is it? – came in and had his say as well, saying she’d undermined his cases with her incompetence and she just stormed off. Left everything. So she’ll not know about our little subterfuge.’ He winked and Jo sighed with relief. It really wasn’t her job to have taken the samples, witnessed by Mike and Jim.

  ‘She didn’t turn up for work the next day and meanwhile the Cor- oner had made an official complaint. Chief Exec came down here and was having kittens.’ Jim had clearly loved all this drama and didn’t need any encouragement. ‘He searched her office, “to look for any in- dication of where she might be”...’ Jim seemed unconvinced by thi
s explanation... ‘and he came out with a grim expression, several files and a bag that clinked.’ Jim winked.

  ‘Oh!’ Jo was surprised the outgoing pathologist was stupid enough to have left evidence of her drinking so easy to find. There would be no coming back from this now and although Jo was relieved, she also felt sad for the woman. Why had she self-destructed quite so spectacularly? Jo knew there would be no easy answer to that question, but she hoped she hadn’t in any way contributed to the situation.

  ‘Dr Iqbal arrived from Brighton this morning. You’ll like him,’ Jim added confidently. ‘He’s in the office now. Hopefully he hasn’t found any other bottles lying around.’

  Jo left the technician to his work and went in search of Dr Iqbal.

  A slim man, dressed in scrubs, was sitting at the desk in the office and looked up as Jo knocked on the open door.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hello, I’m Jo Hughes, the forensic physician.’ Jo smiled and held out her hand. ‘Just thought I’d come and introduce myself, see if I could be of any help?’

  The man jumped to his feet immediately and grasped her hand firmly.

  ‘Dr Hughes! Welcome. Billy Iqbal.’ He gestured to the visitor’s chair, quickly clearing some files from it so that she would be able to sit down. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you from Jim.’

  ‘All good I hope? And please call me Jo.’ She settled herself in the chair and took a moment to assess the man seated across the desk from her. In his mid-to-late thirties, he was clean-shaven, with an en- gaging smile and dark brown eyes. Jo was pleased to see slight crow’s feet either side of his eyes, indicating that he smiled a lot, something that she always found attractive.

  ‘Very. He seems quite taken with you.’

  Jo hoped to goodness she wasn’t about to blush.

  ‘Yes, well, I suppose I was light relief after his manager. His previ- ous manager, I should say.’

  ‘Lucy Cavendish? I’m sure you are right.’ ‘Did you work with her in Brighton?’

  He hesitated before answering.

  ‘I know what you are asking, but I honestly had no idea about her drinking. She was very much the high flyer and the reason for her leav- ing was given as a personality clash with the Professor. I had no reason to question that.’

  Jo smiled and nodded.

  ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that.’

  ‘No, no. Not at all. It’s perfectly understandable.’ He smiled again. It really was a lovely smile. ‘Can I offer you a coffee?’ He indicated a high-tech device in the corner. ‘Wherever I go, my Nespresso goes with me.’

  Jo was glad of the offer and, once they had sorted out what type of coffee she would like, watched as he found pods and cups. Making coffee was apparently as much of a ritual for Billy Iqbal as making tea had been for Ian Dunbar, right down to the importance of the right cups to drink it from. Perhaps it was a pathologist thing?

  Once they were settled with their coffee, Jo asked him if he had had a chance to review any of the cases.

  ‘Not yet. I’ve picked out a number of cases that give me cause for concern and will be starting with them. The Coroner is sending me a list as well. Are there any that you want me to look at?’

  ‘Adrian Cole.’

  ‘Yes, of course. He’s top of my list.’

  ‘I have a confession to make.’ Jo looked a little awkward as she ex- plained about taking the specimens that Lucy had failed to.

  ‘Right,’ Billy said decisively. ‘Just to be sure there can be no ques- tion about the manner in which the specimens were collected, I shall redo them and send them off today.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was done with the best of intentions; I wouldn’t dream of interfering under normal circumstances.’ Jo hoped he wouldn’t be angry and was pleased to see nothing but a good-natured smile in his eyes.

  ‘I quite understand. I’ll just say that, under the circumstances, I want to make sure the chain of evidence is intact.’ Jo liked his tactful response to Lucy’s omission and her intervention. ‘It’s such a strange case. What’s your take on it?’

  ‘I think there’s a very real possibility that he was moved after death. And not just when he was taken out of the pool. The dirt ingrained in the grazes on his back didn’t look like it came from the pool surround. It’s possible he pushed his way through the hedge – he certainly left blood trace on broken twigs – but I can’t see why he would have earth and leaf mulch in the grazes unless he was dragged through the hedge.’ ‘You’re thinking he died somewhere else and someone moved him

  to the pool to embarrass the owner, rather than Lucy’s theory that he committed suicide in situ?’

  ‘Something like that. He certainly wasn’t in a fit state to move him- self anywhere much once he’d taken that amount of Ketamine. I sup- pose he might have commando-crawled through the bushes, but then he’d have dirt on his front, not his back.’

  Billy rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘At the very least it looks like interfering with a body and could possibly be manslaughter.’

  ‘Or, if he didn’t take the Ketamine knowingly, murder.’

  Chapter 13

  Grimacing as she sipped her insipid instant coffee – such a contrast to the lovely rich brew that she had been given by Billy Iqbal – Jo toyed with the idea of borrowing some proper coffee from Hugh Grantham’s private stash. She firmly believed that the Senior Partner must weigh his coffee tin daily, because he always seemed to know when someone had used it. Perhaps she should get a machine for herself, something like Billy’s, and put it in her consulting room, but it was cluttered enough as it was. There was no way she would be able to find space for a Nespresso machine when she couldn’t find space for all the different forms she used on a daily basis. Maybe when they moved to the new premises. If they moved to the new premises. Having seen the plans Hugh had shown her, Jo wasn’t sure that even then they would be much better off for space. There were more treatment rooms, meeting rooms and offices in the new development down by the fishing huts, but the doctors’ consulting rooms still looked small. With a start, she suddenly became aware that Richard was standing by the door. She wished he wouldn’t creep up on her like that!

  ‘Er, Dr Hughes? I have the follow-up results for Mr Herring.’ He waved a piece of paper at her and Jo sighed as she took it. From the look on his face she knew this wasn’t going to be good news. And it wasn’t. The new test results were no better; in fact they were worse. There could be no doubt that Mr Herring was ill.

  ‘Right.’ Jo handed the paper back to him. ‘I suggest you call him and ask him to come in as soon as possible. We can do a joint appoint- ment if you like. Liaise with Linda so we can sort that.’

  Jo knew as soon as she had said it that she should never have used the words ‘as soon as possible’ in the context of Mr Herring and sure enough, she had barely seen one patient from her evening list before reception called through to say that he was in the surgery and telling the receptionist it was an emergency. Jo sighed. It was her fault he was in a panic, so she would have to reassure him. Telling the receptionist to warn her booked patients that there was a delay, Jo joined Richard in his consulting room, where Mr Herring was surprisingly not in his usual state of agitation. Jo was used to him moaning and complaining from the moment he opened the door until it closed behind him at the end of the consultation. Instead he sat, quiet, not frightened or anxious that they had found something wrong, but with a slight look of triumph in a ‘I told you I was ill’ sort of way. The trouble was, Jo felt he had every right to feel like that. After all, for years he had told her and all the other doctors that he had something wrong, and now, it seemed he was right.

  It was very late when Jo finally met up with Kate in The Crown, a pub which was also in All Saints Street but closer to the seafront than The Stag. It was a favourite of Kate’s as it had a good range of real ales and because she loved the bar snacks. It was absolutely packed, as it was every night, but Kate had managed t
o get a table. From the evidence in front of her, she had already eaten a portion of chips and some sausage pieces. She was also ready for another pint. Jo went to the bar and ordered their drinks and, realising that she was suddenly very hungry, some crudités and dip for herself, a portion of bread and more chips to share. Having spent almost half an hour trying to get to the bottom of Mr Herring’s problem and ending up authorising a battery of expensive tests that she would have to justify to Hugh, she really felt the need to treat herself. It wasn’t until she had pretty much finished eating and was well into her second glass of wine before she finally relaxed and stopped worrying about having possibly missed something serious earlier.

  ‘It does make me wonder why I ever decided to become a doctor.’ She crunched a carrot stick. ‘Mr Herring will pursue a claim against me and I’ll probably end up getting struck off for negligence. I should have taken up a career where a mistake doesn’t necessarily mean you end up in front of a GMC disciplinary board.’

  ‘Any job that’s well paid and interesting has a similar level of accountability. How’s that lady doing – the one that tried to kill herself?’ ‘She’s alive but still in hospital. Exactly where she didn’t want to be.’

  ‘She should be grateful that she’s still alive.’

  ‘No, she shouldn’t. She hasn’t got long, she’s in pain and the only consolation is that the overdose will probably have shortened her life even more. I just hope she manages to get out so she can die in her own home as she wanted.’

  There was no doubt that June Springfield was another patient Jo felt she had failed.

  ‘Perhaps you should become a pathologist. From what you’ve said about this Lucy woman, you could get away with any number of mis- takes.’

  ‘Somehow, I don’t think that would be a good move for me. I do actually want to help people, live people, and I like to see daylight oc- casionally.’