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  “Sorry,” he said before fully taking in who she was. “Oh, um, I’m in a hurry,” he explained unnecessarily and continued through the door, letting it slam behind him.

  Callie was too angry, and too slow, to give him a sarcastic response but as she looked at his retreating back, she was pleased to notice his neck slowly reddening as he approached the custody desk. He must have been told she had been called in to see Mark despite his insistence that her patient was fine and she hoped that he was embarrassed about it. She would make sure she reminded him of it if he ever tried to interfere in her work again.

  * * *

  Back in her flat, and still furious with Miller who, she now felt, was not only arrogant and chauvinistic, but also could not be relied upon to protect the vulnerable, Callie poured herself a large glass of white wine. A very large one. She knew all the reasons why this was not a good idea. She had counselled patients on not drinking to relieve stress. She knew alcohol was empty calories and raised her risk of a variety of cancers. She knew precisely how many units of alcohol were in the glass and she knew it was more than her daily limit, according to the current government health guidance but she was going to drink it all the same.

  As she began to feel the relaxing effect of the wine, she thought about Mark. And Miller. She wondered if he was responsible for Mark’s injuries, but, in the spirit of fairness, decided that it was more likely to have been Jeffries. She had to admit, even to herself, that the damage had been minor and didn’t really need to have been examined by a doctor, the custody sergeant was probably just covering his back because Mark was listed as vulnerable. She took another sip of wine. She didn’t know if Mark was innocent or guilty and that wasn’t really her concern, her job was to make sure he was fit to be detained, and as his GP she also needed to consider his physical and mental wellbeing; with that in mind, she resolved to contact Adrian Lambourne again, to make sure he was made fully aware just how fragile Mark was currently, and this time she’d back up any conversation with something in writing, just in case he fobbed her off again.

  Callie was nicely relaxed now, and flicked through the television channels whilst eating an omelette and salad, looking forward to a long, hot soak in the bath before an early night. She had to concede that a glass of wine could sometimes be the answer to a stressful day, but she was never going to admit that to her patients.

  Chapter 6

  It had been a long and frustrating morning. It was Callie’s study and administration time. However, just because she was free to make phone calls didn’t mean that everyone else was also available. She had started out by calling the custody suite to check if Mark was still being held. Under PACE he could be held for twenty-four hours and that could be extended to thirty-six by a senior officer’s review. As he had only been arrested the previous afternoon, she thought it was likely he was still there, which he was. On hearing he was still there and that he remained anxious and stressed, Callie decided to ring his psychologist straight away and get some advice on how to help her patient.

  As she listened to the phone ring and waited for the answer phone to kick in, she made a note to visit Mark’s mother and see how she was doing, and also decided to call Helen to try and find out how the interview had gone. She left a message asking Lambourne to call her back as soon as he was free and mentioning that it was about Mark and that it was urgent. Then she tried unsuccessfully to reach Helen and left a message for her too. Next on her list was Jillian Hollingsworth and she left a message on her phone as well, asking her to collect a blood test form and to get one done before her next prescription was due, stressing the importance of monitoring her thyroid function regularly.

  Half an hour and a dozen abortive phone calls later, Callie had had enough. She took a look at the pile of paperwork, shoved it back in her “To do” pile, grabbed her bag and went out.

  * * *

  The row of council houses where Mark Caxton lived with his mother was shabby and in need of repair. The render was cracked and could have done with a coat of paint, fences were broken and had been mended with old bits of wood and wire, and a variety of old cars, broken toys and household implements decorated the front lawns. Callie looked carefully up and down the street before she walked up the path to Mark’s house and pushed the doorbell, thankful that the press didn’t seem to have got hold of the story of Mark’s arrest just yet and noting that the yellowed net curtains next door twitched as a neighbour checked who was visiting. There was no answer and realising that she hadn’t heard any chimes from the bell, she also knocked on the door.

  Callie heard footsteps in the hallway but still no one answered. She knocked again.

  “Mrs Caxton? It’s Dr Hughes,” she called through the letterbox. “Please, can I come in? I just want to see how you are.”

  After a few more moments of foot-shuffling, the door was finally opened, emitting a blast of stale smoke, and Callie was allowed in. She followed Mark’s mother into the kitchen, which was surprisingly clean and tidy. Only a dirty glass and a half empty bottle of vodka betrayed the fact that Mrs Caxton had been drinking, until Callie took a closer look at her. She was haggard and swaying slightly as she stood, using the counter to help her stop the room from spinning. She took a deep drag of her cigarette before crushing it out in a dirty ashtray. It was by no means her first of the day, by the look of things.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Callie said gently, indicating the two chairs either side of a small breakfast table.

  Mrs Caxton gratefully lowered herself into one and grabbed her packet of cigarettes. As she took out another cigarette and went to use the lighter tucked inside, Callie hoped it would help her to relax enough to talk about what had happened and, sure enough, it didn’t take long for Mrs Caxton to open up and tell Callie about the police search of her house and how it had affected her. How terrifying it had been, how she felt violated. This was her space, her safe place, and they had come and trampled over everything, messing it up searching. In fact, once she had started it was hard to get her to stop for long enough for Callie to ask any questions. It seemed that, as she had thought, Mark had got hurt when he tried to stop the police from first finding and then taking his precious collection of match books away as evidence.

  “Stupid, bloody match books. Rubbish. That’s all they were. Dennis used to bring them back from all these places he visited as a salesman, picking them up in the bars and hotels and that.”

  “He was a travelling salesman?” Callie queried unnecessarily, just to keep the conversation going.

  “Yeah. He sold cleaning services for factories and businesses, like, you know, all over the South East. Brought a new packet back for Mark every time he stayed away. Not much of a present, not really suitable for a kid but Mark was always fascinated by them, thought his Dad was staying in all these exotic places. Littlehampton, Ipswich and that, not so exotic really.”

  Callie silently agreed.

  “’course, not many places give away matches these days, what with the smoking ban.”

  Callie was grateful that she blew smoke out the side of her mouth rather than directly at her.

  “Mark adored his dad. Became obsessed with those stupid match books, the only thing he had left of him when he was gone.”

  “How did he die?” Callie asked.

  “Heart attack whilst he was driving home. He called and said he’d had some chest pain and I told him to go to the hospital but he wanted to get back for Mark’s tenth birthday, stupid bugger.” She took another drag and ignored the ash that fell onto her lap.

  “And Mark used these match books when he set fires?”

  “Yeah. It was all his fault. Giving a kid matches. Asking for trouble. After Mark got done for arson the third time, they told me I had to get rid of them, so I threw them out, honest, but Mark must have taken them out of the bin and hidden them.”

  “And he carried on using them?”

  “No, he used boxes of matches after. I didn’t know he still had the
ruddy books or I’d have got rid.”

  “But he could have gone back to using the books?”

  Mrs Caxton thought about that for so long that Callie thought she might not have heard her, but just as she was about to ask again, she answered.

  “I suppose he must’ve.” There didn’t seem to be much to add to this depressing acceptance that her son had killed a woman, and Callie decided to leave her to her cigarettes and vodka. A sad case, but there was little she could do for the woman except refer her to the drug and alcohol team, again.

  * * *

  As it was still technically her study morning and no one was returning her phone calls, Callie decided to go back to her flat and do a bit of research online about arson and arsonists, and shower and change to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke that had lodged in her clothes and hair. Once online, she typed arson into a search engine and started working her way through the vast numbers of hits the search threw up. She was not surprised to find that most arsonists started their experimentation with fire when they were young, unless they were burning properties for reasons of fraud or personal gain. She read that in cases where the subject has difficulty relating to people in a one to one situation, fire could become their friend, mentor and even lover.

  She knew that Mark’s first conviction came when he was ten. Shortly after his father died, he had set fire to a neighbour’s garden shed. There followed assorted rubbish bins, sheds and outhouses set alight around the neighbourhood, which must have made Mark and his mother unpopular with the locals. By the time he was fourteen he had escalated to torching cars because he liked the explosion when the fuel tank went up. Initially he had set fire to them where they were parked but after an incident when the car fire had got out of control and spread to a nearby house, he had changed to taking the cars away and setting them alight in remote locations.

  Callie wondered about the match books. If he had stopped using them, why start again now? Callie could only think that it was because he had escalated to a more serious crime which in itself posed another question: if Mark was indeed the arsonist, why had he started killing? And why a woman? Unfortunately, Callie had already thought of one scenario that might explain it. Perhaps something had happened in his relationship with his mother, and, unable to hurt her, he had found a substitute. It was even possible that she had abused him. Much as that was a repugnant thought, it could be the cause of his dislike of being touched. Callie hoped she was wrong, but it did make a sort of sense, if burning a woman to death could ever be said to make sense. She shook her head in frustration. She couldn’t honestly believe it. He was such a gentle lad and the murder had been truly brutal but, if it wasn’t Mark, who else could it be?

  She decided to concentrate on the match books, as they were unusual and the one physical link to Mark. Callie knew that forensics might be able to identify the burnt remains of the one used in this case, even when it seemed impossibly blackened and damaged. If they were able to, they might also be able to show whether or not it could be one from Mark’s collection, that is, an old one and from a place his father might have visited. That would show an almost direct connection to Mark and the police would have enough to charge him with at least arson and probably murder as a result. The provenance of the match book was crucial both to the likelihood of Mark being charged, but also to Callie’s belief that he wouldn’t have done it.

  Thinking about where someone would get one these days, Callie googled match books and discovered that they were remarkably easy to buy. Apparently phillumeny, the hobby of collecting match-related items including boxes, labels, covers and books, was very popular. She could buy them branded to promote her company or bar, or order personalised ones for her wedding. And if she wanted to buy a whole collection of old ones, eBay had them grouped together according to vintage or country. There were even collections with saucy covers being advertised for sale. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be as easy to show a direct link to Mark as she had thought. Anyone could have got hold of them and if that was all the evidence the police had, they would have to let him go.

  * * *

  Callie had just finished evening surgery when she heard from Helen that Mark had been released. She also told Callie that he was in such a state that he was having an anxiety attack and wouldn’t leave the house. With a sigh, Callie agreed to visit him. She would have preferred not to do it so soon after he had been released and to give him more time to settle, but the weekend rota started at six and she wasn’t on call, so she felt it would be better to go and see how bad he was rather than leave the initial assessment to a doctor who didn’t know him. She could then leave a note with the out of hours service that Mark might need further help over the weekend.

  Before leaving the surgery, she tried calling Adrian Lambourne again, as he was the psychologist who had been working with Mark with such success and she wanted to see if he could give her any pointers on the best way of helping their patient. She had already left Lambourne several messages without getting any reply, and was surprised, given how late it was, when she managed to get through to him this time.

  “Oh, hello, Adrian, it’s Callie Hughes, Mark Caxton’s GP. I wondered if you could spare a moment to discuss his case with me?”

  “Ah yes, Dr Hughes. Yes, um, it’s a bit difficult.”

  Misunderstanding his reluctance to speak to her, Callie assumed it was because she was calling too late in the day.

  “It won’t take long, but if it’s a bad time, just say when would be better.”

  “No, no, it’s not a bad time, as such, it’s more that I have to consider client confidentiality.”

  Callie was taken aback by this response.

  “I’m Mark’s doctor,” she clarified, “so confidentiality isn’t an issue.”

  “It’s more complicated than that, though, isn’t it? Because of who you work for, I mean.”

  “I’m not sure what you are referring to,” she countered, but she was beginning to get an idea. “Do you mean because of my work as a police doctor?”

  “Exactly.”

  He seemed relieved that she was the one who had actually broached the subject.

  “Anything you say to me as Mark’s doctor remains strictly confidential and I would not disclose it to the police unless I had Mark’s permission to do so.”

  “I am sure you wouldn’t, Dr Hughes, but I am anxious to avoid putting you in a difficult position.”

  “I am quite used to difficult positions, Dr Lambourne.” Callie was beginning to get very irritated by his prissy attitude.

  “Even so, there is always the danger of the police finding something out on their own, and suspicion falling on you as having revealed it in some way. I really wouldn’t want you to be accused of breaching confidentiality.”

  “I certainly won’t breach any confidentiality, and I am sure the police would support me if there was any misunderstanding, so I don’t see it as a problem, Dr Lambourne.”

  “But it could very easily become a problem, Dr Hughes.”

  “Is that a threat?” Callie was incredulous.

  “No, no, of course not. However, I really think it would be in my client’s best interest if I do not speak to you, and indeed, I shall be recommending that he change doctors. Goodbye.” He hung up on her.

  Callie took a deep breath. Whilst she knew that her joint roles could potentially put her in difficult situations, and that was without the added complication of her acting as Mark’s appropriate adult, it had never been a problem before and his assertion that he was doing it to protect her as much as Mark, made her blood boil. The fact that Miller had made the same suggestion about a conflict of interest the day before, only made it worse.

  * * *

  It was with a feeling of déjà vu that Callie parked her car in front of the terrace of council houses where Mark lived and knocked on the door. She heard footsteps and could see someone standing in the hallway through the textured glass in the door. She knocked again.

  �
��Mark?” she called through the letterbox. “It’s Doctor Hughes. Helen asked me to visit and said she’d let you know I was coming.”

  There was no response, but she could hear some shuffling, and peering through the letterbox she could see a pair of feet covered in a pair of grubby, worn, sport socks. One big toe poked out from a hole.

  “Mark, I know you are there, so open the door for a minute and speak to me, will you?”

  The feet shuffled some more. Mark was thinking.

  “I just want to help you, Mark, so let me in, will you?” Callie said gently.

  “I can’t,” Mark told her, anxiously. “Dr Lambourne told me I wasn’t to speak to you. He made me promise.”

  Callie sighed. Lambourne must have rung Mark straight after her conversation with him.

  “Is your mum there?”

  “She’s asleep,” he said. “I don’t want her bothered.”

  He sounded worried and Callie knew that he was probably covering for the fact that his mother had passed out drunk. Children of alcoholics learnt to lie and make excuses from an early age.

  “It’s okay, Mark,” Callie didn’t want to put him under yet more pressure. According to Helen he was close to breaking point, so she backed off. “How about another doctor, Mark? Would you let another doctor in if I arranged for someone to visit? Would that be okay?”

  “Dr Lambourne said I wasn’t to speak to anyone from your surgery as you work for the police and would tell them bad things about me. He’s going to see me Monday, he said,” Mark answered in a rush, knowing that what he was saying wasn’t likely to be well-received.