The Various Haunts of Men (31 page)

‘Sir. But what about Angela Randall?’

‘What about her?’

‘Well, so far as we know she had nothing to do with Starly.’

‘No.’

‘So … we don’t have any leads for her at all.’

‘No. The only lead is the very tenuous one of the Hill and we’ve nothing there. Until anything new comes up about her, we concentrate on Debbie Parker.’

‘Right.’

Personally, she might be more in love with Simon Serrailler every time she set eyes on him, but
professionally, she was in disagreement with his dismissal of the Angela Randall case. The picture of her sterile, lonely little house came to Freya’s mind, the soundless rooms, the dreadful, bleak, silence that hung over the place, and then the picture of the golden parcel, the expensive cufflinks with their note. It was the note that gave her deepest and most private feelings away, the note that
reached out to Freya and struck such a chord with her. She knew, walking back to her CID room, why she was not prepared to let Angela Randall’s case slip out of sight. The note attached to the gift was somehow one of desperation, a revelatory note, in spite of the absence of names,
a note that revealed an obsessive passion. Angela Randall loved a man to whom she regularly gave expensive presents,
presents for which she must have dug deep into her savings made from a modest salary. Freya understood her, and what motivated her, only too well.

So far, she had told no one about what she had discovered from the Bevham jeweller.

‘Nathan?’

‘Sarge.’

‘The DCI wants a house-to-house up at Starly, posters, leaflets with Debbie Parker on, a total blitz. He thinks anything we may find is going
to be found up there.’

‘Gives me the creeps that place. I bet she’s up there. She’s joined some bonkers coven.’

‘Well, if she has, by the time uniform have saturated the place she’ll be found.’

‘Is there anything for me, Sarge?’

‘At Starly?’

‘Anywhere. Only Matt Ruston wants me to help him on the drug data. There’s a helluva lot to be gone through.’

‘You trying to tell me something?’

‘Don’t
be daft, Sarge, I love you to bits, die for you I would, only if it’s back to Starly …’

‘It isn’t, it’s off to see a little man who will only talk to important people in CID, and when we’ve done that, there’s something I want to run past you.’

Nathan flashed out his monkey grin. ‘Gimme five,’ he said, raising his hand.

‘Is this a good moment or are you feeding children, doing children’s homework, giving hay to horses …’

‘Hi, Karin. Children fed and homeworked and horses hayed, now catching up on GP paperwork so all interruptions welcome. How are things?’

‘I’m reporting in as requested.’

‘Good. What have you been up to?’

‘Reflexology.’

‘Don’t, I couldn’t bear anyone tickling my feet.’

‘They
don’t, they press, and quite firmly. It’s utter bliss. I nearly went to sleep. They burn lovely scented candles. Sweet girl too. I didn’t tell her anything and after a bit she asked if I had any problems in my breasts.’

‘Good guess. Women of your age often have.’

‘Cynic. I felt terrific afterwards.’

‘I’m all for that.’

‘I’m keeping a diary.’

‘About what you are doing or are you putting down
your feelings as well?’

‘Everything. There’d be no point otherwise. I have to be honest with myself, Cat.’

‘So what’s next?’

‘I’ve another appointment with my spiritual healer on Wednesday morning. That really is the best thing so far. I come out feeling I could climb Mount Everest but I also feel very calm and positive.’

‘Can I make a suggestion here?’

‘That’s what you’re for, you’re my
doctor.’

‘I think you should go for another scan.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to see what is actually happening … as against what you feel.’

‘I want to think about this.’

Cat sighed. She was restraining herself as much as she dared, being as open-minded as far as she thought professional, but every day she had misgivings. Karin looked well and felt well. Cat needed to know what had happened to the cancer.

‘Are you being fair?’

‘To who?’

‘Well, actually, to me. I’m giving you a lot of rope here, Karin.’

‘I just need a bit longer.’

‘What are you afraid of?’

‘What?’

‘Sorry, Karin – I can’t believe I said that.’

‘You think I’m afraid of facing what you would call “facts”.’

‘I don’t know what the facts are until we find out.’

‘Just not yet.’

Cat hesitated then decided not to push her for the
time being.

‘OK, so where next? Feng shui?’

‘The psychic surgeon.’

‘No, Karin, absolutely not.’

‘Listen, this one isn’t about me. I don’t believe in it, I think it’s trickery and I think it probably ought to be stopped, but at the moment all we have is rumour. Someone has to go and find out and then bring back a proper account. I’m doing everyone a favour here.’

‘Then I’m coming with you.
I want to know what’s going on as well. I hear what you’re saying and maybe you can be a guinea pig. But you’re vulnerable.’

‘It’s Thursday morning at ten fifteen. You’ll be in surgery.’

‘Yes, and Chris will be at BG lecturing. Damn. OK, but if anything worries you, come straight out. We’re not talking scented candles here.’

‘I know.’

‘By the way, has my mother rung you?’

‘About her dinner
party? Yes she has and we’re going.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Do you know who else will be there?’

‘Us, Nick Haydn, Aidan Sharpe and a rather attractive detective sergeant who works with Si. Possibly David Lester, not sure. Bit of a liquorice allsorts, but you know my mother. I think she might be matchmaking.’

‘Or fundraising or trying to get up a working party for the hospice bazaar.’

‘Or just winding
up Dad. He’ll hate it, of course.’

‘She never seems to notice.’

‘Oh, she notices. Her way of dealing is to bat on regardless.’

‘I’ll have been operated on psychically by then, of course.’

‘God, what a conversation stopper. And, Karin …’

‘I know, I know.’

‘The scan. This is your doctor speaking.’

‘Goodbye, Cat.’

Karin was in Starly by nine thirty the following Thursday morning. It was a
day to make anyone feel better, she thought, driving through the lanes whose hedgerows were sprinkled white with blackthorn. She had been determined about taking charge of her own health, determined and positive. She believed in what she was doing. Nevertheless, in the dark watches of the night she had misgivings, when she imagined the jaws of the crab eating their way through her. Then she wondered
what she had been thinking of, rejecting Cat’s advice and proven medical treatment, and fear that her delay meant that she would now be beyond help gripped her. But in the day, when she read the books so full of miracles and success stories, so bubbling with optimism and confidence, and listened to her tapes and was transported by them into realms of beauty and calm and vibrant health, everything
changed; her night terrors receded into their hollow caves and she felt fit and sure of herself again.

She felt like that now as she pulled into the car park behind the market square at Starly. It was quiet, the sun caught the trunks of the trees with lemon-coloured light, and a mother with a laughing, dancing toddler and a new baby in a sling went past; she and Karin exchanged a remark about
the springlike weather and the child blew a stream of bubbles from a wand and plastic tub of liquid. The bubbles drifted up, gleaming with iridescent rainbows.

Karin walked down the hill, looking in shop windows
at dream catchers and jars of organic honey and small crystals. One of them, a pink quartz like a chunk of solidified rose petals, caught her eye; she felt a magnetic power emanating
from it towards her. She bought it for five pounds, and when she put the package into her bag, she felt a lifting of her spirit.

She bought a newspaper and took it into the pine-tabled wholefood café, to read over a glass of home-made lemonade. ‘If life seems like a lemon, make lemonade.’ She had read that, along with a great many other optimistic little mottoes, in one of her American books,
the one that also told her she should wrap herself in white light, weave her own cloth of gold and reach out every morning as she woke to touch her own rainbow. She liked the lemonade advice though.

She looked out of the café window and felt good. She told herself so. She felt happy and positive and well. She was sure of it. She was also full of foreboding about the appointment ahead. Reflexologists
and aromatherapists were one thing, a psychic surgeon quite another. She curled her right hand round the mobile phone in her pocket for reassurance.

At ten past ten she walked through the door of a house at the bottom of the hill whose glass panel had ‘Surgery’ written on it in black; the word ‘Dental’ had been roughly erased. As a dental phobic, Karin was not reassured.

‘Good morning. Have
you an appointment?’

The middle-aged woman in the camel-coloured jumper could have been the receptionist for a Harley Street consultant. Karin gave her name.

‘Yes, thank you, Mrs McCafferty. Would you take a seat? Dr Groatman will be with you shortly.’

‘I’m sorry?’

The woman smiled. ‘Dr Groatman. That is the name of the consultant who treats patients through Anthony.’

‘I see. And I take it
this doctor –’

‘Lived in the 1830s in London.’

‘– Right.’

The woman smiled before turning back to her computer.

‘Do many people come here?’

‘Oh yes, the doctor is fully booked for some weeks ahead. People travel long distances for a consultation.’

Karin picked up a copy of
World Healing
, but as she looked at the cover, the inner door opened and an elderly woman came out looking confused
and rather pale.

‘Mrs Cornwell? Please come and sit down for a moment and reorientate yourself. I’ll get you some water.’ The receptionist went to a cooler at the far end of the room. ‘It’s important that you drink this, Mrs Cornwell. How are you feeling?’

The woman took out a handkerchief and wiped her face. ‘A bit faint.’

‘That’s quite usual. Just drink the water slowly and don’t get up.
Have you any discomfort?’

The woman looked up in surprise. ‘Well, no. I haven’t. None at all. Isn’t that odd?’

The receptionist smiled. ‘It’s usual.’

Then the door opened again and a man came through and went straight across to the desk without looking at either woman. He was slight, with sandy hair and an unmemorable face. He entered something on to the computer, typing with two fingers, then
looked briefly at a folder on the desk, before walking back across the room and closing the inner door behind him. There was silence. Mrs Cornwell sipped her water and wiped her face and continued to look bemused, the receptionist
returned to her work. Karin opened the magazine again.

A buzzer sounded.

‘Would you go through please, Mrs McCafferty?’

Karin’s legs felt weak and her throat dry.
It was exactly like the dentist. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to turn round and get out, now, while she could.

The receptionist was smiling. Karin looked at the other patient. What happens? What is it like? What does he do? What are you here for? How do you really feel? The questions tumbled round her head.

‘Straight through the door. Dr Groatman is waiting.’

Oh God, I must be mad.

She
wished Cat had come with her. She went slowly across the room.

The man was very bent and walked with a pronounced limp. He wore a caliper and one shoulder was slightly higher than the other. His hair was the same sandy colour as the man who had walked through the reception room, but tousled and sticking up from his head. He wore a white coat and stood by an examination couch. The room was lit
dimly, with slatted blinds shielding the window. There was a sink with a tap. A bare vinyl floor. Nothing else.

‘On the couch, please. What is the name you use?’ His voice was gruff with a slight accent she could not place.

‘Karin.’

‘Lie down, please.’

Karin lay. He stood above her and passed his hands rapidly over her body without touching it.

‘You have cancer. I feel your cancer in the
breast and the glands and spread to the stomach. Please unbutton your shirt but do not remove and do not remove the clothing or the underclothing.’

Now the accent was definitely foreign, perhaps German or Dutch. While she unbuttoned her shirt he looked away.

‘I should remove this growth here in the neck gland. This is the core tumour. We get rid of this, others will shrink and disappear. They
feed off the parent tumour.’

Everything in her wanted to shut out the sight of him. He needed a shave, though his skin and hands seemed clean. He reached under the couch and swung out a tray of instruments. She heard the sound of a bucket being moved. Karin forced herself to watch, to observe everything as closely as she could, remembering his face, his hands, his body. He took an instrument
from the tray and seemed to fold his hand over it.

Then he reached towards her neck.

‘You need not be afraid, nothing to fear. Look at your heart rate, far too quick, ridiculous. Calm down. I am making you well. The tumour will go, you will be well, what is there to be afraid of?’

Then the hand moved swiftly and she felt him take a fold of the flesh in her neck, low down, then a curious sensation,
as if something were being drawn across her skin, and the hand twisting and moving within her neck. She watched his face. He had his eyes half closed, but she knew he was aware that she was looking at him. The twisting movement sharpened, she felt a stinging pain, and a wrench.

‘Ah. There. Good.’

His hand moved swiftly away from her and down. Something dropped into the bucket at his feet. When
his hand came up the fingers were bloody. Now his hands were hovering just above her again, and he was mumbling what sounded like an incantatory prayer.