Night Visit (12 page)

Now
I felt decidedly coy. ‘Maybe just a couple.’

‘
Well I approve,’ he said. ‘And I’ll certainly Rosie-sit again next Wednesday, even if the cat does snag my trousers.’

It
was only as he left that I wondered,
Why
had
Duncan
asked
me
to
dinner
but
not
Neil
? Our practice was not on call tonight. A neighbouring doctor was covering under a reciprocal agreement. As we covered their patients too. As far as I knew there was no animosity between my two colleagues.
So
why
just
me
?

Was
it because Duncan wanted to discourage our growing friendship? Surely not. Surely he could not still hold out any hope that Robin and I would fall into each other’s arms again.

Unless
he knew something I didn’t. About Janina? About Robin? Or did he want to discourage our growing friendship because he knew something about Neil?

Duncan
lived to the north of Larkdale, on a hillside bordered by the same forest which skirted round the back of the ridge and overlooked the town, finally ending a couple of miles beyond Gordon’s Lane and the Carnforths’ smallholding. His house was reached by a rough, stony track but there were only four houses along it, the last one a farm.

None
of the inhabitants had been prepared to go to the expense of having the road tarmacked, so I bumped and lurched the half mile from the road and fretted about my silencer.

I
don’t know when I became aware that someone was following me. Even on a summer’s evening and a lonely road it can be difficult to know what is coincidence and what is not. The blue Lada may just have happened to be going the same way. I didn’t really notice it until I turned up the rough track.

It
was close behind me, crowding me. It had to be going to one of the four houses. There was no public right of way. It looked large in my rear view mirror. I concentrated on staring forwards. The rocks in the centre could have been hazardous. I only let my eyes linger on the driver as I turned into Duncan’s drive. It was Pritchard and he made no attempt either to speak, to wave or to acknowledge my presence. He simply stopped at the entrance.

I
got out of my car, deliberately glanced in his direction, locked up and banged on Duncan’s door.

Fiona
opened it and gave me a warm hug. ‘I’m so glad Duncan invited you, finally,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it was New Year’s Eve when we last met.’ I handed her the flowers and wished her a happy wedding anniversary before following her along their hall, remembering the first time I had come here, a shy junior partner with husband and baby in tow. Then I had wondered how Duncan, Fiona and Merryn had coped with such isolation. I found it threatening. It was only later, when I knew them all a little better, that I realised they thrived on being a self-sealed unit, a family who neither wanted nor desired intrusion.

A
dinner invite was a rare honour.

‘
I suppose New Year’s Eve was the beginning of the end.’ It was typical Fiona bluntness. I nodded. How perceptively she must have watched the three of us that night, myself, Robin and Janina, and seen quite clearly the way the wind would blow us all. ‘I think life will be easier for you now, Harriet.’ Having cleared the air deftly she added, ‘What a lovely dress. Black does suit you, if it’s in the right material. Nothing too slinky or sparkly.’ Fiona was the only one who always called me Harriet and never Harry.

Except
Pritchard. Why had he followed me tonight?

Duncan
appeared in the doorway and distracted my thoughts. ‘Harry,’ he said warmly. ‘I thought I heard your car.’ We eyed each other cautiously and did not hug but gave each other a prolonged and friendly handshake.

At
surgery Duncan was not a smart dresser but he passed the respectability test. At home he could have passed for a visiting hobo. His hair stuck out like wisps of straw, he wore a shapeless sweater in undyed sheep’s wool with loops dangling where he had caught it, baggy cords, bald at the knees, and slippers bulging with toes. But he did look comfortable and content and as I followed them along the hall I could sense the warmth of this family home. I knew that our house in Larch Road had never held this atmosphere.

I
handed Duncan the champagne and he made a pretence of studying the label.

‘
Australian. Very avant-garde of you, Harry. I’m sure Robin would have plumped for French stuff.’

It
seemed a sign of approval that I had been accepted without Robin. So I settled comfortably into the sofa, sipped the dilute gin and tonic and asked Duncan how many years they’d been married.

‘
Twenty-eight,’ he said, with real pride.

‘
Harriet.’ Merryn was plumper than when I had last seen her but she was still as radiant as ever. She was one of those people who fills a room with their presence, with a wide smile, deep blue eyes and a loud, commanding voice which she had a habit of modulating at intervals. It had the effect of making you listen. ‘How are you?’

She
was not a beautiful woman. Not even those who loved her would claim she was. But those who loved her numbered almost every single person who had met her. She radiated warmth, inspired trust and showed an optimistic conviction that everyone would live up to her high ideals. Some sour little part of me might have resented her. She was certainly a better doctor than I and the reason for that had nothing to do with clinical acumen. In that I honestly believed we were equal. The reason was that Merryn loved people while I did not. I treated people. Sometimes I cured people. Sometimes not. But it was not through love for the human race that I was a doctor. I knew that underneath I did not love its ‘silly face’ as she did. To Merryn medicine was a vocation. To me a job.

She
bent and kissed both my cheeks, but it was not the affected air kiss of the chattering classes.

‘
Well you look brilliant.’ She turned. ‘Doesn’t she, Mum?’

‘
Most definitely.’

Merryn
’s face visibly relaxed as though she had suffered my marital break up alongside me. And that was the trouble. She probably had.

‘
Bloody Robin,’ she said, draining the small, square-cut glass which I knew would contain neat whisky. ‘Didn’t know when he was well off. I mean
that
bimbo
.
’

It
was exactly what I wanted to hear.

Merryn
poured herself another whisky, peered at my almost full glass and topped up both her mother’s and her father’s glasses.

‘
Mind you, Harry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how you put up with him. He was a dreadful philanderer.’

‘
Merryn.’ Fiona was protesting weakly.

‘
Well he was, Mum.’ She looked back at me. ‘I suppose the trouble was he was so good looking women made a bit of a play for him.’

I
diverted the talk to her job hunt. Her three years’ GP training were up soon and she needed a practice of her own.

‘
It’s hopeless,’ she said gloomily. ‘There isn’t a thing within fifty miles of here. There just aren’t the jobs. At least not in the decent practices. After all, this is largely a rural area and the partnerships are, by and large, stable.’

A
swift glance passed between father and daughter.

Duncan
made it a touch too clear that if a vacancy was to occur in our practice she would be his first choice. It didn’t take a huge imagination to fill in the gaps. If I resigned Merryn would fill my place without Duncan feeling even a tinge of regret. And to Fiona, to have her daughter home again would be heaven.

‘
Come on,’ Merryn said abruptly, flipping her whisky glass back down on the wine table, making it rock. ‘Let’s eat. I’m starving.’

We
followed her into the dining room. It looked celebratory, almost bridal, with a stunning white table-cloth, silver candles flickering in tall, branched candlesticks. There was a scent of beeswax and although it was July and a warm night, logs flickered in the grate.

I
didn’t
notice
it
at
first
. The Fairleys had taste, a few choice pieces of silver, a lovely oil over the fireplace, a mahogany card table in the alcove at the far end of the room on which stood a lamp with a pale green lampshade. No Chinese coolie hat here. Fiona Fairley was a talented homemaker and she and Duncan regularly scoured local antique shops and fairs for choice items. He would often describe some ‘bargain’ he had picked up for a song. Tonight the silver had been cleaned; the plates reflected the firelight so well they looked as though they had been polished. The green rocket salad, fresh smoked Scottish salmon and slices of lemon could have been served up in the best restaurant in the country and from the kitchen wafted an appetising scent. Venison, I guessed. It smelt strong.

Duncan
poured us each a small glass of champagne and raised a toast. ‘To partnerships, Harry,’ he said. ‘Health, happiness, good fortune and legal medicine.’ His eyes were sparkling. ‘And maybe even a smidgen of romance.’

‘
You can spare me that,’ I said.

It
was then that I glanced into the alcove, over the beam of the lamp. The glow picked out the print of the child clasping a toadstool. I stared and stared at it until Fiona spoke.

‘
You like it?’

‘
Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I do like it.’

‘
We bought it—’

‘
I know where you bought it,’ I said. ‘I saw it in the shop. I was thinking of buying it myself. But it was closed. And then—’

‘
We bought it as a wedding anniversary present, to each other.’

‘
What a coincidence. Both of you going for the same print,’ Merryn said brightly. ‘And yet,’ her head was bobbing from one to the other, ‘I wouldn’t have said you three had the same taste at all.’

‘
Neither would I.’

‘
Duncan has a passion for fungi, don’t you, dear?’

‘
Yes,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I am interested in fungi. In fact, it’s one of the features of this place that is so interesting. These woods have some of the rarest varieties.’

‘
He sometimes goes out and picks them.’

‘
Early morning hobby of mine.’

This
was a long-married couple, speaking as one, each telling part of the story. I stared back at the print and Duncan followed my gaze. Tor a fungus fanatic there’s something very collectable about that print. There’s something about the way she’s hugging that poisonous thing.’

‘
I thought the same.’

And
then he was staring at the print in a different way, as though he was seeing something else, something completely different, like Alice Through the Looking Glass, a scene viewed from the wrong side of the picture. ‘Does she know it’s dangerous, I wonder? Does she know one small bite... ?’

‘
Duncan... ?’ Fiona was watching him with concern but he took no notice.

‘
Does she know that she’s teasing, that if she opens her mouth and takes a bite—even licks it—she’ll be afflicted with vomiting and hallucinations. And maybe even death.’ His glance moved back to me. ‘I’ve always found it interesting,’ he said, ‘the way the fly agaric is portrayed as some folk object, something fairy-like and pretty. And yet,’ he said, ‘they’re nasty, poisonous objects. I believe death by one of these poisons is not to be recommended.’

Merryn
collected up the plates. ‘And by the way,’ she said, ‘the fungi in the venison pie tonight are guaranteed chanterelles. Dad went out at five this morning to gather them.’

‘
Guilty.’ Duncan held up his hand. ‘I admit it. There is always a huge clump over towards the Carnforths’ place. I walked all the way over at five this morning and got myself a bag full.’

‘
It must be miles.’

‘
That’s the funny thing really,’ Duncan said. ‘It isn’t far. You see although we’re the north of the town and they’re the south their place is no more than two miles away as the crow flies.’ I glanced back at the print and marvelled that I had remembered the details so accurately.

*

I wondered if Pritchard would still be waiting as I pulled the car out of the Fairleys’ drive. But the black yawned in front of me. The entire landscape was empty. I slipped the car into gear and began to descend the hill.

The
mind does play strange tricks on us. We ponder points that have struck us hours ago. The evening had not quite turned out how I had expected. I had had two glasses of wine plus a gin and tonic. I was tired. I had had a long, busy day.