The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(40)

“John didn’t like the cats,” Frances muttered, stroking its fur with one arthritic hand. “He never liked them.”

“We understand John lived here with you,” MacKenzie said.

“Yes, he always stayed. Never wanted to leave me alone. I don’t suppose he’ll be coming back now, though.”

Ryan envied MacKenzie’s ability to be heard without raising her voice but began to worry about Frances Dobbs’ capacity to give a statement. There was more here than grief or shock, neither of which seemed very evident.

“No, Mrs Dobbs, he won’t be coming back.”

“What’s that?”

Ryan took another deep breath.

“JOHN WON’T BE COMING BACK.”

Her hand stilled on the cat’s fur and then started up again as she cooed to it, murmuring endearments.

“Did John ever mention anybody special, Frances?” MacKenzie asked.

“How d’ you mean, love?”

Once again, Ryan was agog.

“Like a girl, or maybe a special friend at work?”

“No. Well, he was a very busy man. My John worked very long hours, so he didn’t have time to mess around with girls.”

Ryan frowned. As far as he was aware, John Dobbs had worked part-time as a healthcare assistant, hardly the kind of hours she seemed to be suggesting.

MacKenzie had the same thought.

“Did John enjoy his work, Frances?”

“He used to tell me about all the patients who’d written to him, thanking him for saving their lives. He was a miracle worker, my son. A genius.”

Ryan leaned forward, speaking clearly so she could lip-read.

“Remind me, Frances, what did John do for a living?”

“He was a surgeon,” she said proudly. “Look at all those certificates.”

She gestured to one of the walls and they looked up to find a wall full of fake certificates, all framed.

Ryan and MacKenzie looked at each other and nodded. They couldn’t continue without another person present to look after Mrs Dobbs’ interests, if not her mental wellbeing.

“Thank you very much, Frances. We’ll come back and visit you another time, if we may.”

“Any time, dear.”

But as they were leaving, Ryan hesitated.

“Mrs Dobbs, would you mind if we looked at John’s room?”

She began to fret.

“Oh, I don’t think you want to do that. It’s… it’s not very—well, it’s very untidy.”

“We don’t mind.”

“No, you can’t. I don’t want you to see.”

“See what, Mrs Dobbs?” MacKenzie asked, very gently.

The old woman clutched her stick and shook her head in agitation.

“All those women. All those women he’s got up there.”

Ryan looked at MacKenzie, who read the message in his eyes.

“Come on, Mrs Dobbs. Why don’t we sit down and you can tell me what your cats are called?”

“Yes, alright, dear.”

Ryan waited until they were back inside the living room before heading upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. A quick search led him past a room full of bric-a-brac and an ancient bathroom until he found the room that had been John’s domain.

It was like stepping into another world.

An expensive desktop computer dominated one wall, complete with cameras, microphones and other add-on devices. A heavy-duty printer was tucked beneath the desk alongside several unopened packets of paper.

Ryan spent a few minutes conducting a search and tried accessing the computer but found it password protected.

What did Frances mean? Where were, ‘all those women’?

He returned to the living room and shook his head when MacKenzie looked across at him. Equally puzzled, she turned back to the woman who was sitting quietly beside her, talking to her animals as if they were human.

“There, Boxer. No, don’t claw Mummy. That’s not nice.”

“Frances? What did you mean when you said John had women in his bedroom?”

“What, dear?” She looked up, then away again. “I got rid of them. Filthy, disgusting pictures. I won’t have them in my house.”

“Magazine pictures or real pictures?” Ryan asked.

When she didn’t speak, he repeated the question a little louder.

“Real ones. Awful ones.”

“Where are the pictures now, Mrs Dobbs?”

“I put them in the bin, dear, with the other rubbish.”

*

They spent another half hour talking to Dobbs’ mother and, by the time they bade her farewell, they could be reasonably certain of two things. The first was that Frances Dobbs was in the early stages of dementia or a similar illness, and the second was that she’d found indecent images of women and girls in her son’s room, which she had subsequently destroyed. Neither fact gave them much pleasure.

“We knew there had to be some reason why he jumped,” Ryan said, as they stood on the pavement outside. “He thought we were coming for him because of the pornography.”

“What do you want to do about that?”

“I’ll let Digital Forensics know,” he said, referring to the specialist unit who investigated online sexual abuse. “Those women and girls are being harmed every day the images are still in circulation. They’re out there, somewhere, thanks to Dobbs and whoever else he communicated with. Maybe they can get something from his computer that might help them track down others.”