Pulse(67)

‘I suppose this investigation is now over for you two,’ I said.

‘Definitely is,’ replied DS Merryweather, ‘and good riddance too. I only have another twenty-two open files on my desk.’

Should I ask? Should I?

Why not? I’d already broken my promise to Grant. In for a penny . . .

‘Who owns the black Mercedes?’

‘I’m not allowed to give you that information,’ he said, ‘due to data protection.’

‘I promise I won’t tell anybody.’

Not that my promises were worth anything.

‘I still can’t tell you.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Either and both,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘Leave it, Dr Rankin. Go back to treating your patients and concentrate on staying well. This is over.’

The two policemen climbed into their car.

‘How about my son’s bike?’ I shouted at them as they drove off. ‘Who did that?’

It may have been over for them but it wasn’t for me.

Grant arrived home from work as I was sitting on the sofa, sipping tea and watching the six o’clock news on the television.

‘How was it?’ he asked.

‘OK, I suppose,’ I said. ‘I took a bit of a grilling from the coroner over hospital procedure and that was quite uncomfortable but, apart from that, it was fine.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have been with you.’

Grant had intended coming with me to the inquest, but then he’d been asked to make an important presentation at his work – something to do with new instrumentation for a jet fighter being made for an Arab country. The ruling sheikh was going to be there.

Grant had been in two minds and, in the end, it had been me who’d insisted that he should give the presentation, because I knew that was what he truly wanted.

‘It was OK,’ I said. ‘I was fine, and I think I coped all right. How did your presentation go?’

‘Really well,’ he said, smiling. ‘The sheikh seemed very happy, which was the most important thing as he holds the purse strings, and my bosses were delighted too.’

‘Good. Well done.’

‘Do you fancy a glass of wine to celebrate?’ Grant asked.

‘Not for me, thanks. I have my tea, but you have one.’

‘Are you all right?’ Grant asked with some concern.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’m fine. I just don’t want a drink.’

Too many calories, I thought.

He went out to the kitchen to open a bottle while I thought back to my time in the witness box during the inquest, in particular when the coroner had seemingly implied that I had somehow failed to keep an eye on what was happening everywhere on the night the man had died.

I really had been fine about it.

A couple of months earlier and I would have probably broken down in tears or descended into a full-on panic attack. I might even have ended up back in hospital myself.

I had recently made progress in my recovery, not that I could consider myself as being completely well. For a start I still wasn’t eating properly, taking every available minor excuse to skip a meal.

Even though Grant and my family kept telling me I was far too thin, I still couldn’t see it when looking in a mirror.

All I saw was myself as big, fat and ugly.

Going back to work had helped, if only because I couldn’t spend the whole day studying my reflection. But I was still taking far too many damn pills, and trying to balance my hormone and thyroxine levels was still proving difficult, if not impossible.

I was still seeing Stephen Butler every other week and we had been working on my emotional state.

He considered that the lack of a loving relationship with either of my parents when I’d been a child was still somehow hindering my ability to fully interact emotionally with friends and family, and especially with my husband.

I loved Grant, and I was sure he loved me, but there was an emotional disconnect between us that I felt had recently widened. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on the reason, and it may have been more in my head than in reality, but I believed we were drifting slowly apart. Maybe it was nothing to do with my illness, perhaps it was just what happened after eighteen years of marriage but, either way, it frightened me.

In the past, I would never have made a solemn promise to Grant not to ask questions and then so easily broken it, as I had done earlier. And I often found myself lying to him about my weight and especially about my eating, telling him happily that I’d had a big lunch when, in fact, I’d consumed nothing at all.

And what worried me most was that it was so easy, and I felt no guilt afterwards.

My mobile phone rang and I picked it up.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Ah, yes, hello, Chris,’ said a voice. ‘Er, Adrian Kings here, from the racecourse. How are you keeping?’

He sounded all sweetness and light. Too much so, in fact.

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I replied without any warmth.

What did he want?

‘I hear you are back working at Cheltenham General.’

‘Yes,’ I said, and wondered how he knew. But it was not a secret and there was a healthy grapevine in local medical circles.

‘I’m delighted that you are back to full fitness.’