My shaking hand pulls the keys from my bag. In and out. It’ll be easy. Pretend you’re James Bond. I don’t feel very much like James Bond as the keys slip from my fingers and clatter loudly on the top step, but within a moment I’ve got the door unlocked and am inside. My heart is in my mouth as I flick on the light and race to the alarm box which is beeping out its thirty seconds before all hell breaks loose.
I’ve done this a hundred times, and, my face flushing hot, I’m sure that this time I’ll punch in the wrong code, but my fingers fall into habit and fly over the keypad and then the beeps fall gloriously silent. I stand there, in the strange, gloomy emptiness, taking a few deep breaths, and forcing my racing heart to slow. I’m in. I’m safe.
I head towards David’s office, leaving as many lights off as possible. I’ve been here alone before, and in the dark on early winter mornings, but the building feels different tonight. Unwelcoming, as if I’ve woken it from sleep and it knows I should no longer be here.
The doctors rarely lock their offices – the cleaners need to get in, and there’s an air of middle-class complacency that hangs over the clinic; an old-school trust. Plus, on a more practical level, it’s not as if they have cabinets full of morphine to steal from, and as for information, most of the patients’ files are stored in passworded computer systems that only the doctors can access. If David has a file on Adele here though, it won’t be on the system. He won’t want it where any of the other practice partners could see it, even if they couldn’t access it. Questions would be raised, ethical ones if nothing else.
His door is indeed unlocked, and I flick on his desk light and start searching through the old filing cabinet in the corner, but it’s mainly filled with pamphlets from pharmaceutical companies and self-help guides to give out to patients. A lot of this crap must have been left over from Dr Cadigan. It’s all dry and bland. I take everything out and go through it, but there’s nothing hidden at the bottom of any of the drawers.
It’s been twenty minutes by the time I’ve got everything back in, hopefully in the right order, but my disappointment has made me more determined than ever to find what I’m looking for. I won’t have the nerve to come back again, but I also need to be home by one at the latest so that Laura doesn’t ask too many questions. I look around. Where else can it be? He must at least have notes somewhere – he’s prescribing for her. He’d need something to cover himself.
His desk is the only place left to go in the uncluttered room, and I tackle it feverishly. The top drawer is notebooks, pens and stationery – surprisingly untidy given how spotless his home is – and then I yank at the larger bottom drawer. It’s locked. I try it again, but nothing gives. One locked drawer. Secrets.
I search the top drawer for the key, but it’s not there. He must keep it with him. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. What can I do? I stare for a long moment, and then my curiosity overwhelms me. I have to get inside. Screw the consequences. He might know someone’s broken into it, but he won’t know for sure it was me. I get a knife from the kitchen and jam it into the small gap at the drawer edge, trying to get some leverage to force it open. At first I don’t think I’m going to manage it, and then with a spat out mutter of, ‘Come on, you fucker’, I give one big shove and the wood splinters. The drawer slides open an inch. I’ve done it.
The first things I see are the brandy bottles. Two; one half empty. I should be shocked, or at least surprised, but I’m not. David’s drinking is perhaps the least well-kept of his secrets, from me and Adele anyway. There are also multiple packs of extra strong mints. How much does he drink in the day? I can almost picture him – a sip here, a sip there, not too much but just enough. Why does he drink? Guilt? Unhappiness? Who cares, I decide. I’m not here for him.
I’m tempted to go and empty the bottles down the sink, but I don’t, instead just taking them out and rummaging underneath. I’m on my knees and sweating beneath the make-up I’ve had to put on for Laura’s benefit as I paw through envelopes and folders of receipts and copies of medical articles he’s written.
Finally, right at the bottom, I see a large Manila envelope. Inside is a buff A4 folder. It’s lost that firm crisp newness, now soft to the touch, and the various pages inside are held together with treasury tags, a random collection of sheets of notes, not like a proper medical file at all. It’s what I’m looking for though. Her name is there, right on the front, in thick black marker. Adele Rutherford-Campbell/Martin.