He had his back towards her and was walking out the bedroom door when she called sweetly, ‘Dennis, want to do it again sometime?’
‘No, I don’t,’ he shouted back. ‘You’re not that good, Laura.’
She laughed softly, but ceased as he shut the front door, triggering feelings of guilt and shame. She had done it again. Pushed someone close to her away. Punishing them for what she had experienced. Despite the degradation she had felt at the hands of Greg, she was willing to make someone else feel the same pain. Dennis was nice and he really liked her. But a bitterness had grown in her this last six months, a bitterness that had set a hardness around her heart, and she was not prepared to allow it to crack.
She had thought Greg liked her. What a foolish notion.
Her mobile pinged, and with resignation she reached for it, but the text wasn’t from Dennis, it was from her friend Mandy, a call handler. Dr Taylor had received a threatening phone call from her abductor. Laura smirked. Of course she had. It was only a matter of time. Sending back a text, she asked her friend to keep her informed.
With her mind now on her job, she got out of bed and went downstairs. In the kitchen she turned the lights on and closed the blinds properly. Her neighbour, Gus Bird, liked watching her when his wife wasn’t home.
She poured herself a glass of milk and then took the beige envelope out of her briefcase and sat at the kitchen table.
It had been easy to get hold of this information; she was the police after all, and it was only a photocopy she required. The fact that she knew the woman from personnel made it just that little bit easier. There was no need for a search warrant, or for anyone else to be involved. There was one proviso – that she shred the document afterwards and tell no one where she got her information.
Dr Alexandra Taylor’s professional résumé was now in her hands. She scanned the first couple of pages. Even without reading it in detail it was impressive, and Laura felt a livid jealousy. The doctor was only two years older than herself, twenty-nine next month, and there were far too many letters after her name: Cambridge University – MBChB. Intercalated BSc. FCEM (Fellow of the College of Emergency Medicine). ALS/ATLS Trainer (Adult Life Support/Adult Trauma Life Support).
Some of the places where she’d worked jumped off the page: the Royal London; St Bartholomew’s; St Mary’s; Paddington. The Royal Victoria, Belfast.
With a tight lump in her throat she turned several more pages and saw interests and hobbies. Running was listed first, climbing next. Wilderness medicine third, whatever that was. And then she read her special interest: ‘Helicopter flying (holds commercial helicopter licence). Spent six months with HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Service).’
Laura’s jealousy ballooned. Alex Taylor was not only a highly qualified doctor, she could fly a fucking helicopter! She had taken a dislike to the woman within ten minutes of meeting her, and the dislike had grown every hour thereafter. The deferential and reverent way in which she was spoken about was evident as soon as Laura walked into the hospital. There had been a hush as colleagues’ eyes followed her across the floor to the private exam room, a message in those eyes saying, ‘Look after her; she’s special.’ The immense respect Tom Collins had for the woman was obvious. The Kiwi forensic medical examiner could hardly find the time to say good morning to Laura when he was at the police station, yet he had sat outside the examination room for well over half an hour looking every bit as upset as any relative. And this was a man who never showed his feelings.
Dr Taylor certainly seemed to have it all – brains, career and respect – and she had worked in London, where Laura had wanted to work. She had applied to the Met, but had been flatly turned down. She had fared little better with the Thames Valley Police and the other constabularies where she applied. The rejection letters were all the same – sugar-coated and dangling the carrot that she might be considered if she reapplied when they were recruiting again.
She was finally accepted by Avon and Somerset Police and had worked in every provincial town in the area, where the possibility of getting involved in anything exciting was almost non-existent, before being given the ‘prize’ of Bath city.
Laura was stuck in a city where serious crime rarely happened, and when it did, especially a murder, it stayed in the public’s minds for years to come. It was famous for its architecture, its Georgian buildings, Jane Austen and the fucking Romans. She now wanted it to be famous for the next big serial killer – another Dr Harold Shipman would do – so that she at last could have a bite of the cherry and make her name by catching him .?.?. or her. Not a thought she would share with anyone, of course. She wasn’t that stupid. She didn’t want to be labelled, like the good Dr Taylor.
She could spend the next five years stuck here and still end up without a promotion – unless she got her teeth into something big. And Dr Alex Taylor could well be it. Mulling over the last few weeks, there was certainly some interesting stuff mounting up: her supposed abduction; the death of Amy Abbott, which Taylor declared a murder; the death of Lillian Armstrong, who Taylor just happened to find; and the talk of that near-fatal drug error, which again Taylor was involved in. Maybe it was only by chance that she never had the opportunity to make her patient sicker before she saved him. Did she, in fact, intend to just kill him? Laura was aware this contradicted her theory about Munchausen’s by proxy.
Alex Taylor could well be a serial killer. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. She certainly had the medical expertise to go undetected. Now all Laura had to work out was the motive, and the comment Fiona Woods let slip could be the answer. What was it that shouldn’t have happened again? That was what Laura needed to know. Then she might have a case.
Chapter twenty-four
Alex glanced at her wristwatch and saw she had an hour and ten minutes until she finished her shift and then another forty minutes’ wait before her appointment. She would have enough time for a quick shower, a bit of make-up, and to grab a cup of tea if the place stayed quiet like it was now.
It was unheard of to be so quiet in mid-December. Emergency departments at this time of year were usually chocker, and in many of them the trolleys were taken up by the elderly. Falls, chest infections and hypothermia were the most common reasons for bringing them in, and sadly, sometimes, they became ill from sheer loneliness, from living alone in the long dark days of winter. They became unnerved and sometimes forgot what day it was, whether they had eaten or drunk enough fluids, or taken their medication.
With Christmas Day only two weeks away, some of them would be thinking about the loneliness, of sitting alone with their hand-delivered Christmas dinner, hoping the meals-on-wheels lady wouldn’t rush away.