‘Yes.’
‘And this was just gone half seven.’
‘Yes.’
‘Dr Taylor finished her shift at five thirty. Do you know what she was doing after that time?’
‘No. I have no idea.’
The interview had ended there and the doctor had gone miserably back to his department. Greg sympathised. Neither of them wanted Alex Taylor to be in trouble. Every member of staff had been questioned, some of them at length, and the worrying thing was that although they were shocked by the death of Fiona Woods, none of them showed surprise that the police were asking questions about Alex Taylor’s whereabouts. There were several who volunteered information about the doctor, telling officers that they had been concerned about her for a while, that she hadn’t been herself lately.
Greg had two home interviews to do which he wanted to conduct himself. The first with Alex’s ex-boyfriend – he was assuming he was an ex if she was in another relationship – and the other with her boss, Caroline Cowan. These two knew her well and he hoped one of them could verify her whereabouts and her well-being.
*
Tom Collins was walking along the main corridor when Greg saw him. He waved and caught up with the tall forensic medical examiner. The man looked tired and Greg guessed he’d been on the night shift.
‘Bad business, hey, Tom?’ Greg said, making conversation.
‘Shocking. Fiona Woods was a nice lady. Last time we talked she asked about working in New Zealand. She’d have got snapped up. It’s a real tragedy.’
‘What are your thoughts on Dr Taylor being the killer?’ Greg asked.
Tom Collins stopped walking and his shoulders slumped a bit. ‘Be a shame if it was her. Another very talented lady.’
‘You were there the night she was brought into A & E. What did you make of that business?’
Tom shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Difficult to say. She was definitely shook up, and initially I believed we had a rape case, but nothing added up. She had all her clothes on, no signs of any tears in them, and nothing was found in the examination, just a bit of a bump on her head.’
Greg wanted to take the man into his confidence and share with him Laura Best’s thoughts. He wanted the opinion of someone neutral. ‘One of my officers has an idea that she made it up, that she could be suffering from some form of Munchausen’s by proxy.’
The forensic medical examiner’s eyes widened at the thought, and Greg could see his scepticism. ‘That’s a bit of a stretch. Not the first thing I would have concluded. There would normally be a pattern of behaviour on which to base that diagnosis.’
‘What if there was?’ Greg suggested, and told the man about Alex Taylor’s connection with the deaths of Amy Abbott and Lillian Armstrong, the drug error she made, the anonymous call and the message left on her car.
Tom Collins frowned. ‘With this mental disorder the idea is to make a person sick, not kill them. This sounds closer to ‘Mercy Killings’ rather than Munchausen. And even then, it’s still a stretch.’
They carried on walking while Greg talked and they neared the hospital exit. Tom Collins’s final comments gave Greg no answers and no comfort. ‘First case, she was right to call in the police and it did prove suspicious, didn’t it? The woman did an illegal abortion on herself. Second case: can happen to anyone. Drug errors are made, not often – especially given the amount of drugs they give in A & E – but it happens. Third case: your hit and run, sounds like Lunchtime Lilly got herself into a bad situation with a whacko punter. And the anonymous phone call and message left on Dr Taylor’s car I’d say were malicious pranks.’ Tom stretched his shoulders back and rolled his neck. ‘Christ, I’m tired.’ Then he focused back on Greg. ‘The thing is, Greg, everything you’ve told me would be scoffed at by the CPS. You don’t have any evidence.’
‘What about Fiona Woods?’
Tom grimaced. ‘Whoever killed her, Greg, as far as I’m concerned, is a cold-blooded psychopath. Long time since I saw such a brutal murder. Goes without saying that I hope you’re wrong about Dr Taylor. I don’t envy you one bit going down that avenue.’ As Tom exited the glass doors he gave a casual salute. ‘Be seeing you soon, no doubt.’
Greg wished he could go home to a warm bed too. He could then bury himself under the blankets and not be the one who had to investigate Alex Taylor.
Chapter forty
The sky was getting darker and heavy clouds were shutting out the moon. A cold breeze was making her shiver and her thigh and calf muscles were stiffening.
She was alone on the path, and watched the leaves on the trees shake with each gust of wind while she steadied her breathing and let her heart slow down. There was nothing here to disturb her, and she leaned against a tree and tried to relax.
During the last couple of miles, thoughts of the evening ahead had almost buckled her legs with fear. She wasn’t ready to face him again and her biggest fear was that Richard Sickert and Maggie had got it wrong. She had begun to allow herself to believe they were right, to believe that her abduction from the car park was only in her imagination. But supposing they were wrong and she really had been abducted, not by some unknown psychopath that she had made up, but by the same man she was meeting tonight. It might have been him who abducted her from the car park. He was an actor. He would know all about disguises. He had learned the role of a doctor with her help. She had been unable to recognise the voice of the man who attacked her, but what if it was him all along?
He could be getting back at her for rejecting him. In his sick mind he might think she deserved to be raped last year and was now targeting her again. If so, then maybe he was involved in the death of Amy Abbott. He may also have killed Lillian Armstrong. But why would he? Why would he target them as well? What was the connection between these other women and herself? Amy Abbott had been a nurse. Was it possible he met her in the hospital during the time he was shadowing Alex? Over three and a half thousand people worked at the hospital and Alex had only met her because she became a patient. And Lillian Armstrong had been a prostitute. Could he also have known her? Could he have stolen Alex’s fob key and lured the woman to where Alex lived?
Alex was terrified that she could be right, and that the man who attacked her last year could in fact be a serial killer and a rapist.
She needed to get back to Maggie’s and discuss it with her. She did not want to put either of them at risk if there was the slightest chance that she was right.
There was a sound in the bushes behind her and she was sure it wasn’t leaves rustling in the wind. She tensed and waited for someone to come hurtling out at her and felt fresh sweat break out on her skin. A minute or more passed and the bushes stayed still. Releasing an unsteady breath she pushed away from the tree and headed up the slippery embankment, towards her car.