consultant, to be precise, had been shagging his wife.'
'I hope you weren't so circumspect,' I said. 'The first rule of good interviewing is to be unambiguous.'
'Well, actually, I told him that I'd heard rumours. He said he'd heard the same rumours, but as he and his good lady were leading separate lives and just keeping up appearances until the kids went to college, he wasn't bothered.'
'Mmm. Interesting. Did you push it?'
'You bet. I asked him where he was on the night in question. He and his wife threw a dinner party for eight neighbours. It's something they do monthly, or thereabouts, rotating round each other's houses.'
'Keeping up appearances.'
'Quite. He's given me a list of names.'
'Let's have 'em checked. Anything else, either of you?'
'Yes, there is,' Nigel replied, blushing like a schoolboy about to present his parents with a favourable report. 'I took Dr. Jordan's letters and cards to his parents, but copied most of it. His bank statement made interesting reading. Apart from his salaries there were deposits of three hundred, three hundred and fifty, and another three hundred, at monthly intervals. I checked his previous statements and it's been going on for nearly two years. The amounts vary, but it's usually three hundred, three hundred and fifty, or occasionally four hundred, at the end of the month.'
'Maybe he does some other work,' I suggested. 'He could be on a retainer, or something.' 'And doesn't pay tax on it?' 'How do you know he doesn't pay tax on it?'
'Because if he declared it it wouldn't come out at such a round figure.'
I said: 'I don't know who you've been mixing with, lately, Nigel, but you're developing a terribly suspicious mind.'
'There was one exception. Last September the payment was missed, but there was a double payment in October. In the doctor's diary,' he went on, 'I came across an entry at the appropriate time that said: 'AJKW not paid, ring him.' That's all.'
'So you reckon that these payments are coming from someone called AJKW.'
'Yes.'
'Any ideas who it is?'
'Yes,' he declared with undisguised triumph.
'Go on.'
'Last night, in the absence of a better offer, I took the telephone directory to bed with me.'
'I have nights like that,' Sparky interrupted.
'Shut up,' I told him.
'I worked my way through the his and found an entry for A.J.K.
Weatherall. It only took a couple of minutes. It's got to be the same person. Odds of it not being are about equal to your chances of winning the lottery. And he's a chemist in Heckley, which clinches it, I'd say.'
'You mean… a pharmacist chemist?'
'That's right.'
'Sheest!' I sat back and whistled through my teeth.
Nigel bit into a custard cream and had a sip of his tea. I popped one in whole and took a swig. Sparky dunked.
When we'd swallowed the biscuits and digested the information, Sparky said: 'So what do you reckon? They were scamming the NHS?'
Long time ago, when the Earth was young and sex came before marriage only in very cheap dictionaries, prescriptions were free and professional people were assumed to be honest. Things have changed since then. The price of a prescription is now often four or five times the cost of the medicine it procures. 'Ah!' says the Health Minister, gleefully. 'But sixty per cent of patients are exempt from paying the charges.' They draw perverse satisfaction from the fact that most of the nation's sick fall below some arbitrary poverty level.
Their logic escapes me.
Pharmacists recognise the injustice. Some of the more unscrupulous ones tear up the prescriptions and pocket the difference for themselves. Others just sell the medicine to the customer at the market price and are happy with the profit on that. Either way, it's called fraud. It is OK for the Government to rip us off, but not enterprising individuals.
But that wasn't what was happening here. A chemist could do that in the privacy of his own shop. No collusion was required with a sympathetic general practitioner. If Nigel had stumbled on something, it was much more serious.
'Fake prescriptions,' I said. 'Do you think we're talking fake prescriptions?'
'I'd say it's a strong possibility,' Nigel replied.
'You mean,' Sparky began, 'some friendly doctor makes out a few hundred prescriptions for patients who haven't been anywhere near his surgery, and the chemist claims the fees for not dispensing any drugs?'
'A very succinct summary, I'd say, David,' Nigel agreed.
'And they share the proceeds,' I added.
'Four hundred quid a month. That's eight hundred if they're sharing equally. How many prescriptions is that?'
'Haven't a clue,' Nigel admitted. 'I've considered having a word with Fraud. What do you think, Charlie?'
'Yeah, good idea,' I said. 'They're bound to know more about it than we do.' I thought about it for a second, then decided: 'No. Bugger Fraud they'll take for ever. Let's have a word with A.J.K. Weatherall ourselves and ask him what it's all about. After lunch. First of all let's have it all down on paper and tagged for the computer.'
For the first time I felt optimistic. Something of the thrill of the chase was welling up inside me, like I always get when an investigation turns the corner. You gather the facts and they don't make sense, until, hopefully, a simple piece of information comes along and everything starts to fall into place. We hadn't reached that stage, yet, but things were moving.
Maggie knocked on the door and popped her head round it, which was the cue for Sparky to jump up and gather our mugs together.
'Private party or can anyone join in?' she asked.
'Have a warm seat,' Sparky told her as he sidled past in the doorway.
'Don't drop the tea bags in the bin,' she called after him.
'We've finished, come in, Maggie,' I said.
She sat down and sniffed. 'It stinks of fish and chips in here,' she declared.
'It's that lot,' I said, vaguely waving towards the main office.
'Good grief, where did she come from?'
I turned round and met Natasha Wilde's ample charms, captured on Kodak paper. 'Present from a grateful customer,' I boasted.
'Did you dot that i?'
'No I didn't! What do you think I am?'
'Hurrumph! Did you get my message? I missed you yesterday.'
'I'm sorry, Maggie. I never realised you cared so much.'
'I meant… You know what I mean.'
'Right. About the white towels and the street light.'
'Mmm.'
'Doesn't help us much, does it? How is she?'
'She's a brave lady. I told her the score, how he'd play his defence.
She realises that the chances of a prosecution are slim. She was washing sheets and blankets when I went round. Said it was the tenth time. She's too scared to have little Dilly with her for the time being and says she now sleeps in Dilly's bed with the light on.'
'Did you tell her that he'd done it before?'
'I said we had suspicions.'
'What was her reaction?'
'She wasn't surprised. Said it was only a matter of time before he killed someone.'
