way he copes with me. ‘A man like him needs stronger support at home. Pity that such a dedicated professional has to keep being diverted from his work by his wife’s illness’ That’s what they say…little knowing that he’s the one who caused his wife’s ‘illness’ in the first place.”
“Couldn’t you just leave him…if staying is making you so unhappy?”
Joan Durrington let out a harsh bark of laughter. “And go where? I stayed while the children were around, thought I owed it to them, and kept looking forward to the time when they’d moved on and I would up sticks and away. But that moment never seemed to arrive. And now…I’m older than Donald, you know. I’ll be sixty next birthday. Hardly a great time for opening a new chapter in my life.”
“It can be done,” said Carole stoutly. “I got divorced. I’ve made a new life for myself.”
“And how old were you when you and your husband split up?”
“Late forties.”
Joan Durrington let out a short derisive sigh, as if her point had been made. “No, I’m stuck…” She looked fuddled for a moment. “What was your name again?”
“Carole. Carole Seddon.”
“That’s right. As I say, I’ve come too far. If I’d really wanted to do something, I should have done it years ago, while I still had something to offer, before Donald drained all the confidence out of me. Sod the children, I should have just upped and gone. Now…” An infinity of hopelessness lay in that monosyllable.
She took refuge once again in her glass. Carole matched the action with a considerably smaller sip. On the rare occasions she drank it, she was always surprisedhow nice gin and tonic was. But mustn’t get into the habit. For Carole Seddon, spirits symbolized excess.
“You remember at the Listers’ last week, Joan…” she began tentatively, “you were the first person to mention that the police had identified Virginia Hargreaves as the mysterious body?”
“Yes.” The response was toneless. Joan Durrington was still locked away in her own despair.
“You said the police had talked to your husband about it, and he had talked to you.” A listless nod. “Does Donald often talk to you about his work?”
This question dragged her back to the present. “Not very often. He doesn’t talk
“So you didn’t have a medical background?”
“Why should I have?”
“It’s quite common for doctors to marry nurses – or other people connected with their profession.”
“I was a schoolteacher when we met. Not a bad one, actually. Very dedicated to the cause of education. But then I had the children and Donald wanted me around, holding things together at home.” She sighed. “Too late for me to go back to that now.”
The gulf of despair was opening up again, so Carole moved quickly on. “You also said last Friday that Virginia Hargreaves had been in a bad state just before she disappeared…”
“Did I?”
“Yes. I wondered if you knew her well…?”
“Not very well.”
“Was she Donald’s patient?”
“She was registered with him down here. I think if there was anything major, she had people in London she went to.”
“What kind of ‘major’?”
“I don’t know. I do remember her talking about having a gynaecologist in London.”
“But she didn’t say why she’d been consulting him?”
Joan Durrington shrugged. “Usual sort of women’s problems, I imagine. At least I don’t have to worry about that any more.” Her glass was nearly empty. She looked at the gin bottle, calculating the moment of her next refill.
“When you said Virginia Hargreaves was in a bad state at that time, did you mean emotionally or physically?”
“Physically. I didn’t know her well enough to have any idea of her emotional state.”
“So what was wrong with her?”
“She had an upset stomach. Some virus, or perhaps something she’d eaten. Donald reckoned it was the latter, because the vomiting and diarrhoea came on so quickly.”
“Did she go to the surgery?”
“No, no. Far too plebeian for her to sit in a waiting room with all the common riff-raff.” Joan Durrington’s lips twisted cynically. “Donald almost never makes house calls, but he moved remarkably quickly when Lady Virginia summoned him.”
“Was she actually called Lady Virginia? Because that would have meant that she was the daughter of a peer?”
“I don’t know. That’s what people called her round the town, but whether it was really her title or just a nickname…I’ve no idea.”
“So your husband went to see her…?”
“Yes, and he prescribed something to stop the vomiting and diarrhoea…”
“Which day of the week was this?”
Joan Durrington shook her head wearily. “I can’t remember. We’re talking three or four years ago.”
“Yes, but back then did he do house calls every day?”
“As I said, he tried to avoid making them at all. But he still had to do some. Normally, except in an emergency, he’d try to fit them in mid-week – Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday he’s down at an old people’s home, The Elms.”
“So it was probably the Tuesday or Wednesday?”
“That would be usual, yes. But he might have made an exception for
“You don’t know whether she made a quick recovery, do you?”
“I would assume so. The stuff Donald had prescribed is usually pretty effective. Stops the symptoms within twenty-four hours. She might have felt washed-out for a couple of days afterwards, but should have been fine. All I do know is,” Joan Durrington went on with mounting anger at the recollection, “that when Donald gave her the prescription, Lady Virginia said that her housekeeper was not there and would it be possible to have someone get the medicine from the chemist for her? And he said – well, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know the exact words, but I’ll bet he said, ‘Oh, Joan hasn’t got anything better to do. She’ll collect it for you’.”
“That’s certainly what I ended up doing. It happens quite often, actually. Everybody in Fedborough knows that Dr Durrington has got this difficult wife, but there are some little tasks she’s still capable of. When it comes to going down to the chemist to pick up a prescription, there’s no one to beat her.”
As the bitterness in her words grew, Joan Durrington moved her hand unconsciously towards the gin bottle.
“Tell me…” Carole’s words halted the hand’s progress. Joan’s eyes turned towards her, bleary with pain and frustration. “Did your husband ever find out what it was that poisoned Virginia Hargreaves?”
The doctor’s wife shook her head slowly. “Well, if he did, he didn’t tell me. Why do you ask?”
“I was just thinking…Virginia Hargreaves seems almost definitely to have been murdered the weekend after she was ill. I was wondering if the poisoning had been an earlier, unsuccessful attempt to get rid of her.”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
Joan Durrington could wait no longer. Her hand reached its destination, picked up the gin bottle and upended it over her glass.
? The Torso in the Town ?
Thirty-One
“OK, give me a list of suspects,” said Jude. “And some motives wouldn’t hurt
