‘Prick-tease,’ the DS concluded trenchantly. ‘Nasty little so-and-so . . . messing with folks’ heads . . . Likely pushed someone too far in the end.’
Markham regarded his colleagues thoughtfully. Kate Burton looked as though she was about to burst a blood vessel. But George Noakes was a canny sharpshooter — and what he said struck a chord with the DI.
‘Something was bothering Loraine Thornley,’ he said ruminatively. ‘You spotted that I believe, Kate.’
‘That’s correct, sir.’ The DS swept her fringe out of the way. God, Markham thought, she looks about twelve. He recalled what DCI Russel, mentor on the DS training programme and advocate of Burton’s transfer to CID, had said about her father’s opposition to a career with the police because it was ‘no job for a woman’. At times like this, however ‘un-woke’ the sentiment, he felt passionate regret for Kate Burton’s immersion in a world of sickos and misfits.
Happily oblivious to her boss’s un-PC reflections, Burton proceeded to fill him in. ‘Loraine looked twitchy . . . As though she wanted to say something but couldn’t get the words out.’ Burton’s face fell. ‘I should’ve pushed her, sir, but I was worried if we went in too hard she might clam up completely.’ Her face was taut with anguish. ‘If only I’d known, sir . . .’
‘You did exactly the right thing, Kate.’
Markham’s gentle smile dissolved something inside her, so that she wanted to cry. Just in the nick of time, she caught Noakes’s eye and thought better of it.
‘Hindsight’s a wonderful thing,’ the DI continued. ‘Someone was watching Loraine . . . someone who calculated it was too big a risk to let her live.’ He brought his hand down on the conference table as though to slam it, before reining himself in at the last moment. ‘Loraine knew something that meant danger.’
‘Like what?’ Noakes picked up his pie and took a sniff before replacing it in its silver carton.
‘That’s what we need to find out, Sergeant.’
Markham looked at them intently. ‘Right, here’s the plan.’ He locked eyes with each of them in turn. ‘We re-interview all of the staff. Dimples tells me — strictly off the record, you understand — Loraine was likely given an overdose of atropine.’
‘What’s that, then?’
‘It’s an emergency drug used for minor surgery, Noakes. Readily available in any surgery and a stock ingredient of the GP’s bag.’
‘How would it work?’ Doyle was always interested in the scientific detail.
‘Blurred vision, sweating, respiratory depression, paralysis of the extremities.’
‘Christ, sounds like a nerve-agent or summat . . . what the Russkies would use to finish off spies.’ Noakes was appalled.
‘How long would it take to . . . cause death, sir?’
‘Normally around five to thirty minutes, Kate.’ Markham said soberly. ‘But Loraine Thornley had a heart condition, so a dose the size of the one the killer administered would’ve been calamitous.’ He smiled bracingly. ‘It’d have put her in a coma very quickly. Just that flash of terror . . . barely time for her to react, and then nothing.’
‘Her arm was bruised all the way up.’
‘Well, she had the kind of papery skin that bruises easily. But yes, Dimples thinks there was some kind of struggle . . . defensive injuries . . .’
Doyle looked like he was going to be sick. Markham remembered the young detective talking of Loraine Thornley’s resemblance to his nan.
‘It would’ve been over quickly,’ he said helplessly, thinking that, to the community midwife, those desperate seconds must have seemed an eternity.
‘The killer took a chance,’ Burton mused.
‘Go on, Kate.’ The DI was glad to get off the subject of defensive injuries.
‘Well, there was no knowing how long Maureen Stanley would be delayed . . . she could’ve rocked up right in the middle of the assault.’
Noakes smirked evilly. ‘Tonsil hockey wi’ Doc Troughton,’ he said flatly. ‘If the killer knew the two of ’em were having a snogeroo, they knew they were safe for ten minutes or so.’
Tonsil hockey. Snogeroo. Noakes could give Jilly Cooper a run for her money, his boss reflected. Kate Burton’s expression was wintry.
‘That’s pure supposition,’ she said with marked distaste and what Markham privately thought of as her Queen Victoria face. ‘We’ve got no evidence that Maureen Stanley and Doctor Troughton are,’ now Doyle was grinning too, ‘up to . . . anything illicit.’
‘Oh come on, luv.’ Noakes was at his man-of-the-world patronizing best. ‘I mean, did you clock the way Stanley looks at him? Like he’s Bromgrove’s answer to Doctor Kildare.’ He smacked his lips lubriciously. ‘You c’n see the receptionists have twigged it.’
‘It’s possible,’ Markham said repressively. ‘But Kate’s right — the killer was taking a colossal risk.’ Again, that prickle at the base of his spine. ‘Which means they’re decompensating.’
‘Eh?’ Noakes always mistrusted ‘psychological crip crap’.
‘Needing to kill with increasing frequency,’ Burton said.
Here it comes, Doyle thought grimly, as the DS took a deep breath. A big fat dissertation on the likes of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. Burton would be in frigging clover.
Perhaps Markham sensed mutiny in the ranks. At any rate, he hastily interposed, ‘I think it was likely a combination of the need for emotional release and expediency,’ he said. ‘Loraine Thornley was first and foremost a threat.’
Burton looked somewhat disappointed to have been deprived of a foray into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders but took it with good grace. ‘So we start over with the staff then, sir?’
‘That’s right, Kate.’ Markham rapped the table for emphasis. ‘Someone here must have noticed something.’ He paused for added effect. ‘I want to know what it was . . . however seemingly trivial or insignificant, I want to know.’
‘Oh,
