the East Hill steps, she could see David Morris, sitting on a wall. His face was badly bruised and he had a grey tinge that told her, even from a distance, that he was in pain.

“David! What are you doing here? Have you discharged yourself from hospital again?”

He grunted as he tried to stand up, before deciding to stay as he was.

“I wanted to tell you something, before going away to, um, convalesce,” he explained.

Callie had to admit that leaving town made sense, Hastings certainly wasn’t a healthy place for him to be at the moment.

“Have you told the police where you are going?” she asked, knowing that they were the last people he would have spoken to. “Or who did this to you?”

“No.” He grunted again and shifted his position slightly in an attempt to get more comfortable, he clearly didn’t want to talk about being beaten up. “To both.”

“But if you talk to them, tell them what Claybourne’s up to, he’ll be arrested and you will be safe.”

“Safe?” he snorted in derision. “I’ll more likely be dead.”

Given how badly he’d already been beaten up, Callie wasn’t about to argue with him on that score. She knew that even if Claybourne was arrested, he would almost certainly get bail and go after Morris again, unless the police put him in protective custody, and that wasn’t likely to happen.

“I used to drive them over for him, but I got pissed one time and missed the ferry and he got a replacement.”

“The cigarette smuggling?”

He nodded.

“I just wanted back in, you know? But the bastard wouldn’t let me. Said I was too unreliable.”

Callie couldn’t argue with Claybourne on that, with Morris’s drinking problem he could hardly be called reliable.

“Was it you who told the police about the van? Got the new driver arrested?”

He nodded again.

“He guessed it was me. Threatened my mum. She’s in a home, for Christ’s sake. Doesn’t even know what day it is. That’s why I went to the rally and, well…”

He shrugged. She knew the rest.

“So, why did you want to speak to me?” she asked. “Just to tell me you were leaving?”

“No. It was about that picture they showed on the news,” he said, “the girl.”

“Did you recognise her?” Callie couldn’t disguise her interest.

He nodded.

“She was going round, asking questions.”

“About what?”

“Her boyfriend. Said he’d gone missing.”

“Do you think he could have been the man in the second picture?”

“Maybe. I didn’t really look at the photo she was showing everyone.” He gave her an apologetic look.

“Where was she asking about him?”

“I was in the club and she came in.” Callie knew he meant the Fishermen’s Institute and Social Club in All Saints’ Street, a favourite haunt of Morris’s because the drinks were cheap there.

“Do you know anything more about her? Where she was from? Was she alone? How long had her boyfriend been missing?” Callie could hardly contain herself, she had so many questions.

“Whoa!” He shook his head. “Like I said, I didn’t talk to her myself. Sorry. She did say she was down from London – I know that. But, you know, I didn’t speak to her and no one in the club said they’d seen him, so she left.”

Despite her continued questioning, he had nothing more to add and after a while, levered himself off the wall.

“Thanks for telling me this, David.”

“Yeah well, I could hardly tell the cops myself, could I?” he said with a smile. “Got to be going now.”

She watched as he walked, slowly and carefully, up the road towards the Old Town. She hoped he’d be all right and she wished he would tell her more about Claybourne’s operation, and just how far he would be prepared to go to protect it, but after a quick look at her watch she hurried on down Rock-a-Nore Road to the new surgery premises. She was going to be late if she didn’t get a move on.

* * *

Before Callie was able to even start her morning surgery, she was called into the police station to see a prisoner who they wanted to interview and needed to be sure she was sober enough. There was a mad scramble as Callie tried to see as many patients who were already waiting as possible, and Linda, the practice manager, worked to re-allocate or cancel others before she could leave. The result was that she had no time to call the incident room and tell them of her conversation with David Morris. Instead, she resolved to speak to them when she had finished with the prisoner.

Once at the station, she found out she had been called to see Marcy, again. A regular both in the cells and in the surgery, Marcy was a drug user and prostitute who had been known to assault her customers on more than one occasion, whether that was the service they had asked for or not. Callie had tried to get her into rehabilitation many times, but Marcy just didn’t seem interested.

“What am I going to do with you, Marcy?” Callie asked having checked her over and found her relatively sober, and with nothing more than a few minor cuts and bruises. She had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly in the early hours of the morning. Unfortunately, she’d bitten a police officer during the arrest, so there were going to be greater charges added in, and on which the police, and CPS, were still deciding. Resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer for certain, and they could go all the way up to attempted murder, depending on circumstances. Police officers generally didn’t like to be bitten by drug addicts, for obvious reasons.

“Messed up again, didn’t I, Doc?” Marcy replied, apparently unperturbed by the fact.

“Yes, you did. Now, are you going

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