get us out from under whatever’s going to happen now Helen Maitland’s dead. Will you do the business for us?’ The look of desperation that had temporarily disappeared was back.
‘And what if the things I find out point to a conclusion you won’t like?’ I asked, stalling.
‘You mean, if you uncover evidence that makes it look like one of her lesbian patients killed her?’
‘That’s exactly what I mean.’
Alexis covered her eyes and kneaded her temples. Then she looked up at me. ‘I can’t believe that’s what you’ll find. But even if you do, is that any reason why the rest of us have to have our lives destroyed too?’
Just call me the girl who can’t say no.
Chapter 7
The pleasant, caring atmosphere of the Compton Clinic hit me as soon as I walked through the door. Air subtly perfumed and temperature controlled, decor more like a country house than a medical facility, bowls of fresh flowers on every surface. I could almost believe they employed the only gynaecologists in the world who warm the speculums before plunging them deep into a woman’s most intimate orifice. I made a mental note to ask Alexis about it later.
The clinic was in St John Street, a little Georgian oasis off Deansgate that pretends very hard to be Harley Street. The doctors who have their private consulting rooms there obviously figure that one of the most convincing ways of doing that is to charge the most outrageous prices for their services. From what I’d heard, you could make the down payment on one of the purpose-built yuppie flats round the corner on what they’d charge you to remove an unsightly blackhead. If Helen Maitland demanded that kind of price for her treatments, I couldn’t imagine there were enough dykes desperate for motherhood and sufficiently well-heeled to make it worth her while. But then, what do I know? I’m the only woman I’m aware of who’s been using the pill
The Compton Clinic was about half way down on the righthand side, a three-storey terraced house with a plague of plaques arrayed on either side of the door. Interestingly, Helen Maitland’s name didn’t appear on any of them. Neither did Sarah Blackstone’s. I opened the heavy front door and found myself in a short hallway with a large sign directing me left to the reception area. I noted a closed-circuit TV camera mounted above the outside door, pointing down the hall towards the door I was being encouraged to use. It was a considerable incentive not to go walkabout especially since I hadn’t brought a tub of Vaseline to smear over the lens.
One of the many problems with my job is you do such a lot of different things in a day, you’re seldom appropriately dressed. If I’d known what the carpet at the clinic was like, I’d have brought my snow shoes, but as it was, I just had to make do with wading through the deep pile in an ordinary pair of leather loafers. There were two other potential patients sitting a discreet distance from each other on deep, chintz-covered sofas, reading the sort of home and garden magazine the nouveaux riches need to copy to shore up their conviction that they’ve arrived and they belong.
A tip from the private-eye manual: magazines are one of the dead giveaways as to whether you’re dealing with the NHS or the private sector. The NHS features year-old, dogeared copies of slender weeklies that feature soap stars talking about their operations and TV personalities discussing their drink problems or their diets. The private sector provides this month’s copies of doorstop glossies full of best-selling authors talking about their gardens and living with Prozac, and Hollywood stars discussing their drink problems, their diets and living with Prozac.
I managed to reach the reception desk without spraining my ankle. It was pure English country-house library repro, right down to the fake tooled-leather top and the cottage-garden prints on the wall behind it. The middle- aged woman sitting at the desk had a pleasant face, the lines on it carved by comfortable optimism rather than adversity, an impression supported by her Jaeger suit and the weight of the gold chains at neck and wrist. Her eyes betrayed her, however. They were quick, sharp and assessing as they flicked over my smartest suit, the lightweight wool in grey and moss green. It felt like she was instantly appraising the likely level of my bank balance and the concomitant degree of politeness required.
‘How may I help you?’ she asked, her voice the perfect match for the house-and-garden images of the decor.
‘I’d like to make an appointment with Dr Maitland,’ I said, deliberately lowering my voice so she’d think I didn’t want the other two women to overhear.
‘One moment,’ she said, leaning to one side to stretch down and open one of the lower drawers in the desk. If Helen Maitland really was the murdered Dr Sarah Blackstone, the news hadn’t made it to the Compton Clinic yet. The woman straightened up with a black A5 desk diary in her hand. She laid it on top of the larger diary that was already sitting open in front of her, and flicked through it to the following Sunday’s date. Even I could see that every half-hour appointment was already filled up. If Alexis was right, there were going to be a lot of disappointed faces on Sunday.
I watched as the receptionist flicked forward a week. Same story. On the third attempt, I could see there were a couple of vacant slots. ‘The earliest I can offer you is 3.30 on the twenty-fourth,’ she said. There was no apology in her voice.
‘Does it have to be a Sunday?’ I asked. ‘Couldn’t I see her before then if I come during the week?’
‘I’m afraid not. Dr Maitland only consults here on a Sunday.’
‘It’s just that Sundays are a little awkward for me,’ I said, trying the muscularly difficult but almost invariably successful combination of frown and smile. I should have known it was a waste of time. Every medical receptionist since Hippocrates has been inoculated against sympathy.
The receptionist’s expression didn’t alter a millimetre. ‘Sunday is the only day Dr Maitland consults here. She is not a member of the Compton partnership, she merely leases our facilities and employs our services in an administrative capacity.’
‘You mean, you just make appointments on her behalf?’
‘Precisely. Now, would you like me to make this appointment for you, Ms…?’
‘Do you know where else she works? Maybe I could arrange to see her there?’
Ms Country House and Garden was too well trained to let her facade slip, but I was watching for any signs, so I spotted the slight tightening of the skin round her eyes. ‘I’m afraid we have no knowledge of Dr Maitland’s other commitments,’ she said, her voice revealing no trace of the irritation I was sure she was starting to feel.
‘I guess I’ll just have to settle for the twenty-fourth, then,’ I said, pursing my lips.
‘And your name is?’
‘Blackstone,’ I said firmly. ‘Sarah Blackstone.’
Not a flicker. The receptionist wrote the name in the half-past-three slot. ‘And a phone number? In case of any problems?’
I gave her my home number. Somehow, I don’t think she had the same problems in mind as I did.
I had time to kill before I headed over to South Manchester to pick up Debbie for our prison visit, but I didn’t want to go back to the office. I hate violence and I don’t like putting myself in situations where GBH seems to be the only available option. I cut down through Castlefield to the canal and walked along the bank as far as Metz, a bar and Mittel European bistro on the edges of the city’s gay village. Metz is so trendy I knew the chances of being spotted by anyone I knew were nil. I bought a bottle of designer mineral water allegedly flavoured with wild Scottish raspberries and settled down in a corner to review what little I knew so far.
I’d been taken aback when Alexis had revealed that she and Chris had been consulting Helen Maitland for six months. After all, we were best buddies. I had secrets from Richard, just as Alexis had from Chris. Show me a woman who doesn’t keep things from her partner, and I’ll show you a relationship on the point of self-destructing. But I was pretty certain I had no secrets from Alexis, and I’d thought that was mutual. Even though I understood her motives for not telling me about something so illegal, to discover she’d been hiding something this big made
