Wings over the Watcher Read online

  It is astonishing how quickly one can be connected with a phone a few thousand miles away. And even more astonishing that glowing optimism can be so quickly dissolved in such a brief exchange.

  She dialled his number, waited for a while, heard it ring twice before it was answered. A matter of less than a minute.

  “Hi there.” It was a singsong, female voice.

  “I’m sorry. I was trying to connect with Matthew Levin.”

  A giggle. “I’m so-o sorry.” More than singsong and female it was a seductive, suggestive voice. “Matthew is uumm – kind of – unavailable right this minute.” Another giggle.

  And she was cut off.

  Joanna stared at the phone, speechless, furious. And jealous. How dare he. When they had so much to work out between them. She could read between the lines. It was obvious what was going on. She cursed and cursed and then felt suddenly giddy, as though her feet were no longer quite connecting with the floor.

  Matthew?

  She sat for a long while, wondering whether the unknown female would tell him someone had phoned, a woman with an English accent and that he would read her number, realise it was her and ring back. She waited, expecting the call but the phone was silent. She picked up the receiver, heard the dialling code and knew she had put it straight back on the cradle. Next she checked her mobile had a charged battery and a good signal.

  But both telephones remained silent.

  Maybe the unknown female had not told him about the call.

  She sat in the growing dark, wondering. What position was the girl with the giggly voice in to be able to answer his mobile? What was she doing with his mobile? What was Matthew up to? And where did that leave her?

  She preferred not to think.

  Curled up in her chair, her third glass of wine in her hand, she allowed herself to work things out, step by step. Maybe the reason Matthew had remained so silent was that he had met someone else. Maybe she and her problems seemed far away and unimportant, insignificant.

  It made sense. Their relationship always had been too complicated. Somewhere, written into the hardware of their tangled lives together had been doom. From the first.

  So she may as well acknowledge it.

  Friday May 28th 8 a.m.

  Korpanski stomped into the office they shared, thunder making his face heavy. Joanna looked up from her computer screen. Right then, she thought, make my day. I can match you for aggression.

  “Morning,” she said warily.

  He began at once. “Glad you didn’t stick ‘good’ on the front of that.”

  “Still whingeing about your car?”

  “Bloody woman,” he began, “You’d be whingeing if it was your car. Hundreds of pounds’ worth of damage. Insurance levels.” Then he realised what she had said. Immediately he moved towards her desk. “Everything all right, Jo?”

  And suddenly it was all too much. She could feel weakness and tears move in close.

  “I rang Matt last night,” she said.

  Korpanski waited.

  “A perky little voice answered.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything,” Mike responded gruffly. “She might be…”

  “It was morning there, Korpanski,” she said. “And she didn’t exactly sound like a business acquaintance.”

  “I think you’re jumping to conclusions a bit fast.”

  “I’m not jumping to conclusions, Mike,” she snapped. “I’m putting two and two together.”

  “But he must know about…”

  Slowly and deliberately she shook her head.

  Korpanski looked shocked. “You’re kidding.”

  She excused herself. “It all happened so quickly. And…I tried to write. Mike, it isn’t easy.”

  All of a sudden Korpanski crossed sides, from female buddy to male to male. And closed ranks. “He’s got a right to know. It was his kid too.”

  Korpanski the father. It was all she needed.

  She knew now she needed to justify her actions – or lack of them. “I thought I’d go over and spend some time with him. I’ve still got a week’s annual leave owing. But now – well – I don’t know.”

  Korpanski merely stared at her, the only sign of a response a pulse thudding in his right temple.

  Joanna caved in. Sniffed. “Let’s get on with some work.”

  The detective sergeant grunted and settled down behind his desk.

  It would be a long day.

  11 a.m.

  Doctor Corinne Angiotti had finished her morning surgery. A receptionist had brought her a cappuccino and an almond biscuit plus a huge pile of mail. Mainly pharmaceutical promotions, letters from consultants about patients, results of tests. And so on. A bubbly blonde with soft brown eyes, in her early thirties, wearing an unflattering brown skirt and loose cream blouse. She worked her way steadily through the pile of mail until she reached a handwritten missive in a square blue envelope.

  She jerked backwards.

  Not another one.

  Why didn’t she leave her alone? The woman was mad. Insane. Obsessed. She wanted to tear the envelope in half, quarters, eighths. Sixteenths. And then fling it on a fire somewhere. But we never do, do we. We always open them first.

  Her eyes scanned the words and she felt ice-cold. Frightened. As she drank her coffee thoughtfully she wondered. What on earth could she do about it?

  It was notoriously difficult to deal with problems like this. As a GP in a small market town, she knew if any of this leaked out the notoriety would finish her. Always to be pointed out as the focus of a middle-aged woman’s affections. She would be the object of ridicule. Unless she could persuade her to stop.

  Corinne sat motionless, her hands in front of her on the desk. What perturbed her was this. What had she done to spark off this response? Had she somehow, subliminally, given out all the wrong messages during the supposedly formal consultation? If so this situation might well arise again – and again.

  She cast her mind back.

  She had first met the patient during a routine appointment at the surgery not long after she had joined the practice, one short year ago. Beatrice Pennington had attended for a routine blood pressure check. Corinne had found it high and suggested her patient return for another check with the practice nurse. Nothing abnormal had happened then. She could swear it. The wretched woman had seen the nurse and had another check but the reading had again been high and the nurse had referred Mrs Pennington back to her.

  That was when it had all started.

  She had suggested her patient have a heart tracing and then return so they could discuss some simple medication.

  Corinne had felt then that something was not quite right. But she had been unable to put her finger on it. The patient had held her hand. Not that unusual. Reassurance sometimes went with a touching of the hand. But it had been for slightly too long. Not enough to make a fuss about but she had moved her hand away, still feeling the hot pressure from her patient. That had been all. She could swear it.

  So when – exactly?

  It had been during the following conversation. She had mentioned the word ‘stress’. This had led to marital confidences being leaked. Her husband was boring.

  Corinne had answered flippantly. And now she knew that she had said the wrong thing. That many men were boring – in large doses – especially husbands. It had been an innocuous comment. Said with a smile. Nothing. Nothing at all. But all the same, Corinne’s hand began to shake as she tried to drink her coffee so a little of the froth on the cappuccino blew onto the letter.

  Beatrice Pennington had read so much into the casual statement. Dissatisfaction in her marriage mirroring her own boredom with the marital state and, creepily, an affinity with her doctor that Corinne herself really, truly, did not return.

  But could she convince the woman that this was the case? Slowly she shook her head. No.

  Recognising that something was not quite normal she had suggested her patient consult the practice nurse in future, retu
rning to her only once a year for an annual check. Her patient had looked crestfallen, disappointed. Little lines had appeared either side of her nose. So fatally she had relented, agreed to see her every few months. And that had been the beginning of it all.

  As a medical student Corinne had spent an extra year studying the psychology behind the doctor/patient relationship so she understood about manipulation, about child, parent and adult interaction and she knew exactly the position she was being manoeuvred into. Yet she was powerless to prevent it.

  So had started a pathological doctor/patient relationship which she had watched, as though from the sidelines, with a feeling of unreality, just as powerless to stop.

  Six months ago, during a dull and otherwise uneventful November, the letters had started.

  Always unsigned.

  It had been the final straw, the last act in a sick joke.

  In fact she had known from the start who they were from. People use their own pet phrases and somehow she could see the pale sweating face in front of her as she peeled the words off the page.

  Likewise she could hear herself bleating in her own phrases to the General Medical Council, that Beatrice Pennington had a vulnerable, lonely personality, that she was a woman who suffered from low self esteem, that…

  She was bored with it herself. But she had not been intimidated until recently. Here, in the surgery, she had felt safe – protected. But… She shivered at the thought of the woman hiding in the drive. The worst was, she knew the very bush she hid behind. Large, straggly, thick and overgrown. She felt like hacking it down. Hacking them all down so the drive was a long, clear, safe stretch. She would never drive down it again without peering into every inch of vegetation.

  She had hoped they might even start a family within the next couple of years. They had been getting so settled and Leek had seemed the right sort of town to bring children up with traditional values. They had been so relieved to move out of London and all that London had come to mean. Oh. It all seemed so ruinous. And as clearly as she could hear herself explaining her actions as innocuous she could picture the traditionalists taking the return view – that she herself had provoked this. Invited it. Desired it for some perverted reason of her own. And Pete’s history didn’t help.

  The awfulness was gradually engulfing her. She could not stand this.

  She glanced down again at the latest letter, read a line or two. Miss out on these subtle messages which cross the air…

  It is quite easy to “bump” into someone…

  And quite suddenly she felt blind panic. They would have to leave Leek and become fugitives again. Leave this town she had grown to love so much. Drag Pete away from his job as a teacher in the school where he had finally rebuilt his confidence after the truly awful experiences in Wandsworth.

  And slowly anger crept in to replace the panic. This stupid, wicked woman who could wreck lives through her desperation to find affection. Whose imagination invented situations that were about as real as Billy Liar’s. Whose wicked and pervasive letters were about to ruin her own life. Corinne Angiotti gave a soft, animal growl. Beatrice Pennington would NOT get away with it.

  As she sat, paralysed by her fury and hatred of the woman who was slowly dismantling her future she knew something else too. She was not going to sit back and allow this to happen. Not this time around. This time they would not run. They would stay and fight.

  She drank the still-warm coffee quickly. And by the time she had drained the mug reality had set in. And how did she think she could stop her?

  Could she, Corinne Angiotti, Birmingham Graduate in Medicine, MB ChB, MRCOG, DCH and so on, really brazen it out, witnessed by all the friends, neighbours, patients who had grown to know her in the last year? Corinne gasped. Because she knew herself too well. She simply couldn’t do it.

  She crossed to the window which looked out on a busy, noisy crossroads. It forced her to face reality. So what was the solution? Continue like this? Waiting, hoping for her patient to gradually realise that her odd and irrational feelings were not reciprocated? How long would that take?

  Really? If ever?

  Corinne felt the beginnings of real despair. She didn’t know whether she could stick it out.

  “Bugger,” she whispered and stood up wearily.

  It wasn’t even as if she could confide in Pete. He had his own devils to wrestle with. Or the senior partner who would always put the good of the practice first. In fact she had no one she could turn to.

  She felt suddenly, terribly alone.

  What could she really do to stop her?

  Answer – the logical one. She would ask her to come in during surgery time, explain that she was deluded, that she, Corinne, was a happily-married woman, still in love with her husband, who felt no love for her patient, apart from the responsible feeling appropriate for a doctor towards her patient. She would encourage her to develop new interests outside the home and to adopt a more healthy attitude.

  Finally she would suggest she consult another doctor in the future.

  There. That was that.

  She felt cleansed.

  Until.

  She dropped the letter in the bottom drawer of her desk and for some reason locked it, removing the key and threading it onto her own personal bunch of keys.

  That was when she was aware of a cold feeling, ice-cold enough to paralyse her.

  Because the letter had been dropped on a pile high enough to graze the roof of the drawer.

  There was no room for any more.

  Chapter Three

  Thursday, 24th June, 8 a.m.

  Sunshine poured in through the window of Waterfall Cottage and skimmed across the dark, oak table, nothing on it except a white notepad, closed, a plain white envelope and a retractable ballpoint pen, all sitting by a vase containing drooping, dead red roses. The room was empty. In fact the cottage was empty. At 8 a.m. Joanna was already pedalling across the road north towards Grindon Moor then turning into Onecote and down into Leek. On such a blue, bright morning, she felt depressed, confused and angry. Only the rhythmic pedalling healed her until by the time she arrived at the station her mind was calmed and her legs aching.

  Korpanski was scowling over the letter he’d received in the morning post.

  Dear Sir,

  Thank you for your letter of May 27th. We note that your car was parked on an incline with the gears not engaged. We note also that it appears that the handbrake was not adequately applied. Could you let us have the following information.

  When did a mechanic last check the handbrake? And to your knowledge was the handbrake in any way faulty or needing adjustment?

  Korpanski swore, flung the letter down on the hall table and left for work.

  It is a hawthorn hedge, newly christened with fresh, green leaves, still iced with the late, white flowers of May. But the scent is not so pretty – it is that of a decomposing carcase. Maybe a badger has died, a fox or a rabbit, a dog or cat run over by a car or caught by a predator. Or perhaps it is something else. Something larger. Whatever it is it is attracting flies.

  It had been the last straw – that appeal, the familiar blue envelope at the top of the pile of her morning’s mail, sticking out of her pigeonhole.

  “Don’t you think it is time to come out into the open? We have been discreet for long enough. However our families might be hurt – sooner is better than later and time is ticking by.

  I cannot hide beneath the umbrella of concealment any longer. Corinne. I want the world to know.”

  Deluded she may be but Corinne’s hand shook as she read through the words twice over.

  In the bottom drawer of a desk the blue notepaper and envelopes lie silent. At last.

  “Someone to see you, Joanna.”

  She looked enquiringly at the young PC. “I don’t like mysteries, Cumberlidge,” she said crisply. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know, Ma’am.” He’d caught the uncharacteristically sharp edge in her voice and adopted a more
formal tone. “He asked for you by name.”

  “Description?” she asked lightly, ashamed that she had allowed her poor humour to leak into her dealings with a junior officer.

  “Middle-aged man.” He thought for a moment. “Balding.”

  No one sprang to mind. “Thank you. Then show him in.” She stood up and watched as a tall, awkward man bumped into the door frame. He was slim and angular, with thinning, greying hair, a shining bald patch on his crown. He was around six foot tall, wearing a Harris tweed jacket – badly fitting over round shoulders and loose over the back. His trousers were creaseless and baggy-kneed and he wore brown brogues on his feet. Joanna made a swift assessment: old-fashioned, conventional, unimaginative, no criminal record.

  She didn’t recognise him.

  But held out her hand anyway. “Mr…?”

  “Pennington. Arthur Pennington. You know my wife, Beatrice.” He had a flat, expressionless voice with a local accent.

  Old-fashioned names too. Arthur and Beatrice. She searched her memory for a Beatrice Pennington and failed to find her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, smiling to take the sting out of her words. “I don’t recall…”

  “She’s been coming to the cycling club for a couple of weeks. On a Sunday.”

  Then she did remember. Quite clearly. Because the woman had seemed so very ordinary. Another overweight, middle-aged woman with straight, brown hair, who had turned up to the cycling club on a brand new bike saying she needed to “get fit” and “lose some of the…” She’d slapped an ample midriff bulge with a giggle then introduced herself as Beatrice Pennington. Her self-deprecating humour had amused them all and they always welcomed newcomers. Besides – they’d instantly admired her both for her good humour and for her effort. So after a brief discussion they’d made a quick adjustment to their proposed route, turning it into a figure of eight in order to drop her after ten miles and then continue with the rest.