Page 287 of Troubled Blood

“Why’d you change your name from Douthwaite to Jacks?” she demanded. “Why were the police after you?”

“They weren’t after me,” croaked Douthwaite. “This was ages ago. I wanted a fresh start, that’s all.”

“How many fresh starts does one man need?” said Donna. “What did you do? Why’d you have to give a police statement?”

“A doctor went missing,” said Douthwaite, with a glance at Strike.

“What doctor? When?”

“Her name was Margot Bamborough.”

“Bamborough?” repeated Donna, her forehead bifurcated by that deep frown line, “But that… that was all over the news…”

“They interviewed all the patients she’d seen before she disappeared,” Douthwaite said quickly. “It was routine! They didn’t have anything on me.”

“You must think I was born bloody yesterday,” said Donna. “They,” she pointed at Strike and Robin, “haven’t tracked you down because it was routine inquiries, have they? You didn’t change your bloody name because it was routine inquiries! Screwing her, were you?”

“No, I wasn’t bloody screwing her!” said Douthwaite, with his first sign of fight.

“Mr. Douthwaite,” began Strike.

“Diamond!” said Douthwaite, more in desperation than in anger.

“I’d be grateful if you’d read through your police statement, see whether you’ve got anything to add.”

Douthwaite looked as though he’d have liked to refuse, but after a slight hesitation he took the pieces of paper and began to read. The statement was a long one, covering as it did the suicide of Joanna Hammond, his married ex-lover, the beating he’d endured at the hands of her husband, the anxiety and depression which had led to so many visits to the St. John’s surgery, his assertion that he’d felt nothing more for Margot Bamborough than mild gratitude for her clinical expertise, his denial that he’d ever brought or sent her gifts and his feeble alibi for the time of her disappearance.

“Yeah, I’ve got nothing to add to that,” Douthwaite said at last, holding the pieces of paper back out to Strike.

“I want to read it,” said Donna at once.

“It’s got nothing to do with—it’s forty years ago, it’s nothing,” said Douthwaite.

“Your real name’s Douthwaite and I never knew till five minutes ago! I’ve got a right to know who you are,” she said fiercely, “I’ve got a right to know, so I can decide whether I was a bloody mug to stay with you, after the last—”

“Fine, read it, go on,” said Douthwaite with unconvincing bravado, and Strike handed the statement over to Donna.

She’d read for barely a minute when she burst out,

“You were sleeping with a married—and she killed herself?”

“I wasn’t—we weren’t—once, it happened, once! Nobody kills themselves over that!”

“Why’d she do it, then? Why?”

“Her husband was a bastard.”

“My husband’s a bastard. I haven’t topped myself!”

“Christ’s sake, Donna—”

“What happened?”

“It was nothing!” said Douthwaite. “We used to hang out together, few of the lads at work and their wives and whatever, and one night I was out with some other mates and ran into Joanna, who was with some girlfriends and… some cunt tipped off her husband we’d left the pub together and—”

“And then this doctor disappeared and all, and the police came calling?”

Donna got to her feet, Douthwaite’s crumpled statement quivering in her hand. Still sitting on the slippery maroon coverlet, Robin remembered the day she’d found Sarah Shadlock’s diamond earring in her bed, and thought she knew a little, a very little, of what Donna was experiencing.

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