Page 75 of Troubled Blood

“—put people’s backs up, that’s what I’m saying,” said Irene. “Thought she was above everyone else, she knew best—”

“—rushed in, I was going to say. But she were a good doctor,” said Janice, with quiet firmness. “You ’ear it all, when you’re in people’s ’ouses, you ’ear what the patients think of them, and Margot was well liked. She took time. She was kind—she was, Irene, I know she got on your wick, but that’s what the patients—”

“Oh, well, maybe,” said Irene, with an if-you-say-so inflection. “But she didn’t have much competition at St. John’s, did she?”

“Were Dr. Gupta and Dr. Brenner unpopular?” Strike asked.

“Dr. Gupta was lovely,” said Janice. “A very good doctor, although some patients didn’t want to see a brown man, and that’s the truth. But Brenner was an ’ard man to like. It was only after he died that I understood why he might’ve—”

Irene gave a huge gasp and then began, unexpectedly, to laugh.

“Tell them what you collect, Janice. Go on!” She turned to Strike and Robin. “If this isn’t the creepiest, most morbid—”

“I don’t collect ’em,” said Janice, who had turned pink. “They’re just something I like to save—”

“Obituaries! What d’you think of that? The rest of us collect china or snow globes, blah blah blah, but Janice collects—”

“It isn’t a collection,” repeated Janice, still pink-faced. “All it is—” She addressed Robin with a trace of appeal. “My mum couldn’t read—”

“Imagine,” said Irene complacently, stroking her stomach. Janice faltered for a moment, then said,

“—yeah, so… Dad wasn’t bothered about books, but ’e used to bring the paper ’ome, and that’s ’ow I learned to read. I used to cut out the best stories. ’Uman interest, I s’pose you’d call them. I’ve never been that interested in fiction. I can’t see the point, things somebody’s made up.”

“Oh, I love a good novel,” breathed Irene, still rubbing her stomach.

“Anyway… I dunno… when you read an obituary, you find out ’oo people’ve really been, don’t you? If it’s someone I know, or I nursed, I keep ’em because, I dunno, I felt like somebody should. You get your life written up in the paper—it’s an achievement, isn’t it?”

“Not if you’re Dennis Creed, it isn’t,” said Irene. Looking as though she’d said something very clever she reached forwards to take another biscuit, and a deafening fart ripped through the room.

Irene turned scarlet. Robin thought for one horrible moment that Strike was going to laugh, so she said loudly to Janice,

“Did you keep Dr. Brenner’s obituary?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Janice, who seemed completely unperturbed by the loud noise that had just emanated from Irene. Perhaps she was used to far worse, as a nurse. “An’ it explained a lot.”

“In what way?” asked Robin, determinedly not looking at either Strike or Irene.

“’E’d been into Bergen-Belsen, one of the first medical men in there.”

“God,” said Robin, shocked.

“I know,” said Janice. “’E never talked about it. I’d never ’ave known, if I ’adn’t read it in the paper. What ’e must have seen… mounds of bodies, dead kids… I read a library book about it. Dreadful. Maybe that’s why ’e was the way ’e was, I dunno. I felt sorry, when I read it. I ’adn’t seen ’im in years by the time ’e died. Someone showed me the obituary, knowing I’d been at St. John’s, and I kept it as a record of him. You could forgive Brenner a lot, once you saw what ’e’d witnessed, what ’e’d been through… but that’s true of everyone, really, innit? Once you know, ev’rything’s explained. It’s a shame you often don’t know until it’s too late to—you all right, love?” she said to Irene.

In the wake of the fart, Robin suspected that Irene had decided the only dignified cover-up was to emphasize that she was unwell.

“D’you know, I think it’s stress,” she said, her hand down the waist­band of her trousers. “It always flares up when I’m… sorry,” she said with dignity to Strike and Robin, “but I’m afraid I don’t think I…”

“Of course,” said Strike, closing his notebook. “I think we’ve asked everything we came for, anyway. Unless there’s anything else,” he asked the two women, “that you’ve remembered that seems odd, in retrospect, or out of place?”

“We’ve fort, ’aven’t we?” Janice asked Irene. “All these years… we’ve talked about it, obviously.”

“It must’ve been Creed, mustn’t it?” said Irene, with finality. “What other explanation is there? Where else could she have gone? Do you think they’ll let you in to see him?” she asked Strike again, with a last flicker of curiosity.

“No idea,” he said, getting to his feet. “Thanks very much for your hospitality, anyway, and for answering our questions…”

Janice saw them out. Irene waved wordlessly as they left the room. Robin could tell that the interview had fallen short of her expectation of enjoyment. Awkward and uncomfortable admissions had been forced from her; the picture she’d painted of her young self had not been, perhaps, everything she would have wished—and nobody, Robin thought, shaking hands with Janice at the door, would particularly enjoy farting loudly in front of strangers.

21

---