Page 152 of Troubled Blood

“Oh, hello!” she yelped, sounding startled.

“I wondered whether you might be able to help me,” said Strike, taking out his notebook and opening it. “When we last met, you mentioned a patient of the St. John’s practice who you thought might’ve been called Apton or Applethorpe—”

“Oh, yes?”

“—who claimed to have—”

“—killed Margot, yes,” she interrupted him. “He stopped Dorothy in broad daylight—”

“Yes—”

“—but she thought it was a load of rubbish. I said to her, ‘What if he really did, Dorothy—?’”

“I haven’t been able to find anyone of that name who lived in the area in 1974,” said Strike loudly, “so I wondered whether you might’ve misremembered his na—”

“Possibly, yes, I might have done,” said Irene. “Well, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Have you tried directory inquiries? Not directory inquiries,” she corrected herself immediately. “Online records and things.”

“It’s difficult to do a search with the wrong name,” said Strike, just managing to keep his tone free of exasperation or sarcasm. “I’m right by Clerkenwell Road at the moment. I think you said he lived there?”

“Well, he was always hanging around there, so I assumed so.”

“He was registered with your practice, wasn’t he? D’you remember his first—?”

“Um, let me think… It was something like… Gilbert, or—no, I can’t remember, I’m afraid. Applethorpe? Appleton? Apton? Everyone knew him locally by sight because he looked so peculiar: long beard, filthy, blah blah blah. And sometimes he had his kid with him,” said Irene, warming up, “really funny-looking kid—”

“Yes, you said—”

“—with massive ears. He might still be alive, the son, but he’s probably —you know…”

Strike waited, but apparently he was supposed to infer the end of the sentence by Irene’s silence.

“Probably—?” he prompted.

“Oh, you know. In a place.”

“In—?”

“A home or something!” she said, a little impatiently, as though Strike were being obtuse. “He was never going to be right, was he?—with a druggie father and a retarded mother, I don’t care what Jan says. Jan hasn’t got the same—well, it’s not her fault—her family was—different standards. And she likes to look—in front of strangers—well, we all do—but after all, you’re after the truth, aren’t you?”

Strike noted the fine needle of malice directed at her friend, glinting among the disconnected phrases.

“Have you found Duckworth?” Irene asked, jumping subject.

“Douthwaite?”

“Oh, what am I like, I keep doing that, hahaha.” However little pleased she’d been to hear from him, he was at least someone to talk to. “I’d love to know what happened to him, I really would, he was a fishy character if ever there was one. Jan played it down with you, but she was a bit disappointed when he turned out to be gay, you know. She had a soft spot for him. Well, she was very lonely when I first knew her. We used to try and set her up, Eddie and I—”

“Yes, you said—”

“—but men didn’t want to take on a kid and Jan was a bit you know, when a woman’s been alone, I don’t mean desperate, but clingy—Larry didn’t mind, but Larry wasn’t exactly—”

“I had one other thing I wanted to ask—”

“—only he wouldn’t marry her, either. He’d been through a bad divorce—”

“It’s about Leamington Spa—”

“You’ll have checked Bognor Regis?”

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