Page 289 of Troubled Blood

“Good!” said Donna, on a half-sob.

“And your neighbor, Janice the nurse, looked after—”

“Straight off with the neighbor, were you, Steve?” said Donna, with a hollow laugh. “Get the nurse to mop you up?”

“It wasn’t like that!” said Douthwaite with surprising vehemence.

“It’s his little trick,” the white-faced Donna told Robin, who was still kneeling by her chair. “Always got a sob story on the go. Fell for it myself. Heartbroken after the love of his life drowned… oh my God,” Donna whispered, slowly shaking her head. “And she was the third.” With a hysterical little laugh, she said, “As far as we know. Maybe there are others. Who knows?”

“Christ’s sake, Donna!” said Douthwaite, yet again. Patches of underarm sweat were visible through his thin turquoise T-shirt: Strike could literally smell his fear. “Come on, you know me, you know I’d never hurt anyone!”

“Janice says she advised you to see the doctor about your symp—”

“She never told me to go to the doctor!” snapped Douthwaite, one eye on his wife. “I didn’t need telling, I went off my own bat because I was just getting worried about the… headaches and… mostly headaches. I felt really bad.”

“You visited Margot six times in one two-week period,” said Strike.

“I felt ill, stomach pains and what have you… I mean, it obviously affected me, Joanna dying, and then people talking about me…”

“Oh, poor you, poor you,” murmured Donna. “Jesus effing Christ. You hate going to the doctor. Six times in two weeks?”

“Donna, come on,” said Douthwaite imploringly, “I was feeling like shit! And then the bloody police come and make out like I was stalking her or something. It was all my health!”

“Did you buy her—?” began Strike.

“—chocolates? No!” said Douthwaite, who suddenly seemed very agitated. “If someone sent her chocolates, maybe you should find them. But it wasn’t me! I told the police I never bought her anything, it weren’t like that—”

“Witnesses said you seemed distressed and possibly angry, the last time you left Dr. Bamborough’s surgery,” said Strike. “What happened during that last visit?”

Douthwaite’s breath was coming fast now. Suddenly, almost aggressively, he looked directly into Strike’s eyes.

Experienced in the body language of suspects who yearn for the release and relief of unburdening themselves, no matter the consequences, Strike suddenly knew that Douthwaite was teetering on the brink of a disclosure. He’d have given almost anything to spirit the man away now, to a quiet interrogation room, but exactly as he’d feared, the precious moment was snatched away by Donna.

“Turned you down, did she? What did you think, Steve—a scrubby little failed salesman had a chance with a doctor?”

“I wasn’t bloody looking for a chance!” said Douthwaite, rounding on his wife, “I was there for my health, I was in a state!”

“He’s like a bloody tomcat,” Donna told Robin, “slinking around behind everyone’s backs. He’ll use anything to get his end away, anything. His girlfriend’s topped herself and he’s using it to chat up nurses and doctors—”

“I wasn’t, I was ill!”

“That last meeting—” Strike began again.

“I don’t know what you’re on about, it was nothing,” Douthwaite said, now avoiding looking Strike in the face. “The doc was just telling me to take it easy.”

“Like you ever needed telling that, you lazy bastard,” spat Donna.

“Perhaps,” said Strike, “as you’re feeling unwell, Mrs. Diamond, I could speak to Steve somewhere sep—”

“Oh no you don’t!” said Donna. “No way! I want—”

She exploded into tears, shoulders sagging, face in her hands.

“I’m going to hear it all now… last chance…”

“Donna—” said Douthwaite plaintively.

“Don’t,” she sobbed into her fingers. “Don’t you dare.”