Death by Appointment by Mairi Chong

Author:Mairi Chong
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Published: 2022-01-13T10:19:49.144302+00:00

18

News of the doctor’s death did not take long to travel along the streets of Kinnaven. It spread like the tide, rearing its head in a great wave and crashing down upon the residents, spreading fast and without mercy on all that it met.

Full of concern, Jean was at Cathy’s door by nine o’clock that morning. She had been due to clean at the farmhouse anyway but Alison had sent her down having already heard the gossip herself.

‘My God!’ Jean said, having swept into the cottage disregarding the formality of invitation. ‘Dead! But I still don’t understand what you were doing out there in the middle of the night.’

Cathy gulped the tea that Jean had made and pulled the blanket that she had also insisted upon, around her shoulders a little tighter.

The police had said they would come later in the morning to interview her. They had been so kind and had not made things any worse for her than necessary. Both Iain and Alison had been sympathetic too, suggesting she come up to the farmhouse to stay, but she had wanted to be alone. For a time, there had been nothing but noise and more than anything Cathy wished to escape the sirens and the shouts. It was almost as if her mind couldn’t stand anymore.

Some dreadful hours had passed while she waited for the sun to properly rise. Cathy had hardly known what to do with herself. Initially, she stood with her hands clasped tightly, watching at the window as swarms of police officers descended the craggy coastline, a beautiful backdrop for such a tragic event. When she observed two helmeted men in bright orange jumpsuits arrive, carrying between them an empty stretcher, she stepped away from the window and refused to watch anymore. Instead, she moved through the house and sat in the kitchen at the back, hearing muffled calls and the engines of cars as they arrived or departed from the scene. That was how Jean had found her, sitting on a kitchen stool alone, cold and shaking, still wearing her boots and pyjamas.

Jean’s voice came to her once more, as if from a great distance, and Cathy had to actively force herself back to the present.

‘I’ve no idea what she had been thinking,’ Jean said, as much to herself as to Cathy. ‘You know, I had a feeling something was odd when I woke up this morning. There was something not right. I’d never have thought it of her though, but old Mrs Spratt said as much to me once. Something about resilience, I think. Well anyway, it’s a shame for her and for all those who have to deal with what she did. Some people might call it selfish. They already are. Doing something like that and to hell with the consequences. Goodness knows what my mother’ll have to say about it, but she’s never been that keen on the old doctor, anyway.’ Jean sighed. ‘And I was in only yesterday, cleaning. You’d have thought I’d have got a feeling.

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