Death on a Monday Night: A DCI Jude Satterthwaite novel by Jo Allen

Author:Jo Allen [Allen, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-06T23:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Not unlike Jilly Snowdon, with whom she felt some fellow feeling, Becca was the one who always ended up taking on the difficult tasks, smoothing over disagreements between colleagues about who would do what, and ending by taking on more than her share of problem clients in order to keep the peace. She thought of Jilly with sympathy as she bumped her Fiat 500 down the narrow road from the A66 and through the little village of Dacre, on her way to visit Frank Atkins.

Frank was everyone’s least favourite patient, and the one Becca dreaded visiting the most. He was in his eighties, and in recent months his increasing confusion had turned to dementia; a recent fall in the garden had reopened an old wound on his arm and it fell to Becca to call on him every second day and change it.

He was also Jilly Snowdon’s father. That was what had brought Jilly to mind as she approached the cottage on the prominent corner site that afforded it a vantage point, over a winding country road towards Pooley Bridge in one direction and an ever-steepening, ever-narrowing, ever-darkening lane to a second cottage at the other. The story locally was that Frank had never been the best and kindest of men, that he’d been cruel to his wife until she’d left, and had cursed every woman ever since. He was, they said, a misogynist of the worst kind, who in his youth had been both violent and unpredictable. When he reached old age his confusion had stripped away the few constraints that socialisation had exerted on his behaviour. On a bad day Frank could be ranting, abusive and, on occasion, violent.

These days he was too old and too weak to do much damage, although Becca made sure her visits coincided with those of the pair of carers who visited him four times a day. It was unlikely he’d do any harm; he was old and increasingly frail. Today she was here at midday, which had the benefit that he would be easily distracted by his lunch and any abuse she might suffer would be limited. But with old, angry, frustrated, socially impotent Frank, you never knew.

It must be hell to feel so obviously unhappy. She always had the sense that when he struck out against those trying to care for him he was only doing what he’d always done, what he’d learned from a harsh home background, and that it was the only way he knew to compensate for his own shortcomings and inadequacies. People often made that mistake, instead of looking for constructive solutions. Sometimes, when she thought of the mess she’d made of her own private life, she wondered if she hadn’t fallen into the same trap, though without the flailing violence through which Frank expressed his powerlessness.

There was a key safe by the front door and she knew the number, but there was no need to use it. David, one of the two carers, must have seen her coming and opened the door with a roll of the eyes.

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