Family Doctor: A totally gripping and pulse-pounding psychological thriller by J M Dalgliesh

Author:J M Dalgliesh [Dalgliesh, J M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2025-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

Two Hours After Bonnie’s Death

The room is small. I’ve been in these family rooms before, and they’re all the same. A handful of chairs, a tiny window overlooking a brick wall that won’t open. The air is stuffy, despite the air-conditioning unit mounted in the ceiling. Hospitals are warm. Uncomfortably so, but they have to be. Most people in them are confined to a bed and they can’t move around to keep warm on the wards, but the rest of us feel it as a result.

Looking to my left, Lauren has been crying. Her mascara has run, and then smudged where she’s tried to wipe it away. She shouldn’t be here, but at the same time, she couldn’t have stayed at the house by herself. The police are still there. I wonder if they’ll be there when we get home, whatever time that is.

It feels very different when you are in the family room on this side of the fence. I’ve come in to speak to parents, siblings and spouses on countless occasions, giving both good and the worst possible news. This time, I don’t know how it’s going to go.

Opposite us, staring into space, are Freya’s parents. Bethany and her husband, Alex. I don’t really know Alex, having only spoken to him briefly in passing at school events, the Christmas service or similar. He’s a nice man, Bethany’s second husband. She has her hand in his, their fingers interlocked.

The door to the room opens and George hurries in. Alex stands up as George looks around the room, acknowledging all of us in a sweeping gesture, focusing on Bethany.

‘I got here as fast as I could. How is she?’ he asks. It’s Alex who replies, offering George his hand. They shake.

‘We’re still waiting to hear,’ he says, looking down at his wife, who has remained seated, but her eyes are no longer staring into space. She has them trained on me.

‘What happened?’ George asks, sitting down beside his ex-wife and following her gaze across to me. He’s expecting me to answer. I blink, and Lauren squeezes my hand. I respond in kind.

‘Freya fell into the pool,’ I say quietly. George seems confused. ‘She lost consciousness⁠—’

‘From the fall?’ George asks. I shake my head.

‘That was why she fell into the pool,’ I say. ‘Because she passed out.’

‘Where?’

‘Our house,’ I say.

‘She was drinking at your house,’ Bethany says, and there is an undertone in her voice.

‘Not too much,’ I say. ‘We were making sure⁠—’

‘No, you weren’t!’ Bethany almost spits as she speaks. ‘If you were making sure, then my daughter wouldn’t be here.’ Alex, sitting beside his wife again, takes her hand supportively, but she dismisses him with a sharp stare and keeps her hands in her lap. I want to reassure her.

‘We don’t know what happened⁠—’

The door opens just as Bethany is readying herself to spit more bile towards me, and I’m grateful for the interruption. The doctor, one of my colleagues, Hamish Matheson, enters, glancing around the room. He acknowledges

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