Private London (Private 4)

‘My name’s Kirsty Webb, Doctor Lloyd. I’m a detective inspector from the Metropolitan Police.’

‘I thought you might be.’ Doctor Lloyd gathered the flowers she had collected, put them in a plastic shopping bag and stood up.

‘I’m here to talk about your husband.’

‘Ex-husband. We were divorced over a year ago. Attention to details, detective. I should imagine it is just as vital in your line of work as it is in mine.’

‘The devil is in the detail?’

‘Gods and devils. I guess your job is finding out which.’

‘We get there in the end. Sometimes.’

The surgeon nodded. ‘So what led you to me?’

‘Everything was a little too neat.’ Kirsty shrugged. ‘Something about it all seemed hinky to me.’

‘Hinky?’

‘Something not quite right. An American expression. My husband is over-fond of using them, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re not wearing a ring.’

‘Ex-husband, I should have said.’

The older woman tilted her head slightly, as if approving.

‘I went to the pubs near to the area where Colin Harris’s body was found. He had alcohol in his system. Sleeping medication. We were supposed to think it was suicide – but things didn’t add up.’

‘I see.’

‘One of the barmen in a local pub recognised his picture. Remembered him drinking a short while before the incident. He was with a woman. The woman he described matched you, Doctor Lloyd, when I looked into it. I showed the barman your photo from the hospital records and he confirmed it.’

‘Female intuition?’

Kirsty shook her head. ‘Police intuition.’

Doctor Lloyd gazed down at the grave of her daughter. ‘Female intuition isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it?’ she said.

Chapter 114

‘WHEN DID YOU find out about him?’ Kirsty asked.

Doctor Lloyd looked up at her for a moment or two, then sighed. Her whole body relaxed, as if an intolerable burden that she had been carrying for some time had been lifted from her. Her eyes were still desolate, however. Filled with the kind of pain that can never go away.

‘About the sort of monster he was?’

Kirsty waited for her to continue.

‘You’d think a wife would know. It’s the sort of detail, after all, that …’ Doctor Lloyd shook her head, letting the words trail off. The enormity of what she had discovered seemingly beyond her power to articulate it. ‘She came to me. The whore …’

‘Andrea Kisslinger?’

Anger sparked in the surgeon’s eyes. ‘Alistair was paying her. But not enough. It never is enough for people like her, is it? She figured the shame and the scandal. But she didn’t realise …’

The older woman bent over and straightened the new flowers, not speaking for nearly a minute. Kirsty waited, letting her compose her thoughts, find the words she needed to say.

‘She was nine years old, inspector, and she hung herself.’