Following his gaze, Cheryl said, 'Elderly people's skin is very fragile. Mrs Kingsway's had quite a few falls lately.'
But a fall doesn't look like that, thought Horton, staring at what had clearly been inflicted by a hand. He could see where a thumb had pressed into the vulnerable paper thin skin. He wouldn't mind betting she had a matching one on the other arm. It looked as though someone had grabbed her forcibly. Was it the intruder she had told her son about or Marion Keynes perhaps? Maybe Angela Northwood? But it could be any member of staff, though he felt sure it hadn't been Cheryl.
Mrs Kingsway glanced at Horton, then sat down heavily on one of the upright chairs placed around the wall and stared at the television screen.
He asked the other care assistant to leave them for a moment, which she did with a curious backward glance. Turning to Cheryl, Horton said, 'I want you to call a doctor to examine her, but not Dr Eastwood.'
'You can't think any of us have harmed her?' Cheryl cried, horrified.
'Someone has.'
Cheryl looked worried. 'She's got a bruise on the other arm in the same place.'
As he'd guessed. 'Why didn't you report it?'
'I did, to the agency nurse, when I came on duty Monday night. I assumed she'd left a note or told Angela in the morning.'
'The bruises weren't there Sunday night?'
'No.'
And Marion Keynes was off sick then, so she couldn't be responsible for them. It could be this agency nurse, he supposed, or had the bruises been inflicted during Monday? He recalled Angela Northwood's harassed expression, but somehow he couldn't see her forcibly grabbing the old lady.
His phone rang. Hoping and praying it was Cantelli, he stepped into the hall to answer it. Again he was disappointed. It was Chalky White.
'Don't know if this is important, Mr Horton, but you said you wanted to know if Ian Keynes or his misses were passing off stuff.'
'What have you got?' Horton snapped impatiently.
'Ian Keynes was talking to some bloke in the gents' toilet of the Black Swan about an hour ago. I was in one of the traps and heard them. I peered over the top of the door, nearly broke my bleeding neck getting down off the pan.'
'For heaven's sake get on with it.'
'Keynes gave this bloke a piece of paper and said, "Here's what you want. Take that to any chemist and you'll get your tablets." This bloke gave him a wodge of money, couldn't see how much, but it looked like a bloody expensive prescription to me. Cheaper to get it on the NHS I would have thought.'
'Not the tablets he wanted I expect,' Horton said, ringing off after telling Chalky White he'd done his bit.
Certain pieces of the puzzle were finally dropping into place: Dr Eastwood's hostility when he and Cantelli had interviewed him in his consulting room; that photograph on Marion Keynes' mantelpiece of Ian Keynes in diving gear; Eastwood's eagerness to respond to an out of hours call taken on his mobile phone so early in the morning — and it wasn't out of duty to his patients.
Returning to Cheryl, he found Mrs Kingsway flinging her arms about.
'She thinks she's swimming,' Cheryl explained. 'She says she used to have a lovely big house in the country, in Surrey, with a swimming pool, but I don't think it's true, after all she wouldn't have been moved here by social services if she had had that much money. And her son's never mentioned it or so the daytime staff have told me. He's worked abroad for years. We didn't even know he existed until early December when he showed up here. I guess they didn't get on. Now he visits her regularly. Shame it's too late for her to recognize him. She does give him a hard time. She thinks more of that diver on the television than she does her poor son.'
Cheryl gazed sadly at the programme where Farnsworth's handsome smiling face filled the screen.
Several thoughts flashed through Horton's mind, but one shone brighter than the others. God, what an idiot he'd been! The outraged son, the alleged intruder story, the bruises on the old lady's arms…No one had spoken to Mrs Kingsway to get her version of the intruder story and even if they had done, she could have claimed that her son was the intruder because in her mind he was a stranger.
What kind of man could hurt his mother like that? Horton wondered. An evil bastard, came the answer, and one angry and frustrated because of his mother's continual rejection. Those bruises clearly weren't the first if Cheryl was to be believed, and he had no reason to doubt her. He hurried down the corridor to Marion Keynes' office.
'I thought you'd gone.' She looked up, annoyed.
'I want to see Mrs Kingsway's personal file, now,' he snapped.
'It's confidential.'
He leant over the desk, thrusting his face close to hers, and in a low voice said, 'A doctor will be here soon to examine the bruises on Mrs Kingsway's arms and unless you give me her file, I will arrest you for assault.'
'That's a lie. You can't do that!'
He held her gaze. Her indignation was genuine. There was, however, the matter of the prescriptions and Dr Eastwood.
'Then let's try something that's closer to the truth,' he said, easing back and sitting down opposite her. 'Whose idea was it to kill Daniel Collins, yours or your husband's?'
'You're mad!'
She didn't look frightened and neither did she look smug, simply amazed.
Undeterred he continued. 'Daniel discovered that you and Dr Eastwood are working a prescription scam. Eastwood writes false prescriptions using the names of the residents, which you or your husband then sell. Did you get Eastwood to willingly participate or have you got something on him?'
Marion Keynes glared at him, but he detected a slight shift in her body language that told him he was right.
'Perhaps he just wanted to supplement his income. After all doctors aren't that well paid,' he continued with heavy sarcasm. 'Or had Dr Eastwood made a mistake somewhere along the line, or eased a difficult or troublesome patient to his or her death and you discovered it. In return for your silence and understanding you forced him to co-operate?'
Alarm and fear crossed her flabby face. At last he'd got to the truth. So that was how it had started. Christ, what a pair! If Cantelli had been here he'd have exploded. But Cantelli wasn't here.
Clearly Marion Keynes wasn't going to confess yet.
'I believe the prescriptions are for a range of powerful anti-depressants and painkillers. There's a growing market for them, particularly amongst the young,' said Horton. 'They are addicts, just like those addicted to heroin and crack cocaine, and supplying them is a serious crime. Did you want to say something?'
She'd opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to protest or explain, but she snapped it shut again and continue to glare at him through eyes like slits in a battlement.
'If they can't get the quantities they need from their GP, or the Internet, they buy prescriptions on the black market. Daniel discovered your secret and threatened to tell in return for money. You or rather your husband killed him.' He rose. 'Marion Keynes, I am arresting you for the murder of-'
'No, wait.'
Horton eyed her closely, but he didn't resume his seat.
'All right. I admit to the prescription fraud and selling the drugs, but I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about with Daniel. He died in a car accident. We haven't killed anyone,' she insisted. 'That's the truth.'
He wasn't sure if Marion Keynes would know the truth if it jumped out and bit her.
'Then give me Mrs Kingsway's file.'
She rose and wrenched open the filing cabinet. After a moment she handed it across to him and he slipped it inside his jacket.
'About the prescriptions…'
At the door he turned and said, 'I think you'd better find yourself a very good lawyer.'
The fear on her face was a reward in itself. Outside he rang Trueman and told him to get a unit over to the Rest Haven and to Marion Keynes' home immediately. Then, wondering if Marion might already be warning her husband, he asked Trueman to put out a call for Ian Keynes' arrest. He briefly told him what had happened and asked him to alert the Prescription Fraud Team and arrest Dr Eastwood. If they trod on the Intelligence Directorate's toes then tough.