‘We’ve got to do something,’ Roy said, ‘even if Don Halliwell won’t.’
Peggy frowned, she didn’t like it when he criticized the doctor. Roy wondered why, when she stood up against the rules and regulations or her religion in order to be with him, to have a family, then why did she still kowtow to the GP?
‘I’ll find out,’ Roy said, ‘somewhere like that, they must deal with this sort of thing all the time, they’re specialists.’
She gave a nod, eyes riddled with worry.
‘Mr Gant, Roy?’ They were here for him now. The police.
Roy looked down at the grave, the artificial grass. Down the hill he saw movement, two men smoking, rough clothes, spades leaning against a tree. The grave diggers waiting for him to leave.
Chapter 47
Shap came downstairs holding up Dr Halliwell’s briefcase. ‘I don’t think we’ll need the gun if we’ve got this,’ he said.
‘Why keep the briefcase?’ Richard said, ‘Why didn’t he get rid of it?’
‘Thick?’ Shap said.
‘It would be watertight if we had the gun as well,’ Richard said, ‘keep looking. I’ll ring Janine and tell her we’ve got the briefcase.’
It was a cold, blustery, miserable day for a funeral, or maybe an appropriate one.
Janine parked some distance from the crematorium, eyes roving over the grounds. She saw the group of mourners drifting away from a graveside down the hill.
‘I don’t think there’s anything in the PACE rules says at what point you interrupt a funeral,’ Janine said, getting out of the car.
‘Looks like they’re done,’ Lisa said.
Still no word from Richard but Janine reckoned they had enough to question Gant while the search for the weapon continued. She saw Gant look up and notice them but he stayed by the grave.
They walked along the path and down the slope to the freshly dug plot. The priest took his leave and once he had moved far enough away to be out of earshot Janine spoke to Roy Gant. ‘Mr Gant, Roy.’
Roy had been too late in the end. He’d rung round helpline numbers in the phone directory. Most of them told him the GP should set an emergency admission in motion; failing that he could ring the local social services. A mental health social worker working with the police could arrange a section.
He explained to Peggy. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I just don’t know.’
Roy had gone upstairs to tell Simon his tea was ready, would he come and have some, to find his bedroom deserted.
He had driven round with no idea where to look. Simon had not wanted to leave the house recently, the outside world as scary as the one in his head.
Roy went home when it got dark. Peggy had reported him missing and as he was known to be vulnerable the local police were alerted to be on the lookout for him.
Roy hadn’t been back ten minutes when they had come to the door, a man and a woman, very serious and ill at ease. They asked Peggy and him to sit down and Roy felt dread scrabble up his spine, clutch at his guts. The woman spoke, ‘A young man matching Simon’s description was involved in an accident earlier this evening. I’m afraid he didn’t survive his injuries.’
‘Simon,’ Peggy said. She began to gasp for air. Roy passed her inhaler, helped her to use it.
‘What accident?’ Roy said, clasping Peggy’s hand. The words hurt his throat.
‘A fall from a motorway bridge.’
‘He didn’t fall,’ Roy said.
Peggy’s breathing worsened.
‘Mrs Gant?’ said the police officer.
‘You’d better get an ambulance for her,’ Roy had said.
Now someone else was calling him. ‘Mr Gant?’
Roy turned away from the grave.
‘Leave me,’ he said, ‘please?’
It wasn’t meant to be like this, they were too soon.
‘I can’t do that. I’m DCI Lewis, I’m investigating the murder of Dr Halliwell. I’m sorry to intrude on your grief but we’re going to need you to come with us.’ Then she began the caution.
‘Roy Gant, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything-’
‘He never listened,’ Roy Gant interrupted, not looking at Janine but staring down at the coffin, the wind snatching at his clothes. ‘There was stuff all over the internet, I printed it off, I showed him. Increased risk of suicide in young people…messing with drugs was what made Simon depressed in the first place. When he started the tablets…’
‘You might want to wait until you’ve seen a solicitor,’ Janine said.
Roy Gant dismissed her concern with a toss of his head. ‘He didn’t even read the damn journals. If he’d ever said, “Sorry, I got it wrong-”‘ He broke off. He rubbed his fist on his forehead. ‘Simon was my world, and then he was gone.’
‘And Peggy?’ Janine said.
‘She wouldn’t hear a bad word said about the man. She was there when I begged Halliwell to come and see Simon for himself. “Give it time,” he said. We didn’t have time. How she trusted him, Peggy. All the way to the motorway bridge, still following doctor’s orders.’
‘You never made a complaint?’ Janine said.
‘Peggy was so sick, I couldn’t make it worse for her,’ Roy Gant said. ‘The doctor would call round with his smiles and his crumbs of comfort.’ He glanced at Janine, eyes narrowed. ‘You heard about Marcie Young?’
Janine nodded.
‘He’d learnt nothing,’ Gant said. ‘He still didn’t listen. Masking his ignorance with arrogance.’
‘Why now, Roy?’ Janine said.
‘He came on Tuesday, after Peggy had gone. You know what he said? “It’ll get easier, Roy. Life goes on.” Smug bastard. His life would,’ Gant said. ‘They were my life. I knew then.’
‘You had Simon’s gun?’ Janine said.
‘‘I took it off him.’ Roy Gant hesitated, blinked several times.
‘Why did Simon have a gun in the first place?’ Janine said.
‘He was petrified. He thought it would protect him. How can you protect yourself when the demons are inside?’ Gant’s voice broke. Janine waited and eventually he cleared his throat and said, ‘The demons grew with that drug, they fed on it. But Halliwell was blind and deaf and dumb to it.’ Roy Gant shifted, looked up to the sky. ‘He was usually the last to leave the surgery,’ he said, ‘so I went down there. It was easy.’
‘You took his briefcase?’ Janine said.
‘Yes, well, children might have found it, taken stuff and hurt themselves,’ he said.
Oh God. ‘And where did you put the gun?’ Janine said.
He moved then, his face set as he pulled the gun from his pocket and pointed it at them. Janine’s heart leapt into her throat. She felt sick inside. She heard Lisa take a quick breath and Janine put out a hand, instinctively, to prevent Lisa moving towards Gant.
‘Stay there!’ Roy Gant said and he began to back away, across the grass, gun trained on them all the while.
Janine’s mouth was dry, her pulse racing. He wouldn’t get far, she told herself, even if he did shoot at them, the whole force would be out after him in minutes. Same if he fled.
She watched, her legs like jelly, as he reached a stand of trees, dark green yews, their branches shivering in the wind.
Beside her Lisa was gasping, whispering, ‘Oh, God, oh God, no.’
Would he hit them from this distance? Janine thought of Charlotte, of Tom and Eleanor, of Michael and clamped her mouth tight, determined to keep watching, not to close her eyes.
‘Roy, wait,’ she called out but the wind seemed to rip her words away. ‘Roy, we can talk about this, about Simon, and Marcie Young, you could help her family-’
He turned quickly, facing the trees and raised the gun to his head.
‘No!’ Janine screamed and Lisa echoed her.
The shot, a crack of thunder, echoed round the cemetery.
‘No!’ Janine yelled as the blood and brain burst from his head and he pitched forward onto his knees and then onto his face.