‘The police?’
‘Christ, yes. This sort of slipshod practice just isn’t on. These are powerful drugs being dished out by some incompetent pharmacist who shouldn’t be allowed to make up lucky bags, let alone medicines. I’ve left my name as a contact seeing as I sent the sample in but I’d better check with you I’ve got the facts right.’
We went over dates and times, names and places until Moira was clear about the sequence of events that had led to me leaving the tablets with her.
It was ironic really. If the scan that Mr Simcock had done hadn’t shown advanced organic changes to Lily’s brain then Agnes’ early suspicions that her decline was too rapid and could be due to some external factors could have been spot on. The high dosage and the combination of drugs would be enough to make anyone demented, Moira had said. Take her off the medication and the symptoms will go. It seemed terribly unfair that Lily actually had Alzheimer’s. I needed to tell Agnes about Moira’s news, although given the outlook for Lily and her current illness I thought there’d be cold comfort in the knowledge that there had been something amiss with the thioridazine tablets.
Something else niggled too. Goulden’s reaction to the tablets going missing. Was it simply over-zealous housekeeping or had he realised there was something wrong with them? Maybe he’d simply never got round to reducing the dosage as he’d promised us, and was covering his tracks. Or perhaps he’d realised there’d been some big cock-up at the chemists and didn’t want anyone to know. Why? No skin off his nose, surely. If he wanted to protect his own reputation as a doctor it’d be in his interest to have the chemist struck off for such negligence.
I wondered what Mrs Knight, the matron’s, part in all this was. She who lied about the retrieval of the bottle. What had prompted that? Had Goulden confided in her? I checked the clock. Ray was collecting Maddie and Tom, Friday afternoon being an early finish, in the time-honoured tradition of the building trade. If I set off now I could probably catch Mrs Knight before she left for home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I cycled round to Homelea. Heavy cloud cover threatened squalls of rain and made it dark for late afternoon. Homelea was a picture of warmth and welcome. Cheery yellow light spilled from the large bay windows, and as I locked my bike at the side, two women in wheelchairs, laden with shopping bags, were pushed up the ramp by young assistants.
Inside I could smell onions and a whiff of roasting fat before my nose clogged up again. It was a busy time of day with residents congregating downstairs for afternoon tea and staff preparing the dining room for the evening meal. In the general hubbub no one asked me my business.
I followed the corridor round and knocked twice on the office door while twisting the handle. I heard a faint ‘Come in.’ I opened the door. Mrs Knight was at the desk. She looked up in enquiry, then as she recognised me her face twisted with dismay before she had a chance to mask it.
‘Mrs Knight, we need to talk.’
‘I don’t see what…’ She rose, flustered.
‘Don’t you?’ I spoke sharply. ‘It’s about Lily Palmer. And those tablets she was given.’
‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ She was outraged. ‘I don’t know who you think you are, barging in here, taking that tone.’
‘I’m a private detective,’ I said. I sat in the chair opposite her.
She remained standing, her palms braced on the edge of the desk. She stared at me, her mouth slightly agape.
‘My client was concerned about the care that Mrs Palmer was receiving here – with good cause it seems.’
‘What are you implying?’ She rallied. ‘Our residents are well looked after, we’re inspected regularly by Social Services. We’ve never had any complaints. If you wish to make a complaint I suggest you contact the local authority, but I can assure you-’
‘The tablets that went missing,’ I persisted. ‘There was something different about them, wasn’t there?’
She frowned. ‘They were a different brand, that’s all,’ she said dismissively.
‘Oh, just a different brand? So any of the patients could have had them?’
‘Well, no. We always keep individual prescriptions separate, to ensure we can monitor the course. It reduces the risk of giving anyone the wrong medication.’
‘Why did you lie about the missing bottle turning up again?’
‘I didn’t – one of the girls found them, like I said.’
I shook my head slowly. ‘They can’t have done. I know. I’ve got the tablets.’
She clasped her hands together. ‘What?…You took them?’
‘They were found in Lily’s slippers. I don’t think anyone deliberately stole them. Why did you lie about them being found?’
There were a couple of beats while she weighed up whether to confess. She took a deep breath. ‘It was important to reassure people that there’d been no negligence. Dr Goulden was very clear about that.’
‘He told you to say they’d turned up?’
‘He said it could reflect very badly on us here. There’s a very strict check kept on the medicines.’ She mumbled something else, her head lowered, the neat black cap of hair swinging forward to hide her expression.
‘Pardon?’
‘He said he would see to the paperwork.’
‘You didn’t think it was strange? Such concern about one small bottle of tablets?’
‘In the wrong hands-’
‘But he was very agitated about it, wasn’t he? He virtually accused Miss Donlan of stealing them. He had a go at you.’
‘He has a short temper,’ she couldn’t bring herself to be critical, ‘he’d had a bad night.’ She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Mrs Knight, where did you usually get prescriptions made up?’
‘The chemist round the corner.’
‘But these were different?’
She frowned. ‘Yes, the doctor brought them himself. They often get samples from the drug companies. He said we might as well try them, they were the right prescription for Mrs Palmer and they’d probably work out cheaper in the long run. I really don’t know why you’re making such a song and dance about it. And if you’ve got the tablets,’ she said briskly, ‘then they can be returned and everything can be straightened out.’ She gave me a bright look.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ I said. ‘You see, there was something wrong with those tablets.’
‘Wrong? What do you mean?’
‘They were four times the stated dosage. Lily Palmer was being given huge amounts of thioridazine – enough to make her very poorly. She’d become more agitated and confused, she’d have trouble sleeping. And every time she was given something to help her sleep it would react with the high level of drugs and increase her confusion. She was aggressive the night she was admitted to hospital, wasn’t she, stumbling about, hallucinating, thinking people were trying to harm her?’
‘Oh, my goodness.’ She sank into her chair. Her shock seemed genuine.
‘We’ve had them analysed. They definitely contain the wrong amount of the drug.’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ she repeated. ‘It’s the sort of accident you dread. How on earth could it…’ She didn’t finish her question, her thoughts leaping ahead. ‘Surely we couldn’t be liable. We gave them in good faith. There was no negligence here. The label had the wrong dosage on – how could we possibly know?’
‘I don’t know which chemist made them up,’ I said.
‘They were from Malden’s,’ she said. ‘Malden Medical Supplies – we deal with them for all our regular stock: dressings, zimmer frames, disposables – that sort of thing. When I saw the tablets I remember being surprised because I didn’t know they did pharmaceuticals too. I assumed it was a new departure.’
Malden’s. I was surprised too but I needed to concentrate on getting as much from Mrs Knight as I could while she was still reeling from the news I’d given her.