The Clinic

Rex was hugely relieved to find a car parked outside the clinic and a stooped man carrying a doctor’s bag getting out of the driver side. A pro-life sticker on the bumper imparted an element of individuality to the otherwise nondescript compact vehicle.

“Dr. Williamitis?” he called out, exiting his own car.

The man turned around. Not past forty, Rex judged by his youthful face, though his hair appeared uniformly gray and he carried his taller than average height as though bearing the weight of the world on his lean shoulders.

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“I was here earlier and saw your note. I came back hoping to speak with you.”

“Are you ill?”

Just terminally curious, Rex said to himself. “I have some questions regarding Dr. Thorpe.”

“Well, you had better come in out of the rain.” The doctor unlocked the front door to the clinic and switched on the light in the reception area. “Come on through.”

He opened an interior door to an office and gestured to a plastic bucket seat. Rex arranged himself in it while the doctor took off his raincoat and hung it from a hook on the back of the door. He lowered himself into a swivel chair behind a desk piled six inches high with files stacked around an open laptop. “Excuse the mess, but I’ve been updating my records.”

Rex pulled one of his business cards from his wallet and half rose from his chair to place it on the desk, taking one of the doctor’s as he did so. He informed Williamitis he had been aiding the Derbyshire Constabulary in the investigation of suspected murder at Newcombe Court.

The doctor slid a pair of reading spectacles up his nose and read the card. “You’re from Edinburgh, I see. Naturally I could tell by your accent,” he trailed off, regarding Rex quizzically above the tortoiseshell frames.

“I happened to be attending the wedding reception and alerted the police to the possibility of arsenic poisoning, having prosecuted such a case in court. The tox screen confirmed arsenic trioxide.”

The doctor nodded. “One of my colleagues called me from the hospital. Do you know who … No? Too soon, I suppose. Polly Newcombe was under Dr. Ewen’s care. I hope you get to the bottom of it.”

“I heard the baby was safely, though prematurely, delivered.”

“By a month. Polly’s due date was late June. Dr. Ewen did not elaborate on the condition of the baby or the mother.”

Rex spied a file labeled Thorpe, D. among the stacks on the doctor’s desk. “Speaking in general terms, is it possible to determine how long someone has been subjected to arsenic poisoning?”

“You are talking about chronic poisoning?”

“Aye, over a period of weeks or months.”

“Arsenic builds up in the hair, skin, and nails. Exhumations have been performed to confirm the presence of arsenic in the body long after death.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be Timothy Thorpe’s GP, would you?”

“Ye-es,” the doctor said warily. “But I haven’t seen him in months.”

“Apparently he’s been having some gastric complaints these past weeks.”

“Probably just a case of wedding nerves. Oh, you’re thinking it might be arsenic poisoning? Good Lord!”

“Are his brother and two children your patients also?”

Dr. Williamitis winced at the mention of Dudley Thorpe and his boys. He pulled off his glasses and wearily massaged the bridge of his nose.

“I take it you know them well,” Rex prodded.

“I see them practically every week. Sometimes twice a week.”

“Sickly kids?”

“The usual childhood ailments, and cuts and bruises you’d expect from two run-and-tumble boys of their age. But Donna Thorpe, no doubt encouraged by her mother-in-law, calls me about the slightest thing.”

“Mabel Thorpe is a bit of a fussbody,” Rex allowed. “I’ve seen how she is with Timmy.”

“I was just over at Donna’s. The boys have the flu and Donna complained the medicine wasn’t working. Flu must run its course, I told her, but those two are hyperactive, and poor Donna looks all in. And her husband, Dudley, isn’t much use. Studley,” the doctor said with a wicked grin that transformed his face into a semblance of handsomeness. “Sorry, but that’s my nickname for him.”

Rex gave a pleased laugh. “It’s a good one.”

“Look, I made some coffee before I was called out. Would you like some?”

“Please,” Rex said, taking in the small confines of the office with his peripheral vision and encountering no coffee machine, which meant the doctor would have to leave him unobserved for a few minutes. When Williamitis stepped outside the door, Rex visually scanned the bindings of the files while listening out for signs of the doctor’s whereabouts in the small building.

“Milk, sugar?” Williamitis suddenly called out from a muffled distance.

Rex poked his head round the door. The doctor was occupied behind the glass partition of the reception desk. “Both, thanks,” he called back. Then, pulling out the Thorpe file, he consigned the home address and emergency contact information to memory.

The file belonged to Dudley, Jr., judging by the birth date of the patient. The handwritten pages recording prescriptions and doctor’s comments were almost illegible, but Rex was able to decipher the date when the first measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine was administered, along with a notation, “risk of complications from mumps, viz. TPT.” He just had time to read a scribbled recommendation for Ritalin at the appropriate age before he heard steps approaching down the short corridor.

Hurriedly, he replaced the file and assumed a relaxed pose in his uncomfortable chair.

“There you go,” the doctor said handing him a mug of steaming coffee. “The National Health doesn’t run to providing a good coffee machine, but the village committee pitched in and donated one. Aston-on-Trent is very community spirited. We have an annual Well Dressing Festival coming up, which draws hundreds of visitors.”

Was this the well the landlord was threatening to duck Jessop into? Rex wondered. Dr. Williamitis shuffled papers on his desk while describing some of the themes of past tableaux, including the World Cup. He wore no wedding ring. Perhaps that explained why he was working on a Saturday and was happy to sit in his office and chat.

“This is a sizeable community,” Rex acknowledged. “And yet it still feels like a village. Everybody seems to know everybody else.”

“Well, the longer established residents do. There are close to two thousand residents now and, proportionally, more doctors. You asked about Dr. Thorpe.”

“Aye. Did you know him?” Rex casually sipped his coffee, hoping for some valuable nugget out of the conversation. Such luck that he had stumbled upon the Thorpe family doctor, he reflected.

“We overlapped briefly. Sadly, he died of leukemia. He worked as long as he could in spite of the fatigue. His wife helped file his medical records, which, I must say, he kept up meticulously right to the end. We’re in the process of going over to a computerized system. No help to me, unfortunately, as I find I can write faster than I can type.”

No lay person could possibly transcribe the doctor’s all but encrypted hieroglyphics with any degree of accuracy, Rex thought. No wonder he was entering the data himself.

“Did Dr. Thorpe treat his own family?”

“Yes, and I inherited the lot—and the hypochondria that goes with it. Not that it was all phantom diseases. His son Timmy had a severe bout of mumps when he was an adolescent. Then he developed chronic cystic acne. Poor boy had no luck, and now this. He finally finds a girl and—” The doctor trailed off into a mumble.

“Loses her?”

“I pray not.”

“You and me both. Especially as she is the mother of his child.”

“Yes.” The doctor frowned in puzzlement at the files on his desk and murmured, “Hm.”

Rex, after waiting a moment in vain for further comment, found a space on the desk and set down his empty mug. “Well, doctor, I appreciate your time and the coffee.” He didn’t want to outstay his welcome and he had another place to be while he still had the opportunity.

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” Dr. Williamitis said. “Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.”

Rex thought he had been extremely helpful, but didn’t want to cause the doctor any professional misgivings by saying so. They cordially shook hands, Williamitis wishing him the best with his case. “Rather a tricky proposition finding out whodunit at a wedding,” he remarked, showing Rex out of the building. “Loads of suspects and strong family feeling, good and bad. I’ll be following the story with keen interest, as will all of Aston, no doubt.”

Rex regained his car and from the clinic retraced the road to a side street he remembered passing on the way. Blessed with a near-photographic memory, he had memorized the address in the file. Perhaps Donna could provide more details about the Thorpe and Newcombe families that might assist in the case, and the ideal time would be when Dudley was not there.