Read Online After Effects by Catherine Aird - Free Book Online

to life. ‘Tracy here.’
    Shirley Partridge completed a telephone connection to Barnesdale Ward and then spoke to Berebury Hospital. ‘Who did you say? Oh, Dr Meggie?’ She shifted her head to get a better look at the attendance board. ‘No, Tracy, he’s still not in.’
    â€˜There’s someone here who wants to see him,’ announced Tracy with relish.
    â€˜I’m afraid they’re going to be unlucky then,’ retorted Shirley. ‘Sorry.’
    â€˜Something to do with Female Medical.’
    â€˜They want him, do they?’
    â€˜No. Not them,’ said Tracy, savouring the exchange. ‘It’s the police who want him. They’re on their way over to St Ninian’s now.’
    â€˜I’ll tell them when they arrive,’ promised Shirley who was almost as skilled as the medical profession at playing down simple human drama.
    â€˜They’re hoping to see him straight away,’ persisted Tracy.
    â€˜That might be more difficult,’ said Shirley Partridge, pursing her lips. ‘Seems as if everyone wants to talk to him today and nobody knows where he is. He hasn’t left word and I’ve tried all the usual places. And I can’t raise Miss Meggie either.’
    â€˜Have you tried the golf course?’ suggested Tracy slyly.
    Bunty Meggie, the doctor’s daughter, having done her stint as telephone minder ever since her mother’s death, had been released from her servitude by the advent of the mobile telephone.
    â€˜Or the Merry Widow,’ added Tracy, tongue in cheek. ‘He might still be with her.’
    Shirley Partridge flushed. ‘Not in the middle of the morning,’ she said primly.
    â€˜If you ask me,’ said Tracy frankly, ‘she’s not the sort to be seen before twelve. Half a ton of make-up takes a bit of putting on.’
    â€˜Was there anything else?’ asked Shirley, who, had she known it, was with Siegfried Sassoon in the matter of not liking those who ‘talked lightly of his deathless friends.’
    â€˜There’s a patient over at the Golden Nugget raising Cain,’ reported Tracy, ‘because old Merrylegs hasn’t been in there to see her yet.’
    â€˜Is it something serious?’
    Tracy gave a snort. ‘I’ll say it is. If she isn’t discharged in time she’ll have to pay the fees for another night in there and that’s not chicken feed.’
    â€˜Oh, dear.’ Shirley Partridge sounded quite worried. Dr Meggie’s private practice was near and dear to him. That it also cost the patients very dear didn’t weigh with her at all. ‘That’s not like him,’ she said carefully.
    â€˜It isn’t.’ Tracy endorsed this with more vigour than was really kind.
    â€˜Not if he said he would be there,’ said Shirley loyally.
    Not only was Dr Meggie not to be found at any of the hospitals—that much Detective Inspector Sloan had quickly established—but it soon transpired that he had missed an important lunchtime engagement at Gilroy’s Pharmaceuticals at Staple St James.
    â€˜Important?’ queried Sloan rather sharply. Policemen worked in a field where luncheon was lucky if you got it but only incidental to work, not part of it.
    â€˜That’s what their Chief Chemist told me, Inspector,’ said Dr Meggie’s clinical secretary, a little nervously. ‘Mr Gledhill sounded quite put out when he rang. I understand they’d got someone over from Luston specially to meet him.’
    â€˜Perhaps Dr Meggie just forgot.’
    â€˜Never.’ Although clearly flustered the secretary drew herself up and said, ‘Besides, I reminded him myself yesterday.’
    â€˜So the engagement was in his diary?’ said Sloan.
    â€˜It was in mine,’ she said astringently, pointing to her desk. ‘Dr Meggie was expected over at Staple St James at one o’clock after his