‘Come up for tea at home tomorrow, we’ll talk then.’

‘Move, lazy Peanuts, move.’ Hannah lifted her legs until they were almost horizontal to her body and brought them down with a smack on the pony’s sides. This time it had the desired effect. Cat and Karin found themselves running to keep up as the pony shot forwards, and Cat struggled to hang on to the lead rein. As they reached the gate, Peanuts skidded to a halt, Cat let the rein go and slipped on her backside in the mud. Hannah sat in the saddle, cheeks pink, eyes like stars, laughing, laughing.

The whole incident tipped the three of them over into a riotous mood, from which they had not fully recovered half an hour later. Hannah had gone to watch children’s television with her tea on a plate, leaving Cat and Karin in the kitchen.

‘This is what I miss,’ Karin said. ‘All this stuff with ponies and Blue Peter and school satchels and packed lunches. And don’t tell me I don’t know how lucky I am.’

Cat poured out their mugs of tea. ‘No, and I’m not going to tell you motherhood is hell because the hell is only purgatory and there are good stretches of heaven. If I have sympathy for one group of patients more than another, it’s the women who can’t conceive.’ She looked across at Karin. ‘And for those who might have done but left it too late.’

‘It would have been tough on any children I might have had with things as they are.’

‘That’s true. OK, spill the beans.’

Karin was quiet for a moment, assembling her thoughts. The cat jumped on to the sofa and curled up beside her.

‘It’s worrying. I think he ought to be stopped, I really do.’

‘What happened?’

Karin told her, in as much detail as she could, quoting everything she remembered that he had said to her, describing what he had done. Cat listened without a word, sipping her tea, occasionally frowning. From the television next door came the sound of a recorder band playing ‘Morning has Broken’. Outside the wind bent the beech trees at the end of the garden. When Karin had finished, Cat said nothing, only got up to refill the kettle, before going to check on Hannah.

Karin waited. She envied Cat not only her children but something indefinable about her house and her family life, a warmth and a happiness, together with a confidence in the future, which affected the spirit of every visitor. Whenever she left here, in spite of the times she had seen Cat white with exhaustion at the end of a punishing day, or with anxiety about a patient at the same time as one of the children was ill or had some problem at school, Karin had still taken away something that healed and refreshed her from the atmosphere in this house. Since her own change of career and her satisfaction in what she was doing, she had known some of the same deep-seated contentment in her own life, which at times came close to making up for the absence of children in it. Everything had clicked into place at long last. She had vowed never to say, never even to think, ‘It’s not fair,’ and ‘Why me, why now?’ about the cancer.

Cat returned and dumped Hannah’s plate and mug on the draining board.

‘OK, I’ve taken it in. I’m horrified. This man is dangerous, you’re right, though I’m not sure if he is doing any physical damage and it sounds as if he was very careful not to ask you to undress or to touch you in any way or place that could lay him open to a charge of assault. You’re quite sure about that? Because if he did, then we’ve got him. I can pick up the phone to my brother now.’

Karin shook her head. ‘It was uppermost in my mind from the minute I walked into the room. He was very, very careful.’

‘Of course he would be with a woman who was obviously watchful and intelligent. Would he behave so impeccably with a young girl, or even a child … does he see children?’

‘I don’t know. The people waiting were all older.’

‘The wickedness is the deception, of course … and the fact that he gives people false hope with this pantomime. He will also convince at least some of them that they are cured and don’t need proper medical treatment, which is the worst of it.’

‘I found it quite frightening.’

‘I bet you did. Dear God, imagine if you were old and frail and you actually believed he was cutting you open and taking bits out of you – you could perfectly easily die of shock. I wonder if anyone ever has.’

‘To find that out you’d need to discover where he came from, where he’s worked before.’

‘I’m going to do some research when I have half a moment.’

‘I can help there. I’ll trawl the Internet and I’ve a friend on the Sunday Times I might ring. They’re good at digging up people’s unsavoury pasts. They might even do an investigative report.’

‘Good idea. We’ve a meeting of this new committee of doctors and complementary therapists. I’ll report to that. The trouble is it all takes time. And I’m on call tonight. It’s the one thing I’d cheerfully give up, and yet it’s often when you get to know your own patients best – when the chips are down at four in the morning.’

‘You’re a national treasure. I hope you know that, Dr Deerbon.’

‘No. I haven’t succeeded with you.’

From the television room the hornpipe marked the end of Blue Peter.

Karin stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea. I’ll leave you to enjoy some quality time with your daughter.’

Cat made a face.

Outside, the wind cut across the garden, slamming the car door out of Karin’s hand. She looked back at the lighted kitchen window, watching Cat lift Hannah up on to the worktop beside the sink, both of them laughing. Yes, she thought. Children. But the check she kept on herself came at once. ‘Don’t whinge.’ Self-pity and dissatisfaction ate into the spirit, which she was determined would remain positive, optimistic and thankful.

As she reached home, her mobile rang.

‘It’s Cat. I’m going to check out this guy for myself. Can you text me his number?’

‘What if he susses you’re a doctor?’

‘He won’t. And anyway, so what?’

‘You might have to wait a bit, he claims to be very booked up.’

‘Give us both time to do some digging. I want to go there knowing every last thing I can find out about our psychic surgeon.’

It was almost midnight when Cat telephoned her brother.

‘I didn’t think you’d be tucked up.’

‘I’ve only been in half an hour.’

‘And I’m on call so there’s never any point in going to bed early – or going to bed at all come to that. Si, have you anything doing up at Starly … officially?’

‘Sort of. We did a house-to-house the other day, trying for info on the missing girl Debbie Parker. Drew a blank though.’

‘Yes, I knew she’d seen a therapist up there. She was my patient.’

‘Is … I like to remain optimistic.’

‘Did your people encounter a chap calling himself a psychic surgeon?’

‘A what?’

She repeated Karin’s story.

‘He’s new to me. I can check whether our people saw him. They’ll have been to the house, they went everywhere. I haven’t had a report about Debbie Parker having been to see him though. She favoured a chap in blue robes who calls himself Dava.’

‘She told me about Dava. Listen, Si, this Dr Groatman, or Anthony Orford, or whatever his real name is – he’s dangerous. For all sorts of reasons, he ought to be put out of business.’

‘You were certainly right to ask Karin if she felt he’d laid himself open to any charge of assault, but it doesn’t sound as if he did.’

‘Can’t you get him for something else?’

‘Such as? He isn’t breaking any law. You know yourself anyone can set up as an alternative practitioner, no training, no qualifications, plate on the door and Bob’s your uncle. There are no regulations. If we could prove he had actually taken an instrument and opened someone up, we could certainly arrest him. Has he?’

‘It’s all sleight of hand.’

‘Does he claim to operate on people … is that what he says in his literature?’

‘Oh, I think he’s too clever to have any of that.’

‘How does he get patients?’

‘Word of mouth. People tell of his miracles.’

‘How long has he been in Starly?’

‘Not long. Karin is going to try and find out where he was before.’

‘And why he left. I’ll get some checks run tomorrow, but from what you’ve told me we’ve no reason even to question him. Someone would have to come to us with a formal complaint.’

‘Shit. I’m really wound up about this one. Think of the people he’s conning, think of the money he’s raking in. Think of the serious illnesses people might be taking to him instead of coming to us.’

‘There’s one thing you might do … What is the next best thing to setting the police on to him? Possibly even better?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘The press. Get a reporter to pose as a patient and then nosy around Starly. Ten to one they’d never get an interview out of him, he’ll be too fly, but if a good journalist gets to the bottom of him and there is any dirty linen, it’ll be hung out all over the district.’

‘Can you think of anyone who’d be interested?’

‘Oh, indeed,’ Cat heard the smile in her brother’s voice, ‘I know just the person. Got a pen?’

Rachel Carr was in the office by eight every morning. She had found out long ago that the early news reporter caught whatever worms had been turned up overnight and she was never going to let a colleague beat her to them. There was also fun to be had in the Mazda on half-empty roads. By ten past eight, the traffic coming into town and the school-run mothers took all the joy out of her precious toy. So when Cat Deerbon rang she took the call and within a few seconds of listening the adrenaline was pumping.

By mid-morning, Rachel had the go-ahead from her editor, put in a couple of calls to people who might come up with something about the psychic surgeon and made an appointment to see him herself. Having been told that he was fully booked for six weeks, she pleaded acute pain and distress, slipping in mention of a friend who had said the surgeon had worked a miracle on her and saying that he was her only hope.

‘Hold on one moment please.’

The receptionist was back within twenty seconds to say she could fit Rachel in at the end of the coming Friday afternoon.

‘Dr Groatman does try to keep some spaces for people who are in great pain.’

Rachel thanked her tearfully and profusely.

‘There may be a small further charge to cover the extra administration.’

‘I don’t mind, I’ll pay anything, it doesn’t matter what it costs. Thank you so much.’

She put the phone down, went straight on to the Internet and keyed Dr+Charles+Groatman+psychic+surgeon into Google.

The website it gave her was out of date. Dr Charles Groatman, aka Brian Urchmont, advertised himself as practising at a clinic in Brighton. Beside his photograph were extracts from letters of thanks, praise and recommendation from grateful patients and details of surgery hours. When she rang the telephone number given, a BT message told her it was unrecognised. Rachel thought for a moment, then remembered Duggie Hotten, who had been a senior reporter when she was starting out and had gone on to the Brighton Argus.

She was put straight through.

‘Rachel. Carr, of course I remember. What are you doing now?’

‘Chief reporter at Lafferton.’ She hoped no one was listening.

‘Great stuff.’

‘I won’t be here for ever.’

‘Daily Mail next stop then?’

‘Watch this space.’

‘What can I do?’

She began to tell him but he was there before her.

‘God, just start me on the subject of our psychic surgeon. We’ve a mountain of stuff on him but he’s always come out of it smelling of roses – sort of. So he’s in your neck of the woods. Good luck.’

‘I’m doing an investigative. Can you let me have any clippings?’

‘Sure. He’s a tricky one, Rache. Watch your back. He’s got a nose for a journalist and he screams “Libel” like a stuck pig. He also turns up all sorts of people to defend him, grateful patients whose lives he saved, you know the stuff. We had a mountain of letters.’

‘What happened?’

‘We dropped it. Too much flak. Besides, he isn’t doing anything illegal. He’s very, very careful.’

‘Great stuff, Duggie, I owe you.’

‘A word in the ear at the Daily Mail once you’re there. That’ll do nicely.’

Thirty-Three

The only day Sandy Marsh had missed going to work had been the day Debbie had disappeared. Since then she had gone in early and stayed late, because she couldn’t bear being in the flat and because at work she could keep her mind off Debbie for a good part of the time.

Today, she walked down the long open-plan office shortly after eight, expecting there to be no one else in for another half-hour. But Jason Webster was there, putting some daffodils into a vase at Sandy’s desk. Everyone had been brilliant to her, Jason most of all, the place had changed from an office to a home full of caring relations. People took over some of her work, brought her coffees, invited her out every lunch hour and to their homes for supper most nights so that she was not left to spend an evening in the flat alone unless she wanted.

‘Those are beautiful, Jase. They look like the spring.’

‘Keep you smiling.’

Sandy dumped her bag and coat and gave him a hug. The daffodils shone like sovereigns in the rather sterile grey and steel office.

‘Coffee?’

Sandy turned on her computer and looked at the new file left on her desk late last night by the section manager. More people in debt, more firms asking for time to pay, more excuses. Sandy was in the area of credit control where the desperate ended up, those who had had virtually every warning and not only failed to pay but failed to communicate or proffer explanation, reason or excuse. ‘Last Chance Saloon’ someone had printed out in scarlet and pinned over Sandy’s work station ages ago.

She enjoyed her job. She was meticulous, she liked working with figures but figures which had people not far in the background, and she liked being able, just sometimes, to haul people in before they fell off the edge of her desk into the bankruptcy court.