CHAPTER 7
Kate was serious in the morning, and a little red-eyed from the lack of sleep.

“Does drinking keep the nightmares away, Adam?”

“I don’t know. If I drink enough to get through them, I can’t remember if I have them or not”

“Do you remember going to bed?”

“Sometimes”

“Shit. Get on the phone, get your own quack talking. There are other ways to control this besides self-medicating from the bottle. And mate…”

“What?”

“What else is going on? You mentioned something to Ginny the other day”

“About being Belgian?”

“No, that was her joke and you know it. Let me guess, you’d have to kill me if you told me?”

No, not you. Me. “It’s nothing, really, butt. Just a few things I need to sort out”

“Then get that appointment made now, and give him Sal’s number. We’ll sort out something with the NHS and try and get you fast tracked. We have to be off now; promise us you’ll talk?”

Ginny spoke up. “I’ll be back this evening, and I expect you to be good. There are beans soaking for tonight, it’ll be a mixed pulse stew with toms and garlic. We’re off”

They both came round the table to hug me, and suddenly my flat was empty again for the first time in ages. Just me and Tabitha. I brought her out to the dining table and sat her before me.

“What should I do, Tabby?”

She seemed to be looking past me to the phone, and I reached across her, grabbed Kate’s bit of paper, and then rang the surgery. I was before Khan at ten.

“Mr Price. You have not been here before me for over a year. Can I ask you to do one thing before we start?”

I filled the little pot in the nearby toilet, and he dropped what looked like a litmus strip into it.

“Good, good. Now, please be standing on the scales. Nineteen stone and eight pounds…that is not a good number, Mr Price. You are not diabetic, from the urine test, but the load upon your heart is not going to be a light one. I assume you are not here for that, though, because you seem to be clinging tightly to a piece of paper in your hand”

“You should be doing my job, doc. I have other problems, yes.”

“Indeed. Doctor McDuff has already spoken to me, as it appears you are having what we could call friends in the trade.”

“Sorry, Doctor, but who?”

“Sally McDuff. She is what you would call a head doctor, or a trick cyclist, or some other funny name to avoid facing reality. She is your Doctor Emerson’s friend”

It clicked. Another of Kate’s odd little tics, her insistence that women didn’t need to change names on marriage into the patriarchal chattel market, or whatever she called it. Khan was still talking.

“Your Doctor Kate is very persuasive, Mr Price. She also knows you very well, and I have my own concerns. You have put on a very large amount of weight in a very short time, and your friend tells me there are other worries.”

“What did Kate tell you?”

“Nothing more than that. She is a medical practitioner and she will not break confidence without your explicit consent, Mr Price. I have a suspicion that she has not been so reticent with her lady doctor friend, though, but I am but a simple GP who is looking at a patient who will shortly be dead unless he adjusts his lifestyle in the direction of the healthier, and soon”

Definitely a frustrated copper.

“Mr Price, the sort of changes I see in you are usually tied to non-physical issues, and I am not a lover of the complicated paperwork I am required to do when a patient becomes an ex-patient, so I would be pleased if you would speak to the good lady doctor. She has a reputation in such matters, and it is a good one. Mr Price….come and see me more often, while you still live”

Fuck, he had his own techniques. I rode home somewhat dazed, and spent the rest of the day on laundry and ironing, and playing music to Tabby, until there was a bang from the front door and I poured Ginny a pint of purple juice as she clacked across the tiled kitchen floor in her cleats.

She swept me up. “We’ve found the place! Three beds, end of terrace, a cellar to put our dungeon in and cat flaps already in place! We haz got homez! Did you speak to Sally yet?”

“Er, no, love, I’ve got to wait for the referral”

“Fuck that, mate, already sorted, innit? Two ticks!”

She dove for the phone, and dialled a number.

“Hi, Ginny! Yeah…course. Veggie. Oh fuck off, and yes there’s enough. You bring pizza and I’ll kill you slowly. Eight? Spot on. Frozen yoghurt? Did you want to sleep with me, or both of us at once? Yes please! Sorted, then. Know the way?”

She rattled off postcode and house number, and I assumed it was for a satnav.

Ginny erupted from her seat and started doing kitchen stuff. Beans and chickpeas were boiled until a froth of foam and bits of bean skin floated on the roiling water, and a large meat cleaver I didn’t know we (we?) had was being slapped to crush garlic. Just as we were settling the mixed pulses into a bed of tomatoes, garlic and herbs, with chopped sundried toms ready to add, the doorbell rang,

I opened to find a reasonably pretty woman in what looked like late forties, accompanied by someone I recognised. Not personally, but generically. He was the man at most pub fights, the one you looked for and took down first and quickly, the evil little fucker that smiled at you just before putting you and four mates into casualty. He was fucking dangerous, I could see it in his eyes and his body, and then he smiled, and he was different, and he asked “Adam?” and at that I knew, in a rush of intuition, why she had married him. There was life behind his eyes, and a smile in his voce, so I just said yes and took them to Ginny’s little empire.

The two women hugged, and I shook hands with hubby. “Stewie–--Adam”, the usual formalities, and I realised that the wife was watching me.

“What?”

“Adam, it’s my job. I watch, and I ask questions. Kate spoke to me earlier, but I don’t want to drop her in it, so we are here to have a meal, and say hello, and if we feel like doing more…..”

“Well, we shall see, OK?”

Ginny was already dishing up, a rich stew of beans and tomatoes with a smaller pot of red cabbage and apple spiced with caraway seeds to vary the textures, and Sally produced a couple of bottles of wine. Ginny gave me a sharp look, then opened one and wrapped it in a cooling jacket.

“I pour for you, OK? Adam…do you mind if we talk in front of Stewie? He might actually be able to help”

He smiled at that. “I have my own issues, Adam, and I know full well what my wife does, but if you want me to piss off at any time, just say”

Ginny squealed again, just as she was passing the first plate.

“We forgot somebody!”

She dove into my bedroom and came back with Tabitha, and sat her on the radiator cover by my shoulder. What the hell happened to taking things slowly and seeing how it went? I glared at her, and as she mock-whistled in sweet innocence, I almost missed a little non-verbal exchange between Sally and Stewie.

They looked at each other, and Stewie raised an eyebrow, as his wife nodded. It was very quickly over, but I noticed him giving me more than a few stares when he thought I wasn’t looking his way. Peripheral vision; it’s a plod thing. You learn to keep the edge of your sight open even when the stress tries to put blinkers on you, to let you spot the bottle or the punch coming from one side. I let it go, but they were clearly already at their little double act. Stewie spoke up, breaking my reverie.

“What’s your story, Adam? What do you do?”

“Moved over here a few years ago, from Swansea. I’m Custody Sergeant down at the local nick”

“You were a copper back home?”

“Well, yeah, I was on a bike with Heddlu De Cymru, so I got about a bit. I’m from Brynamman originally. What about you?”

“Forces, for years, now got a car hire company. Bit of a change, to say the least.”

“Army?”

Sally snorted at that. “Oh dear, I’ll protect the wine, Ginny”

Stewie grinned at her. “We are here to educate and enlighten, my darling. Marines, Adam, marines”

That clicked, the feeling of threat I had picked up from him was spot on. This was a very, very dangerous man. He looked at me more gently.

“You were in Traffic?”

“Yeah, a lot of the time, till I gave up the bike and came over here.”

Sally was nodding. She didn’t say a word, but took her man’s hand in hers as he continued.

“I hear that there are times when it is not a good job to be in”

I very nearly said “You have no idea”, but then I looked at him, at his age, and with a little calculation I realised he probably had a very good idea. Would he have been in Kuwait? Or the mess in the Balkans? Shit, he was possibly old enough to have been in the Falklands. If true, if there was anyone around who could understand the nightmares, it was Stewie. I looked him in the eyes.

“You know, don’t you?”