Page 78 of A Curious Ending

He held her gaze and nodded.

‘Her drinking?’

Before Sarah had barely finished speaking, two people chorused, ‘She was not a drinker!’ Kate and Mrs M shot each other a look of solidarity. Dr Patil, however, just sat in silence looking down at his hands clasped tightly on the table in front of him.

Responding to the whisper in her ear, Lara spoke: ‘Dr Patil, will you tell me why you lied about leaving flowers on Lady Porter’s grave?’

He looked up quickly. ‘But I didn’t lie,’ he said.

Lara’s head tilted fractionally as if listening for something. ‘You’ve lied about so much, Dr Patil, why should I believe you?’ Lara asked him.

He stared at her. After a long pause, he drew a deep breath. ‘You’re right,’ he half smiled, ‘and wrong.’ He continued, ‘As a Buddhist I don’t leave cut flowers, but I led you to believe that I hadn’t left a note. You had rather assumed they’d been left together. As it was, I just left the note.’

‘And you didn’t visit Lady Porter on the 10th of August, did you?’

‘I did,’ he declared, ‘although how you know that I didn’t record that visit…’ He stared in bewilderment at Lara. He sighed. ‘I’m not the best at keeping computer records.’ He shrugged, it was a gesture of resignation. ‘It’s what my son and I have argued about. The new ways versus the old. It’s why I’m retiring. Perhaps that’s how it should be. My son is a very good doctor.’ He said this with pride. ‘How did you guess?’

There was a minuscule pause and then Lara said, ‘You do have an awful lot of filing cabinets in your office for someone who’s using a fully computerised system.’

‘How very observant of you, Miss McGregor.’

Lara just smiled and thought of a ghost who had sat on top of his filing cabinets swinging her legs.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Richard Porter cut in. ‘What is all this about? Flowers?! Notes?! Will someone tell me what’s going on?!’

‘I must admit I’m completely lost too,’ Joe commented mildly, helping himself to another sausage roll.

Lara looked at him, once more trying to see what Lady Porter had seen, the resemblance to her beloved husband, Reggie. She turned back to the doctor. ‘What did you mean, Dr Patil, when you wrote, “Forgive me” to Lady Porter.’ From the corner of her eye, Lara saw Mrs M lean in towards the doctor.

Dr Patil focused on Lara, but he did not speak. Lara did not need to be told by her shadow to give him time. In the hall the grandfather clock struck six.

‘I made… I made a mistake,’ Dr Patil stuttered, wringing his hands. ‘I missed the diagnosis of a neurological condition. It was rare but I should have spotted it. Realised that this is what was causing the bouts of confusion, loss of co-ordination and slurred speech. It wasn’t always obvious, not everyone witnessed it,’ he said, looking at Lara. ‘But I should have investigated further.’ With great sorrow and not a little pride, he added, ‘My son would not have missed it.’

‘I knew it!’ Kate said, and Lara saw Sarah take her hand with a whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’ But Lara knew Sarah was not alone in thinking Lady Porter a drinker. Even Thomas thought she liked one too many.

Dr Patil turned to Mrs M. ‘I am so very sorry.’

Mrs M did not move a muscle.

Dr Patil didn’t look at Richard, even when he declared, ‘Medical negligence, that’s what it is. Oh, we will have you for this!’

Lara ignored this interruption and continued, ‘You could not admit it, could you? But you also couldn’t bear it when others implied your friend was a drunk. I could never quite understand that, it seemed you were trying to tell me something back at your house, but it didn’t make sense; you said she wasn’t a drunk, and that she wasn’t ill. But it was you who first put the idea of illness into my mind.’

Dr Patil hung his head. ‘I came close to telling you, that is true, but I’m ashamed to say I couldn’t.’

Lara then repeated something Abby had murmured in her ear. ‘The doctor doth protest too much.’

Dr Patil looked towards her, confused and frowning.

‘Someone… sorry, something made me remember how dogmatic you seemed when you kept insisting that Lady Porter had all her faculties.’

‘Do you think she knew?’ It was Joe who asked this.

‘When I look back, I think maybe she did,’ Dr Patil said. ‘It was a rare condition, not picked up in the coroner’s report. Well, she was an old woman who had supposedly committed suicide. I don’t think anyone was looking that hard, but there were indications if you knew what you were looking for.’

Lara repeated Joe’s question next. ‘Do you think she knew?’

Dr Patil nodded very slightly. ‘The thing was she was always frightened of mental and muscular deterioration because of how her husband Reggie died.’