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Gardener stood up and opened the box. Inside he found a number of books, which turned out to be personal diaries. There were envelopes bearing a name and address in Ealing Broadway: obviously she had written to her parents, but none of them had ever been sent. As Brenda Killen had said, there were other envelopes. At the bottom, underneath everything was a mobile phone, switched off.
Why had she left the contents of the box in a homeless shelter the night before she was killed?
Gardener passed the phone and the diaries to Thornton and Anderson.
“Take these back to the incident room. That phone will hopefully lead us to something.”
He glanced through the remaining envelopes that Brenda thought were legal papers. They were not. One contained a medical card. The others were notices, reminders of upcoming doctor’s appointments.
She had been a patient of the Bond Street Private Clinic in Leeds, and her doctor’s name was Trent.
Chapter Thirty-five
Gardener and Reilly were sitting opposite Peter Trent in his office. His last patient of the day had left fifteen minutes previously. Margaret Pendlebury had offered afternoon coffee but both officers had declined.
“How can I help you?” asked Trent. He was dressed in a dark blue suit with a pale blue shirt and tie.
“We’d like to talk to you about one of your patients.”
“Which one?”
“Nicola Stapleton.”
“That’s a terrible business,” said Trent. “I hope you catch whoever is responsible.”
“So do we,” said Reilly.
“What would you like to know?” asked Trent.
“What you were treating her for?”
Trent picked up the phone and asked his secretary to bring in Stapleton’s files.
“I’m a little confused,” said Reilly. “We’ve seen where and how she lived, and I can’t imagine she could afford any treatment here.”
“It’s not all private work, Sergeant. Some of our referrals are from the NHS. GPs will sometimes send people here when the diagnosis and the treatment is out of their field. We specialize.”
“Who pays for the treatment?”
“Usually, half from the taxpayer. The rest is paid for by our private investors.”
Margaret Pendlebury came through with the file that Trent had requested. She was about to leave, but Trent asked if either detective had any objection to her staying. Neither did. She took a seat at the side of the desk.
After studying the files – no doubt wondering how much to tell them – Trent glanced up.
“She had hepatitis B. It’s a very serious disease caused by the hepatitis B virus. Infection with this virus can, and often does, result in scarring of the liver, liver failure, liver cancer, and even death.”
“I assume it’s transferred in the normal way,” suggested Gardener. “Through sex.”
“Not always,” replied Trent. “Hepatitis B is spread by infected blood and other bodily fluids such as semen, vaginal secretions, saliva, open sores, and breast milk.”
That diagnosis would certainly clear things up for Fitz, Gardener thought, though he would no doubt soon find out anyway from the antibody screen.
“How was it diagnosed?”
“She had visited her own GP and asked if she could have a blood test because she’d had unprotected sex with a number of men. I suspect she was making sure she did not have the HIV virus. Hepatitis B was confirmed when the test detected the hepatitis virus and various antibodies against the virus. She was referred to us after the tests, and we took a small biopsy to determine the severity of the disease. I must stress at this point, however, that she was only a carrier.”
“What does that mean?” Gardener asked.
