The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (life changing books txt) 📕

discovered his empty bed. The window was now open. It wasn’t when they left him. She looked out and saw his body on the path below.” Gayther noted the lack of emotion in the woman opposite him but thought that she must see death time and again in her job, most weeks probably, and become hardened to it. As he knew he was. Or, as he should put it, “toughened”, not “hardened”.

“Yes, that’s all correct,” she replied. “Sally set off the alarm and ran down the corridor towards the stairs leading to … just over there.” She pointed to the staircase at the far right of the reception area. “Jen and I were here. I went through those doors there, to the ground-floor rooms, with Sally, to fetch Doctor Khan, who was here attending to a patient.”

“That’s unusual, isn’t it, Doctor Khan?” asked Carrie. “Attending to a patient at that time of night?”

The doctor spread his arms wide and smiled warmly, “It’s all part of the service.” Gayther thought, but did not ask, that he must be private, not NHS, and on a hefty out-of-hours call-out fee.

DI Gayther turned to the doctor and asked, “So, please tell me what happened from this point.”

Dr Khan cleared his throat and leaned slightly towards Gayther. “I believed, from the tone of the care assistant’s voice, that this was an urgent matter and so I came out of the patient’s room, turned left and made my way down the corridor towards the care assistant and Mrs Coombes.”

He looked from one to the other to check that all were paying close attention. Gayther thought that he was little more than a puffed-up buffoon. Sitting there in his peacock finery.

“There was a moment or two’s confusion due to the assistant’s incoherency. I surmised quickly that the Reverend Lodge had fallen from his window and I led the way through reception and along and out to the path by the back garden. Sadly …” the doctor dropped his voice in a professionally sympathetic manner, “… he had passed away.”

“Cause of death?” asked Carrie.

The doctor smiled at her, and Gayther and Carrie exchanged a glance, both thinking much the same thing at the same time: “patronising bastard”.

“The open window … the nine-metre fall … the concrete path … an octogenarian skull … osteoporosis in the bones … need I go on?” Dr Khan smiled at them and then added, “Let me put it simply.” He paused for effect. “He fell and fractured his skull … severe intracranial hemorrhage … death would have been rapid, if not instant … to a layman. He would have been unconscious on impact.”

“Time of death then?” said Carrie sharply.

“Ah, now that is interesting,” The doctor replied. “He was alone from 8.30pm until he was found at 10.00pm. From my professional assessment, I would put the time of death at closer to 8.30pm than to 10.00pm. Rigor mortis. What surprises me is … let us say this happened, for argument’s sake, before 9.00pm, why, when he was in full view of anyone looking out of the window, walking in the garden, did no one see him for a full hour?”

“Mrs Coombes?” Carrie turned her attention towards the care home manager.

“Well,” she replied, “your colleagues spoke to everyone here and I believe that we were all busy at that time, seeing visitors out, putting the patients to bed, sorting their medication … no one has time to stand around, especially at that time of night. I myself was back and forward from reception to the rooms … a hundred and one things to do as usual. Anyone on the top floor who looked out would have had to have looked straight down rather than outwards to see … him. Those patients on the ground floor tend to need the most care. It was just a very busy time.”

“Did anyone hear anything?” Carrie persisted. “The neighbouring rooms? The ones below and to either side? Anything out of the ordinary, anything unexpected? Surely, he must have cried out … or there would have been the sound of impact.”

Mrs Coombes shook her head. “The room to the left was empty, has been since Mrs Vincent passed away the month before. The other side had, still has, a Mr Simkins in it. He’s a rather lively chap, still quite mobile, wandering hands, even at his age, seventy-eight, but he is deaf as a post. He didn’t get along with the reverend, called him the Reverend Todge.”

DI Gayther and Carrie exchanged glances again.

“Below, the three rooms, directly and to the left and right, have three dementia patients: Miss Bright, Mrs Howes and Mrs Smith. Two, Miss Bright and Mrs Smith, had music on loudly at the time and Mrs Howes had the television turned up. Two assistants, with Miss Bright and Mrs Smith, thought they heard a thump, about a quarter to nine, and both stopped for a moment to listen, in case someone had fallen from their bed and was calling out. They then carried on.”

Carrie turned to the doctor, “Would you not expect a man falling out of the window to cry out as he fell … or after he had hit the ground?”

“No, not necessarily. He would have been taken by surprise. It would have been over almost instantly. He landed on his head and would have been unconscious immediately.”

Carrie pressed on, “If he fell out of the window and landed head-first … is that not unusual, to fall head-first?”

“Again, not necessarily, he could have tripped over and his momentum and weight could have taken him to the window and out. He may have leaned out to see something that caught his eye and lost his balance. He had mobility issues. And let us not forget he suffered from dementia. You cannot apply logical reasoning to illogical behaviour.”

Carrie then said, “So, everything you’ve seen … An old man with dementia and who struggles to walk … crosses to the window … opens tight bolts and catches …