Shadow Over Edmund Street by Suzanne Frankham (best e reader for android .txt) 📗

‘Snow in the mountains somewhere,’ Alex said as they walked along the main road, trying to find Roslyn Avenue. He was blowing white puffs of vapour and for a moment he was ten years old, skipping along the pavements in his long socks, school shorts,

blazer and cap, oblivious to the cold and without a care in the world.

‘Frost in my soul,’ said Marion.

‘Come on, Mar. I haven’t seen you like this before.’

‘I know, Alex. But it gives me the shits. We’re never going to get this guy, if it’s him.’

What could he say? She was right. ‘There it is,’ he said, pointing to a house off the main road. Number one, Roslyn Avenue. A magnificent Victorian weatherboard. This one larger than most, a grand old lady, well preserved, well maintained. Graceful, with double bay windows fronting onto the street and a wide central flight of steps leading up to an arched leadlight entrance. The front yard had been made over to a car park for the patients, the stately exterior compromised, the signs for the surgery a stain on a beautiful painting.

Robert Harkness, when he opened the door, was older than they’d expected, a robust man in his late fifties. ‘Come on in,’ he said. ‘I’ve got thirty minutes until my first patient, from then on it’s hell all day.’ He seemed pleased about it.

‘Thanks,’ said Alex as they made their way into his surgery. ‘I feel we’re probably wasting your time.’

‘Maybe not. I’ve been, or rather, was,’ he corrected himself, ‘Edwina’s doctor for ten years, so I knew her reasonably well.’ Alex and Marion glanced at each other.

‘Actually,’ Alex said, ‘as Marion mentioned yesterday, we’re keen to know about an accident Edwina was involved in when she was a child. When she was about twelve. We were wondering, a rather forlorn hope I would imagine, if the surgery might have some records about it?’

‘In my father’s time,’ the doctor said. His voice careful, studied.

‘Yes,’ Marion chimed in, ‘it’s been one of the features of this case, you know, the way so many things in the present have been linked to the past. Every way we turn, we find Edwina’s school friends. Family connections. The law firm she used had passed from father to son, so had the real estate firm. We were quite surprised to find the same thing with this practice.’

Robert Harkness sat down behind his desk, smiled. He motioned to Alex and Marion to take a seat. ‘I was surprised too. Taking over the family business was the last thing I expected to do. I was practising in London when my father was diagnosed. Cancer. You probably know how the story goes. One dismal day in London, with a one-hour commute ahead of me jammed in with a few million people and I thought, “What the hell am I doing here? Time to go home. I’m needed there. Time to face life.” So here I am and loving it.’

He glanced out the surgery window, which had caught the morning light and spilled it onto his desk. ‘Friday afternoon I hop on the ferry, spend the weekend on Waiheke. Love this place.’

Marion shuffled.

‘Sorry,’ the Doctor said, ‘we haven’t got time for my ramblings.’

‘It’s fine,’ Alex said. ‘I’m not sure you can help us.’

‘Oh no, on the contrary. For one thing, I actually remember it. I’m assuming you’re talking about the death of Trudi Nyss?’

Alex stiffened. ‘You remember it?’

‘I’m roughly the same age and although we went to different schools, my parents did talk at the dinner table, you know. Trudi … well, I knew who she was. I’d seen her around a few times. It was shocking when she died. I was fourteen, beginning to wake up to the other sex so to speak and she was drop dead gorgeous. I remember the accident left its mark on me for months, the first time I realised one minute you could be alive and gone the next. But if you want to know more about it, you should talk to my mother rather than me. She was my father’s nurse. That’s how they met. I’m quite sure she knows all about the accident.’

For the first time in this case Alex felt his skin prickle. Felt the hair on his arms bristle. ‘How can we find her?’ His voice so quiet he wasn’t sure the words came out.

‘Easy,’ said the doctor. ‘Give me a minute to call her, check it’s okay and I’ll take you to her. She lives out the back. This is my parents’ old home. She still lives here.’

* The woman who opened the door was nothing like Alex had imagined. Not old and bent. Mrs Edith Harkness was tall and big boned, a strong-looking woman dressed in black slacks and a pale lemon jumper. Her white hair was cut in a stylish bob. Alex found himself staring, doing some quick mental arithmetic in

his head.

‘Mrs Harkness,’ he heard Marion say. ‘Surely you’re way too young to be Robert’s mother.’

The woman laughed. A deep resounding laugh. ‘Thank you my dear for being so generous. I’ve been blessed with good genes and so far, good health. Touch wood. A precious thing at my age. Come in, both of you, sit down. I’ve just made a pot of tea.’

Alex murmured his thanks and walked into a room drenched with sun and light. Wide French doors opened onto a lush green lawn, the garden beds filled with camellias in full bloom. A riot of red, pink and white flowers.

‘What a beautiful room,’ Marion said, bending down to stroke a marmalade cat that had wandered over and rubbed against her leg.

‘Thank you. I love it,’ Mrs Harkness said. ‘We brought up our family here. The surgery has always been in the front. Now the surgery has expanded so much it’s eating away at my space. It’s only me, so it doesn’t really matter. I can’t imagine

moving.’

She brought over a tea