The Doctor Page 7

  ‘Please help yourself,’ Alisha said, returning with a tray set with tea and a plate of pastry savouries.

  ‘Wow. You’ve been busy,’ Emily enthused, impressed. ‘These look delicious.’

  ‘It was nice to cook something different. Eva’s food is very simple and Amit often eats at work.’

  Emily took a couple of the pastries and put them on the plate Alisha gave to her, together with tea in a white bone-china cup and saucer.

  ‘What about Robbie?’ Alisha asked. ‘Does he want anything?’

  ‘He’s all right for now, he’s just had lunch.’ Emily settled back, took a sip of her tea and a bite of one of the pastries. ‘Very nice,’ she said. Alisha smiled, pleased. ‘So, you worked out how to switch off the cameras, well done. And you know how to switch them on again?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. It’s simple when you know how. I’d never had a reason to learn how to use it before.’

  ‘You seemed very worried that Amit might find out.’

  ‘He …’ she stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ Emily prompted.

  ‘Amit has a lot on his mind and he can sometimes become angry over little things, but everything is all right, really. It was nice of you to help me.’

  Emily gave a half-hearted nod. ‘No worries.’ Perhaps with time Alisha would confide in her. ‘What exactly does Amit do in that outbuilding?’ she asked as she had before. ‘I know you said it was research to try to find a cure for your illness, but how?’

  ‘I don’t know the details,’ Alisha replied, avoiding Emily’s gaze. ‘And I don’t ask questions.’

  ‘You’re very good. I’m sure I’d ask,’ Emily returned with a small irreverent laugh.

  ‘But you’re different to me,’ Alisha said, and looked sad. ‘You’re more confident and do as you wish. You feel you can speak your mind.’

  ‘Too much sometimes,’ Emily said. ‘So tell me to shut up when you’ve had enough.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Alisha said seriously. ‘I am pleased you came. But I honestly don’t know what Amit does in his lab and I wouldn’t question him.’

  ‘Ben is jealous. He calls it a man cave. He wants one,’ Emily laughed.

  ‘I’m sure Ben would much rather spend his time with you and Robbie in the evenings and weekends than in a building at the bottom of the garden.’

  Emily saw Alisha’s hurt and disappointment. ‘Yes, I suppose he would really,’ she said quietly and took another sip of her tea. ‘I’ve accepted Tibs isn’t coming back,’ she said, changing the subject.

  ‘I am sorry. Will you have another cat?’

  ‘Maybe in the future, although Ben would like a dog.’

  ‘It’s such a pity she didn’t come home. When I found her collar, I was hopeful it had just come off and she would return.’

  Emily set her cup in her saucer and stared at her. ‘You found the collar? I thought Amit found it?’

  ‘No, I found it just outside our back door. Amit returned it to you.’

  ‘It wasn’t in the road then?’

  ‘No. Didn’t Amit explain?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m sure he said he’d found it in the road.’

  ‘You must have misunderstood. It was outside our back door. I was putting out some rubbish and found it by the bin.’

  ‘I see,’ Emily said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t suppose it matters.’

  ‘No,’ Alisha agreed.

  But it did matter.

  ‘Why would Amit lie about where and who found Tibs’ collar?’ Emily asked Ben that evening. She had told him she’d seen Alisha briefly when she’d taken a parcel there.

  ‘I don’t suppose he lied on purpose,’ Ben said with a small sigh. ‘It was probably just a mistake. The bloke got home knackered from work and his wife started going on about the cat collar and that he had to return it. So he quickly scribbles a note and pushes it through our letter box, then you rush round and cross-examine him. He says he found it in the road, which is the most likely place if a cat has been run over. It was a mistake, that’s all. No evil intent.’

  ‘But Alisha never goes out as far as the road. How could he make that mistake?’ Emily persisted.

  ‘What are you talking about, Em?’ Ben said testily. ‘She came here once, didn’t she? Of course she goes out sometimes. Just not very far as she’s ill.’

  She looked at him and realized how ridiculous it must sound if you didn’t know the full story – that Alisha couldn’t go out, not so much because of her illness but because she had a severely disabled daughter whom she couldn’t leave. There was no doubt in Emily’s mind that Alisha’s version of events was true and, for whatever reason, Amit Burman had lied, but she knew she needed to let it go. She was starting to sound obsessive, and Ben’s comment about Amit arriving home from work knackered and his wife going on at him about the cat collar was surely a dig at her.

  ‘Sorry, I won’t mention it again.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Tell me about your day at work.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  It mattered, Alisha also thought that evening, and it had worried her since Emily had left. It had plagued and dominated her thoughts. She’d done her best to hide her surprise and concern when Emily had told her what Amit had said about Tibs’ collar, but after Emily had gone she’d found it impossible to think of anything else. She felt unsettled, anxious and couldn’t understand why Amit had lied to Emily. Without doubt he had known he wasn’t the one who’d found the cat collar, and she’d told him exactly where she’d found it. So why had he told Emily he’d found it in the road? Had he forgotten what she’d said? Unlikely. He rarely forgot anything and he’d taken the collar round straight away; there hadn’t been time to forget. ‘I’ll return it,’ he’d said, snatching it from her and placing it in an envelope.

  Alisha liked Emily a lot, she acknowledged. She seemed a genuine sort of person who could be relied upon, and she trusted her not to tell anyone – even Ben – about Eva. She was pleased they were becoming friends; indeed, Emily was the only friend she had now. Amit had seen to that, telling her old friends she was too ill to meet them or come to the phone, so eventually they’d stopped calling. But now she had Emily, and it felt safe having her telephone number and knowing she was just next door. She’d enjoyed Emily and Robbie’s visit and now she was confident in working the CCTV and could switch it off and on they could visit any time and Amit would never know. She’d already made a date for their next visit. Yes, she liked Emily and wanted to do right by her.

  Alisha was suddenly jolted into the present by something she’d just thought. The CCTV. Now she was competent at using it why didn’t she rewind it to the day she’d found the collar? It might give a clue as to how it had got there, even to where Tibs was, then she could tell Emily. She’d be so pleased to know, even if it was bad news. Emily had said it was the not knowing what had happened to Tibs that was the worst. There was a camera pointing down the sideway that covered the back door. Amit was in his lab for the evening and wouldn’t reappear for hours.

  Alisha picked up the remote control for the television and pressed for the CCTV channel. Recordings were kept for three months before being automatically wiped clean. She began rewinding, quickly covering the previous weeks. Day followed night and night day in a tedious routine of nothing. If she ever needed proof of how humdrum her life was then she had it here. Amit went to work in the morning, returned home in the evening and went to his lab. Occasionally, she saw herself answering the front door if one of Amit’s deliveries needed signing for. She also saw herself in the sideway putting rubbish out, but other than that she was always indoors looking after Eva. But just a minute, hadn’t she found the collar on the day the bins were emptied? She was almost certain. Amit put the bins out on Wednesday evening ready for collection on Thursday.

  She nudged the tape back, now pausing at Wednesdays only and saw Amit leaving for work in the mornings, then returning home in the evenings and putting out the bins. Then abruptly one evening his routine chan
ged. She slowed the tape to play, sat forward and concentrated hard on the screen. It was pitch-dark at 7.28 p.m. and the cameras relied on infrared. He could be seen going out of their back door, but instead of putting out the bins, he disappeared down the garden, presumably to his lab. There was no camera covering the lab.

  Alisha waited, then moved the recording forward again. Finally, at 11.30 p.m., he reappeared down the sideway, having finished in his lab for the night. But now he was carrying two large heavy-duty rubbish sacks. He was struggling, they looked very heavy, and he couldn’t get a good grip on the bag in his right hand as he seemed to be carrying something else. From the angle of the camera she couldn’t tell what. He stopped at the bins, set the two sacks on the ground, lifted the lid on the general rubbish bin and threw in whatever he’d been holding, not realizing he’d dropped something. He then picked up the rubbish sacks but, instead of putting those into the bin, continued down the sideway. A few seconds later she saw him on the camera at the front. What was he going to do? He glanced up at their neighbours’ houses, presumably checking he wasn’t being watched, before opening the boot of his car and heaving in the sacks. He closed the door, quickly got into the car and drove off.

  Alisha stopped the recording and stared at the screen, her thoughts racing and her mouth dry. She remembered now. It was one of the nights Amit had gone out very late and returned in the early hours. It had happened a few times and although they no longer slept in the same bedroom – she’d slept in Eva’s room for years – she’d been woken when he’d returned and had put out the bins. She never questioned his movements – he wouldn’t have told her anyway. But why had he taken those rubbish sacks away instead of putting them in the bin to be collected with the other rubbish? What was in them that needed to be got rid of separately? Fear gripped her.

  She rewound the tape again to where Amit could be seen approaching the bins carrying the sacks. They were bulging, but the bulges gave no clue as to what was inside. And what had he been carrying apart from the sacks? She still couldn’t tell. She watched carefully as he set down the sacks and then lifted the lid with one hand and raised the other to throw in whatever else he’d been carrying, one of which slipped from his grasp. She pressed the remote to freeze the frame, zoomed in and stared in horror.

  Collars, he’d been holding animal collars. Four, five, possibly more, she couldn’t be sure. That’s what he’d thrown in the bin, and as he’d done so one had dropped. He hadn’t noticed in the dark, but it was clear on the infrared camera.

  Animal collars. She felt sick. She zoomed in closer to the one on the floor. A red felt cat collar, no bell, but a telephone number engraved on the metal tab. The number was too small to read, but she didn’t need to read it to know it was Emily’s number. The collar Amit had dropped belonged to Tibs. The collar she’d found, exactly as she remembered it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was an unlikely friendship, Emily thought as she helped Robbie into his coat. They were visiting regularly now and in any other situation their friendship probably wouldn’t have flourished. She and Alisha had very different personalities. Emily would have described herself as gregarious, a leader, impulsive maybe, but someone who met life’s challenges head on and didn’t shy away from conflict. Alisha, on the other hand, was unassuming, self-effacing and, while kind, relied heavily on others – her husband and increasingly on Emily. Emily hoped Alisha appreciated that at some point in the future she would be returning to work and these daytime visits would stop.

  As usual, Alisha was waiting for them and the door opened as they approached.

  ‘Alisha, I’ve been thinking,’ Emily said as soon as they were in. ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’

  ‘What?’ Alisha gasped, immediately concerned. ‘What is it? You look serious.’

  ‘Relax. It’s OK. Nothing bad. Don’t look so guilty.’ Emily began taking off Robbie’s coat. ‘I’ve been thinking that it doesn’t feel right us sitting in the living room while Eva is alone upstairs. I know you said you can’t bring her down because of the wheelchair, but couldn’t we go up there with her?’

  ‘Oh, I see, is that what you wanted to say?’ Alisha asked, clearly relieved.

  ‘Yes. Why? What on earth did you think I was going to say?’

  ‘Nothing, It’s just me. Let me take your coats,’ she fussed. ‘Yes, we could go up to Eva’s room. I didn’t think you’d want to. I saw your expression that time you helped me with Eva.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. It was a shock seeing her for the first time. I’d like to, really.’

  Alisha managed a small smile. She didn’t smile often enough, Emily thought. ‘All right. I usually sit upstairs with Eva during the day. The living room is hardly used. I’ll make us some tea and then we’ll all go up together.’

  Taking Robbie’s hand, Emily went with Alisha into her gleaming white kitchen. Spotless, fastidiously tidy and with the contents of the cupboards organized and labelled to the point of it being clinical. It had come as little surprise to Emily to learn that Alisha had been a nurse before she’d stopped work to look after her first child. Emily watched as Alisha moved around the kitchen, opening and closing the cupboard doors, laying the tray with cups and saucers, side plates and freshly baked savouries and a napkin each.

  ‘So I really can’t persuade you to come to my little Christmas drinks party tomorrow night, even for a short while?’ Emily asked. Alisha didn’t reply and seemed preoccupied.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said after a moment. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘My little do tomorrow evening. Could you come for just an hour?’

  ‘Oh, no. that’s impossible. I can’t leave Eva.’ Which is what she’d said the last time she’d asked her. Emily didn’t understand why Amit couldn’t stay with Eva for an hour or so instead of being in his shed but she didn’t say.

  Alisha picked up the kettle and began to pour the boiling water into the tea pot, but as she did, Emily saw her hand tremble.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, going to her.

  ‘Yes. Just a bit tired. I have good days and bad days.’

  ‘Should we come back another time?’

  ‘Oh no stay. Please stay. I want you to.’

  ‘If you’re sure, but let me help.’

  ‘I can manage, really. Please don’t worry. I’m fine.’ She picked up the tray and Emily followed her out of the kitchen, holding Robbie’s hand as they went upstairs.

  ‘We’re going to play with Eva,’ Emily told him positively. But she had concerns as to how he would react. It had been a shock for her to see Eva the first time. She hoped Robbie wouldn’t scream or shy away. How embarrassing that would be.

  It was as though Alisha read her thoughts. ‘I’m sure Robbie will be fine with Eva,’ she said as they arrived on the landing. ‘I used to work in a burns unit and I found children were a lot more accepting of facial disfigurement than adults. Can you open that door please, my hands are full.’

  ‘Yes of course.’ Emily opened the door and then stood aside to let Alisha go in first. She gave Robbie’s hand a reassuring squeeze as they followed her in.

  It was a big room, more like a studio flat than a bedroom. Light and airy with gaily patterned wallpaper, collages and murals, and mobiles hanging from the ceiling. There was a living area at one end, with a small sofa, table, shelves and a television, all at wheelchair height. Two single beds were at the other end, one with a hoist. Alisha had told her she slept here too. A door with a pretty rose ceramic tile-marked bathroom led off the far side, yet although this room was on the second floor and at the back of the house, the windows were covered with opaque film just like the others.

  Emily looked at Eva sitting in her wheelchair facing away from them and watching a cartoon film on the television.

  Alisha set the tray on the table, went over to her daughter and gently removed her headphones. ‘Hello, lovely, look we have visitors.’ She turned the chair slightly so Eva could see.

 
‘Hi,’ Emily said, taking a few steps towards her. ‘Do you remember me? I helped your mother once after you’d fallen.’

  Eva smiled, her facial disfigurement absorbed into the grin.

  ‘She remembers,’ Alisha said.

  ‘This is Robbie,’ Emily said gently.

  Eva turned her wheelchair so she was fully facing Robbie. Emily saw a flash of uncertainty cross his face before he let go of her hand and went to one of the toys on the floor near her.

  ‘He likes your toys,’ Emily told Eva.

  ‘Yes,’ Eva agreed.

  ‘She understands?’ Emily asked, surprised.

  ‘Yes. About the same as the average eight-year-old, but sometimes she has difficultly expressing herself.’

  Emily felt guilty. She’d assumed that because Eva was extremely disabled, she’d have learning difficulties too. It was a prejudgment of which she wasn’t proud.

  Alisha poured the tea and then handed out the savouries, including one for Eva, which she put on a tray that fitted across the wheelchair. Emily sat Robbie beside her at the end of the sofa and gave him a pastry and his plastic beaker containing water. It was a smaller version of the one Eva was drinking from.

  It felt much better all of them sitting together, Emily thought, and she was pleased she’d suggested it. As Alisha had said, Robbie seemed to be fine with Eva – treating her just like any other child. Indeed, now Emily was here with Eva, she was finding she was able to see beyond her physical deformity to the person. And the more Emily talked to her, the more she was able to make eye contact instead of fixating on her disfigurement.