She’d always found that with private hospitals everything was calmer, less frantic, as though the right amount of appointments had been made for the right amount of doctors. There was no panic, no angst of people being forced to wait hours after already waiting months. If it wasThe Hunger Games, it was definitely the difference between the Capitol and District 12.
A nurse smiled in their direction as she paused at the coffee-making station.
The door to the third office on the left opened as they approached it, and a man in his late sixties stepped into the corridor holding a coffee mug. It was emblazoned with the caption ‘Built for Comfort Not Speed’.
‘Doctor Cutler?’ Kim asked, taking in his chocolate-coloured corduroy trousers and open-necked shirt. His hair was completely grey, tidily cut, and a pair of spectacles hung around his neck.
‘DI Stone?’ he said, nodding towards the door. ‘Please go in while I grab a refill.’
She did as he’d asked and was surprised at the lack of personalisation in the space. The desk and bookshelves were made of light pine-coloured wood and looked generic. Two leather armchairs faced each other on the opposite side of the room.
The space was bright but uninspiring, and she guessed that maybe some patients preferred it that way. She suddenly thought of her own visits to Ted Morgan as a child. He had tried many different settings to encourage her to open up. Sometimes they’d been in his study, surrounded by books and keepsakes, other times in the sitting room with comfy sofas and fluffy cushions. Other times they’d been in the garden sitting beside his small fish pond. She had opened up in none of them, but she did remember the peace she’d felt in each place, some of the things he’d said to her that had lodged in her mind. She wasn’t sure she’d have recalled anything from an impersonal space such as this, but it had certainly suited Helen Daynes given how long she’d been in therapy with the psychiatrist.
‘Sorry about that,’ Doctor Cutler said, closing the door behind him. ‘It’s my only vice, and my wife buys only decaf. Now, how can I help you?’
‘As I mentioned on the phone, we’d like to talk about Helen Daynes.’
‘What would you like to know?’ he asked as a genuine wave of sadness passed over his face.
‘Everything,’ she answered simply.
He shifted in his seat. ‘It may be better if you ask me some questions.’
Kim felt a little tension seep into her jaw. He was hedging.
‘You treated Helen Daynes for a very long time.’
‘That’s not a question, but I’ll answer your statement. I treated Helen for twenty-nine years. She was one of my first patients, and she will now also be one of my last. I retire fully next month.’
‘Can you tell us the nature of her illness?’
‘Clinical depression and general anxiety disorder.’
‘For all these years?’
‘Yes. There were times that she needed more help than others, but not everyone is able to put mental illness in their past.’
‘What brought it on?’
‘Really, Inspector, I think you understand the futility of that question.’
‘But she had no medical history of depression before you saw her twenty-nine years ago, did she?’
‘I can only speak from when I began treating her.’
‘And why was that?’ Kim asked, trying to get her answer from the back door.
‘Because her GP thought she would benefit from the help.’
‘Was she pregnant?’
‘Yes, I believe she was.’
‘And she was prescribed a cocktail of medication?’
‘Yes, she was.’
Kim waited.