“I’m sorry,” said Strike, “but I have to ask: did you ever hear that Brenner used prostitutes? Ever hear any rumors about him, locally?”

“Not a word,” said Janice. “I’d’ve told someone, if I’d ’eard that. It wouldn’t be ethical, not in our catchment area. All the women there were registered to our practice. She’d’ve been a patient.”

“According to Talbot’s notes,” said Strike, “somebody claimed they saw Brenner in Michael Cliffe House on the evening Margot disappeared. The story Brenner gave the police was that he went straight home.”

“Michael Cliffe ’Ouse… that’s the tower block on Skinner Street, innit?” said Janice. “We ’ad patients in there, but otherwise…” Janice appeared sickened. “You’ve upset me,” she said again. “’Im and that poor Athorn woman… and there’s me defending ’im to all and sundry, because of ’is experiences in the war. Not two weeks back, I ’ad Dorothy’s son sitting exactly where you are now—”

“Carl Oakden was here?” said Strike sharply.

“Yeah,” said Janice, “and ’e didn’t wipe ’is feet, neither. Dog shit all up my ’all carpet.”

“What did he want?” asked Strike.

“Well, ’e pretended it was a nice catch-up,” said Janice. “You’d think I might not recognize ’im after all this time, but actually, ’e don’t look that much diff’rent, not really. Anyway, ’e sat in that chair where you are, spouting all sorts of rubbish about old times and ’is mum remembering me fondly—ha! Dorothy Oakden, remember me fondly? Dorothy thought Irene and me were a pair of hussies, skirts above our knees, going out to the pub togevver…

“’E mentioned you,” said Janice, with a beady look. “Wanted to know if I’d met you, yet. ’E wrote a book about Margot, you know, but it never made it into the shops, which ’e’s angry about. ’E told me all about it when ’e was ’ere. ’E’s finking of writing another one and it’s you what’s got ’im interested in it. The famous detective solving the case—or the famous detective not solving the case. Either one’ll do for Carl.”

“What was he saying about Brenner?” asked Strike. There would be time enough later to consider the implications of an amateur biographer tramping all over the case.

“Said Dr. Brenner was a sadistic old man, and there I was, sort of sticking up for Dr. Brenner… but now you’re telling me this about Deborah Athorn…”

“Oakden said Brenner was sadistic, did he? That’s a strong word.”

“I fort so, too. Carl said ’e’d never liked ’im, said Dr. Brenner used to go round Dorothy’s ’ouse a lot, which I never realized, for Sunday lunch and that. I always fort they were just workmates. You know, Dr. Brenner probably told Carl off, that’s all. ’E was an ’oly terror when ’e was a kid, Carl, and ’e comes across as the kind of man ’oo ’olds a grudge.”

“If Oakden comes round here again,” said Strike, “I’d advise you not to let him in. He’s done time, you know. For conning…” He just stopped himself saying “old” “… single women out of their money.”

“Oh,” said Janice, taken aback. “Blimey. I’d better warn Irene. ’E said ’e was going to try ’er next.”

“And he seemed primarily interested in Brenner, did he, when he came round here?”

“Well, no,” said Janice. “’E seemed mostly interested in you, but yeah, we talked about Brenner more’n anyone else at the practice.”

“Mrs. Beattie, you wouldn’t happen to still have that newspaper obituary of Brenner you mentioned? I think you said you kept it?”

“Oh,” said Janice, glancing toward the drawer at the base of her china cabinet, “yeah… Carl wanted to see that, too, when ’e ’eard I ’ad it…”

She pushed herself out of the sofa and crossed to the china cabinet. Gripping the mantelpiece to steady herself, she knelt down, opened the drawer and began rummaging.

“They’re all in a bit of a state, my clippings. Irene finks I’m bonkers, me and my newspapers,” she added, wrist-deep in the contents of the drawer. “She’s never been much for the news or politics or any of that, but I’ve always saved interesting bits and pieces, you know: medical fings, and I won’t lie, I do like a story on the royals and…”

She began tugging on what looked like the corner of a cardboard folder.

“… and Irene can fink it’s strange all she likes, but I don’t see what’s wrong—with saving—the story of…”

The folder came free.

“… a life,” said Janice, walking on her knees to the coffee table. “Why’s that morbid? No worse’n keeping a photo.”

She flipped open the folder and began looking through the clippings, some of them yellow with age.

“See? I saved that for ’er, for Irene,” said Janice, holding up an art­icle about holy basil. “Supposed to ’elp with digestive problems, I fort Eddie could plant some in the garden for ’er. She takes too many pills for ’er bowels, they do as much ’arm as good, but Irene’s one of those ’oo, if it doesn’t come in a tablet, she don’t wanna know…

“Princess Diana,” said Janice with a sigh, flashing a commemorative front page at Strike. “I was a fan…”

“May I?” asked Strike, reaching for a couple of pieces of newsprint.

“’Elp yourself,” said Janice, looking over her spectacles at the pieces of paper in Strike’s hand. “That article on diabetes is very interesting. Care’s changed so much since I retired. My godson’s Type One. I like to keep up with it all… and that’ll be the fing about the kid ’oo died of peritonitis, in your other ’and, is it?”

“Yes,” said Strike, looking at the clipping, which was brown with age.

“Yeah,” said Janice darkly, still turning over bits of newspaper, “’e’s the reason I’m a nurse. That’s what put the idea in me ’ead. ’E lived two doors down from me when I was a kid. I cut that out an’ kept it, only photo I was ever gonna ’ave… bawled my bloody eyes out. The doctor,” said Janice, with a hint of steel, “was called out and ’e never bloody turned up. ’E would’ve come out for a middle-class kid, we all knew that, but little Johnny Marks from Bethnal Green, ’oo cared… and the doctor was criticized, but never struck off… If there’s one thing I ’ate, it’s treating people diff’rent because of where they were born.”

With no apparent sense of irony, she shifted more pictures of the royals out of the way, looking puzzled.

“Where’s Dr. Brenner’s thing?” she muttered.

Still clutching several clippings, she walked on her knees back toward the open drawer and rummaged in there again.

“No, it really isn’t ’ere,” said Janice, returning to the coffee table. “That’s very odd…”