relief soon evaporated when he heard his receptionist say, ‘Sir Robert Hellier wishes to speak to you, Doctor.’
He sighed. This was a call he had been expecting. ‘Put him through, Mary.’
There was a click and a different buzz on the line. ‘Hellier here.’
‘Nicholas Warren speaking.’
The tinniness of the telephone could not disguise the rasp of authority in Hellier’s voice. ‘I want to see you, Warren.’
‘I thought you might, Sir Robert.’
‘I shall be at my office at two-thirty this afternoon. Do you know where it is?’
‘That will be quite impossible,’ said Warren firmly. ‘I’m a very busy man. I suggest I find time for an appointment with you here at my rooms.’
There was a pause tinged with incredulity, then a splutter. ‘Now, look here …’
‘I’m sorry, Sir Robert,’ Warren cut in. ‘I suggest you come to see me at five o’clock today. I shall be free then, I think.’
Hellier made his decision. ‘Very well,’ he said brusquely, and Warren winced as the telephone was slammed down at the other end. He laid down his handset gently and flicked a switch on his intercom. ‘Mary, Sir Robert Hellier will be seeing me at five. You might have to rearrange things a bit. I expect it to be a long consultation, so he must be the last patient.’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
‘Oh, Mary: as soon as Sir Robert arrives you may leave.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
Warren released the switch and gazed pensively across the room, but after a few moments he applied himself once more to his papers.
Sir Robert Hellier was a big man and handled himself in such a way as to appear even bigger. The Savile Row suiting did not tone down his muscular movements by its suavity, and his voice was that of a man unaccustomed to brooking opposition. As soon as he entered Warren’s room he said curtly and without preamble, ‘You know why I’m here.’
‘Yes; you’ve come to see me about your daughter. Won’t you sit down?’
Hellier took the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘I’ll come to the point. My daughter is dead. The police have given me information which I consider incredible. They tell me that she was a drug addict – that she took heroin.’
‘She did.’
‘Heroin which you supplied.’
‘Heroin which I prescribed,’ corrected Warren.
Hellier was momentarily taken aback. ‘I did not expect you to admit it so easily.’
‘Why not?’ said Warren. ‘I was your daughter’s physician.’
‘Of all the bare-faced effrontery!’ burst out Hellier. He leaned forward and his powerful shoulders hunched under his suit. ‘That a doctor should prescribe hard drugs for a young girl is disgraceful.’
‘My prescription was …’
‘I’ll see you in jail,’ yelled Hellier.
‘… entirely necessary in my opinion.’
‘You’re nothing but a drug pedlar.’
Warren stood up and his voice cut coldly through Hellier’s tirade. ‘If you repeat that statement outside this room I shall sue you for slander. If you will not listen to what I have to say then I must ask you to leave, since further communication on your part is pointless. And if you want to complain about my ethics you must do so to the Disciplinary Committee of the General Medical Council.’
Hellier looked up in astonishment. ‘Are you trying to tell me that the General Medical Council would condone such conduct?’
‘I am,’ said Warren wryly, and sat down again. ‘And so would the British Government – they legislated for it.’
Hellier seemed out of his depth. ‘All right,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I suppose I should hear what you have to say. That’s why I came here.’
Warren regarded him thoughtfully. ‘June came to see me about eighteen months ago. At that time she had been taking heroin for nearly two years.’
Hellier flared again. ‘Impossible!’
‘What’s so impossible about it?’
‘I would have known.’
‘How would you have known?’
‘Well, I’d have recognized the … the symptoms.’
‘I see. What are the symptoms, Sir Robert?’
Hellier began to speak, then checked himself and was silent. Warren said, ‘A heroin addict doesn’t walk about with palsied hands, you know. The symptoms are much subtler than that – and addicts are adept at disguising them. But you might have noticed something. Tell me, did she appear to have money troubles at that time?’
Hellier looked at the back of his hands. ‘I can’t remember the time when she didn’t have money troubles,’ he said broodingly. ‘I was getting pretty tired of it and I put my foot down hard. I told her I hadn’t raised her to be an idle spendthrift.’ He looked up. ‘I found her a job, installed her in her own flat and cut her allowance by half.’
‘I see,’ said Warren. ‘How long did she keep the job?’
Hellier shook his head. ‘I don’t know – only that she lost it.’ His hands tightened on the edge of the desk so that the knuckles showed white. ‘She robbed me, you know – she stole from her own father.’
‘How did that happen?’ asked Warren gently.
‘I have a country house in Berkshire,’ said Hellier. ‘She went down there and looted it – literally looted it. There was a lot of Georgian silver, among other things. She had the nerve to leave a note saying that she was responsible – she even gave me the name of the dealer she’d sold the stuff to. I got it all back, but it cost me a hell of a lot of money.’
‘Did you prosecute?’
‘Don’t be a damned fool,’ said Hellier violently. ‘I have a reputation to keep up. A fine figure I’d cut in the papers if I prosecuted my own daughter for theft. I have enough trouble with the Press already.’
‘It might have been better for her if you had prosecuted,’ said Warren. ‘Didn’t you ask yourself why she stole from you?’
Hellier sighed. ‘I thought she’d just gone plain bad – I thought she’d taken after her mother.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘But that’s another story.’
‘Of course,’ said Warren. ‘As I say, when June came to me for treatment, or rather, for heroin, she had been addicted for nearly two years. She said so and her physical condition confirmed it.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Hellier. ‘That she came to you for heroin and not for treatment.’
‘An addict regards a doctor as a source of supply,’ said Warren a little tiredly. ‘Addicts don’t want to be treated – it scares them.’
Hellier looked at Warren blankly. ‘But this is monstrous. Did you give her heroin?’
‘I did.’
‘And no treatment?’
‘Not immediately. You can’t treat a patient who won’t be treated, and there’s no law in England which allows of forcible treatment.’
‘But you pandered to her. You gave her the heroin.’
‘Would you rather I hadn’t? Would you rather I had let her go on