Dead Man's Footsteps

replaced with blocks of flats. Most of those that remained, like this one, housed offices or medical practices.
    She stepped into the familiar hallway, which smelled of furniture polish tinged with a faint whiff of antiseptic, saw Dr Hunter’s secretary at her desk at the far end, occupied on a phone call, and slipped into the waiting room.
    Nothing had changed in this large but dingy room in the fifteen or so years she had been coming here. The same water stain, vaguely in the shape of Australia, onthe stuccoed ceiling, the same peeling wallpaper, the same potted rubber plant in front of the fireplace, the familiar musty smell, and the same mismatched armchairs and sofas that looked as if they had been bought, back in the annals of time, in a job lot from a house-clearance auctioneer. Even the magazines on the circular oak table in the centre, other than a current issue of Sussex Life , looked as if they had not been changed in years.
    She glanced at an elderly couple, the man looking frail, sunk deep into an armchair with busted springs, holding a stick firmly jammed into the carpet as if trying to prevent himself from disappearing into the chair completely, and at an impatient-looking man in his thirties, in a blue Crombie coat with a velvet collar, preoccupied with his BlackBerry. There were various pamphlets on the table, one offering advice on how to give up smoking, but at this moment in time, with the state of her nerves, she could have done with advice on how to smoke more .
    There was a fresh copy of The Times lying there, but she wasn’t in any mood to concentrate on reading, she decided. She’d barely slept a wink since getting the phone call from Dr Hunter’s secretary late yesterday afternoon, asking her to come in, first thing in the morning, on her own. And she was feeling shaky from her blood-sugar levels being too low. She had taken her medication but then had barely swallowed a mouthful of breakfast.
    After perching herself on the edge of a hard, upright carver, with a tight knot of anxiety in her stomach, she rummaged in her bag and popped a couple of glucose tablets into her mouth. Why did Dr Hunter want to see her? On the occasions when she’d had previous scares, like the lump she’d found on her breast, and the time that she had become terrified that Caitlin’s erratic behaviour mightbe a symptom of a brain tumour, Ross Hunter had simply rung her himself and given her the good news that the biopsy or the scan or the blood tests or whatever were fine, there was nothing to worry about.
    She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them. Dressed smartly, she was wearing her best coat – black mid-length wool and cashmere, a January sale bargain earlier this year – a dark blue knitted top, black trousers and black suede boots. Although she would never admit it to herself, she always tried to make herself look good when she came to see the doctor. Not exactly dressed to kill, she had long ago lost the art – and the confidence – to do that, but dressed nicely, at least. Together with a good half of Dr Hunter’s women patients, she had long secretly fancied him. Not that she would have ever dared attempt to make that known to him.
    Since her break-up with Mal, her esteem had been on the floor. At thirty-eight she was still an attractive woman and would be a lot more attractive, several of her friends and her late sister and her brother had all told her, if she put back some of the weight she had lost. She was haggard, she knew, she could see for herself just looking in the mirror. Haggard from worrying about everything, but most of all from worrying about Caitlin.
    That was nothing new. She had long ago lost count of the times she had sat anxiously in the Accident and Emergency department at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, while medics treated Caitlin. One time, at thirteen, Caitlin had her stomach pumped, having stolen a bottle of vodka from the drinks cabinet. Another time, at fourteen, she fell off a roof, stoned on hash. Then there was the horrific night she came into Lynn’s bedroom at two in the morning, glassy-eyed, sweating, and so cold her teeth were chattering,announcing she had downed an Ectasy tablet given to her by some low-life in Brighton and that her head hurt.
    A few months after that she’d become pregnant. Then a couple of months after the abortion, Caitlin had actually carried out one of her many threats to commit suicide after her mum had banned her from seeing her