.

Day 7 - Medical Confidentiality

.

They both got up early and did not speak much during breakfast. They almost only exchanged hesitant smiles. Even on their way to Chipping Norton where they would meet with the dentist in his surgery they kept silent apart from a few work-related words on how to approach him. Both felt that something between them had shifted but they were not quite sure what they should make of it. Tommy had expected Barbara to either lash out to him or give him clear signs that she would approve of the kiss. But she only had behaved strange this morning.

In fact Barbara had tried to act as normal as possible and maybe lure another reaction out of her boss with little signs she thought had been clear. She was by far not used to act like that. She had no experience in flirting other than with a certain amount of alcohol and in for such things more suitable premises like a pub. She probably had to get drunk to tell him that she loved him.

"Gosh!" Barbara suddenly whispered. It had been the first time she had allowed that clear thought. It reverberated loudly in her mind. Shocked she quickly looked out of the side window.

"Hm?" Tommy asked.

"Mh." She shook her head signalising it was nothing she would share.

He frowned. He had thought it would be easier to approach her after the peck on the cheek. Obviously he had been wrong. Unfortunately there was no time to go deeper into it now because they just arrived at the doctor's house. If only they would be on holidays here.

"Back to work it is then." Tommy murmured.

Lafferty had finished his work on site so he had left for London already. It would have been good to have him here because when Dr Harper finally welcomed them in his office he gave the pictures of the jaws only a brief look before he lectured them for about twenty minutes. He inserted so many opaque medical terms to make Barbara start to look around in the room. She did not understand him at all. Tommy was quite amused, she could tell from the small almost invisible wrinkles around his eyes that always appeared shortly before he started to grin at her. This time of course he diverted his eyes back to the dentist and smiled politely.

"Could you give us a name and address?" he asked.

When Dr Harper began to count all the reasons and concerns why he was not allowed to reveal the name but only could try and make a contact to relatives of his patient, Barbara opened the Manila folder and without saying any words presented him a few pictures, slowly, one by one - of the burnt hut, the burnt body and the prepared skull with the huge gap deriving from the blow of an axe.

The dentist swallowed, although he had seen some nasty things in life before. Seeing the last picture he blanched and swallowed again. Dr Harper tried to keep a straight face but in the end he could not hide his disgust.

"You do understand, Dr Harper, that we need to know who she is and if there were any relatives, a husband maybe or any other close partner, we have to be able to meet them unannounced." Barbara waited until Dr Harper nodded. "If you worry about breaching your medical secrecy, I can reassure you that it would be just a stretch of time but we could wait here until we get the official permission. That woman is dead, we have to find her murderer, we have to find him or her as soon as possible. And please believe me, we're in this business for a long time and we do know how to break these kind of news gently. Still you have to agree that since this is a case of murder we have to take things serious. And we do that. One thing is that we have to see first reactions. Everybody is to be seen as a potential murderer. So, do you have a name for us and the adress please?"

They got the name and the last known address, even the birthday and a few facts that have not been in Barbara's data sheet yet. It was matching with what Lafferty had learned from the corpse. The detectives were quite sure they were finally on the right path now. At least they would have neighbours they could interrogate if not even a husband. The dentist had not been completely sure if there was one.

"Well done, Havers." Lynley said when they came from of the dentist's house. They smiled at each other. He had said her last name with such a gently teasing understone that Barbara knew he had not switched back to the harsh tone he had used to call her when they were freshly partnered more than ten years ago. Everything felt normal again. She sighed. Maybe they would go on forever only teasing each other and keeping it close to the edge without pushing it further, whatever it was that happened between them. Tommy gave her an encouraging nod but his thoughts obviously had been on a different topic. "Dinner's my treat today."

"It's been your treat almost all evenings, Sir." Barbara laughed.

"Maybe tonight you'll get something special from me. You'll see." Tommy wriggled his eyebrows in such a way Barbara was not sure if she should call it lascivious or ridiculous. She decided on the latter. "Expect the unexpected."

"Oh, heavens!" She was glad she had decided on ridiculous. Anyway she blushed but was glad that he could not see it while he got into his car on the other side. Barbara cleared her throat. She had to get used to all of this one day. "Well, I look forward to dinner. But first let's see what we learn from her husband. If there is one. And if the dentist hadn't called him yet." After a while she quietly added "I'm glad that we finally know her name. Rosalie Pentally. Sounds almost Italian. Rosalia Pentaglio. Maybe it's a Camorra thing?"

"Oh, good Lord, let's hope not!"

The two London detectives drove to the other side of Chipping Norton. They hoped that at the address Dr Harper had given them there would live at least a flat mate if not a husband. Barbara voiced her concerns that there also might be young children.

"Not at her age." Tommy said.

"Ah, well, one can never know and even at her age of 44 everything could become more difficult but not completely impossible."

He looked at her as if he was going to ask her if she still planned on having children. To her relief he did not but diverted his eyes back to the street in front of them. His expression though had looked as if he even was about to apologise for his unspoken question. "You're right." he only said.

For Barbara it had become quite hot inside his car. One of her deepest and best hidden teenagerish fantasy to get married and raise a family with him suddenly had crawled to the surface after it had been stowed away in the furthermost corner of her silly brain for years. Secretly she pinched her thigh to remind herself that she had to tuck it away again as soon and quick as possible.

"Children of any age, even if they were already adult, would be bad. Bringing these kinds of message always is the hardest part." Barbara sighed. For heaven's sake, she thought, they were here to solve a case of murder. They were not here to solve her case of being in love with her boss.

Lynley harrumphed. A brief image of Barbara chasing little dark haired boys in the back garden of his house had flashed through his mind. He did not know where this had come from again. He thought he had his unrealistic mind under control. When he had been in one of his drinking periods he had thought about Barbara and a shared future very often. That's why he almost had lost her. Torn between guilt, relief and shame he had pushed her away for his own sanity, thus making everything even more difficult. Only lately he felt that their proximity had increased again and foolishly he had regained hope. One of them only had to make the first step across the invisible line between them. He knew it. He also knew that it surely was his obligation.

"Here we are, aren't we?" Barbara pointed at a two-storey house with peaked roof. The front garden was small, not very neat and it was surrounded by a simple wire fence. The paint at the walls should have been renewed a few years ago and the windows should have been cleaned rather sooner than later. She mumbled a sarcastic "How inviting."

"There, there, a bit biased, are we?"

"I try not to be, Sir, but when I see such a clichéd appearance of a house..."

.

...