Saints and Sinners

Chapter Fifteen

Meadvale

Surrey

Miss Doyle met Daphne Scott at the Meadvale care home, as arranged, although she had no idea why she was there. She assumed it was something to do with her training of Caroline Blackstone, but the location of the meeting concerned her. Miss Scott had said that she would not be cautioned as a result of Caroline's deteriorating performance, but she was worried that the formidable keeper had changed her mind or maybe discovered more problems during her assessment of Caroline, which had been going on for almost three weeks. Dr Blackstone had wanted to come with her, because he was distraught about the time the assessment was taking to complete, but her instructions had been specific and clear. She was to come alone.

"You are anxious, Miss Doyle?" Miss Scott asked as she led her guest out of the reception area and down a long corridor.

"Sorry, Miss Scott...I am honoured to meet you again...but my employer is worried about his wife...and I am a little concerned about the assessment?" Doyle replied, uncertainly.

"You shouldn't be concerned, Miss Doyle...I absolved you from any blame at my initial appraisal of Mrs Blackstone...and if Dr Blackstone was so worried about his wife, he ought to have had her properly trained?"

"Of course, Miss Scott..."

"Caroline spent ten days at Crowthorne as a practise body...I felt that she needed a bit of a rest from her usual routine...and then I had her with me for four days, long enough to really put her through her paces." Miss Scott continued, still walking at quite a pace, with her stick beating rhythm on the floor. Miss Doyle had worked on many practise bodies during her own training and she knew that ten days as one could never really be described as a rest. And then four days with Miss Scott, which she was sure would have been arduous. Considering where they were, she was really starting to worry about Caroline Blackstone. "She is a very blessed girl...my decision to delay her full assessment meant that the recent reduction in standards became applicable...and although her performance was far from satisfactory in my book, she managed to meet them, with some encouragement."

"She passed, Miss Scott? Then why..."

"Care homes offer respite care as well as palliative care...Caroline just needed a little time to convalesce and I wanted to give her a bit of a wakeup call, I suppose?" Miss Scott sighed as she stopped at a closed white door, and turned to smile at Doyle. "She has been here for a week now and as far as she knows, she is here to stay...I would imagine that she will be quite pleased to see you, Miss Doyle...but please make quite sure that she knows that she remains on my watch list...if she ever slips up again, she will be straight in here? Third bed on the right...her things are beside the bed...the rest of her belongings have been sent home."

Miss Doyle was left to dress Caroline and take her home. Miss Scott was right, her rather trying charge was pathetically pleased to see her keeper, especially when she was told that she was going home. Ignoring the other poor women in the dormitory, Miss Doyle gently disengaged Caroline from the waste tubes and put her on the cleaning frame at the end of the room. Caroline was crying with joy, but otherwise behaved perfectly as she was auto-laced into her punishment corset and fitted with a clean catheter. Fifteen minutes later, she was fully dressed and responding to her leash as if her life depended on it. Miss Doyle walked her fast, just as eager to leave as her charge, back down the corridor, through the reception area and out into the sunlight of a fine spring afternoon. Doyle stopped on the pavement and took out her remote to restore Caroline's voice.

"Good afternoon, Miss Doyle." Caroline said as soon just as she could, falling into a perfect obeisance.

"Good afternoon, Caroline...shall we get you home?"