At ten the following morning, after spending the night with her mother at Corner Cottage, Alex walked over to Tony’s surgery and found he was already seeing patients.
Radhika put her in a tiny sitting room behind the area where owners waited with their pets.
‘This is a horrible time,’ Alex said.
‘Yes.’ Radhika didn’t smile. ‘I can’t be gone more than minutes. When I hear Tony coming out, I’ll have to get back. I’ll let him know you’re here. Tell me what’s going on. You talked to the police at the Dog yesterday. Did they tell you anything?’
Nothing was missed by the sharp-eyed people in Folly. ‘I did talk to them.’ Every word spoken, every move was as clear as if she watched it all over again on a screen. ‘Pamela died because she fell down that shaft and smashed her head.’ The photos were something she would never forget.
‘I heard the grate was back over the top.’
‘Radhika, I shouldn’t talk about it. I was told to be quiet.’
The beautiful woman inclined her head in acceptance but her eyes were deeply sad.
‘You can’t repeat anything I say,’ Alex said. ‘The grate was back over the hole. I don’t know for certain what that means but I can guess. So can you. They don’t seem to have any real leads although they’re starting to push at Tony which infuriates me. He couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it but they’re pushing him because they don’t know what else to do.’
‘It’s wrong,’ Radhika said. ‘So wrong. Also, they took Vivian into a police station. Why did they do that?’
‘I honestly don’t know. I hope we’ll find out today. They can’t keep her for long without charging her. That’s the kind of stuff I don’t really understand.’
‘I don’t know what to think. How can we know who did this? Vivian could not have done it? Such foolishness. They were fine friends. Vivian is kind.’
Alex shook her head. She just didn’t know.
‘That’s Dr T coming out,’ Radhika said and hurried from the room.
Only minutes passed before Tony came in and shut the door behind him.
‘You look awful,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you sleep?’
He shook his head, no.
‘Why didn’t you call me? We could have talked.’
‘I didn’t want to wake you up.’ He looked away. ‘But I wanted you with me. I should have made more of asking you to come.’
‘We were both tired,’ Alex said. She went to take his arm and get him to sit down but he pulled her against him and just stood there, holding her tight, his chin on top of her head. She kissed his neck.
‘I can’t get it out of my head, Alex. Bill Lamb said I might have saved a life if I’d stopped and I might have. I might have stopped her from going through the fear and the pain – and there was a lot of both.’
‘I know. If it was Pamela by the road, and she didn’t want to be seen because she was meeting someone …’
‘We don’t know she was on her way to meet someone.’
‘Darn it, Tony.’ She moved away from him. ‘You didn’t kill Pamela Gibbon. And if she was the one hiding in the bushes then she didn’t want to be found.’
He sat down abruptly and dropped his hands between his knees.
‘You said we could work as a team. I’ve accepted the offer so pull yourself together. Bill Lamb hates you. Don’t ask me why. He doesn’t think much of me either. So what? You and I know what happened the night we went up there and now we’re going to work on finding out who did that ghastly thing and why. The motive has to be brought out. But if you walk around looking as if you’re guilty of something, it won’t help us much, will it?’
Smacking his hands down on the arms of the chintz chair, Tony pushed to his feet. He took her by the back of the neck and kissed her – hard. ‘You’re in charge, Ms Duggins, but only until I can look at this with a clear head.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘And that’s going to happen fast. I’ve got every right to ask how many sets of my fingerprints they found. By my count it would have to show I went down and up that ladder at least twice. When … to get back the torch they now say is missing, and then when I went down while we were up there together. I only went down once. And there’s no reason why I would kill Pamela.’
‘Great. Your patients are making a racket in there.’
Tony grinned at her. ‘See you later.’ He stopped on the way to the door and turned back. ‘I forgot I had some early visitors. Harriet came over in a taxi.’
‘What’s wrong with Oliver?’
‘They came to adopt—’ he frowned and took an index card from the pocket of his white coat – ‘Maxwell Aloysius Brady. Otherwise known as the scruffy, one-eyed orange cat you helped me put back together.’
How could she object? She’d already insisted she couldn’t take another pet. Her eyes stung but she concentrated on the backs of her hands. ‘I hope Oliver isn’t too put out.’
‘We’ll see,’ Tony said, his hand on the door. ‘Any ideas on what we do next?’
‘Yes, I’ll tell you about it later. You’d better get going.’
‘You’re not planning to do something without telling me first, are you?’
‘That’s something else we should discuss later, Tony. I try not to do anything stupid, but I don’t ask permission for whatever I decide to do.’