Whatever they had shot her full of had done a good job of putting her out. A mild sedative, they’d said. He smiled. The hospital had Dr Harrison of Folly-on-Weir on file but they hadn’t checked the first name and discovered he was Tony, the DVM, not James, the MD!
Tony paced back and forth around the bed, watching Alex’s sleeping face. A two-hour snooze was long enough. It was late evening by now, but the hospital staff shouldn’t let her sleep through the night without checking on her.
He was a damned idiot not to have taken more notice of the shoulder. Bruised and swollen, big deal, that ankle might be sprained. So he’d missed the scapula fracture.
‘I’m a fool!’
‘Why?’
He stopped pacing and stared at her. She must have asked the question without opening her eyes, but her lids rose slowly as if they were being held down.
‘You’re waking up. Finally.’
‘You noticed.’
He sucked back a grin. ‘You will do just fine, my satin-tongued one. If you are concussed, which the people around here think you could be, it hasn’t dimmed your rapier wit. How do you feel?’ He sat on the bedside chair. ‘Sorry. You bring out the worst in me … and the best. You’ve got a hairline fracture on that left clavicle. I’m sorry, Alex, I was too focused on the ankle and didn’t look long enough at the shoulder. I was too tied up with my own shock and my reaction and that was unforgivable.’
‘S’not. I’d be mad at you, too.’
Could you hold someone to a comment they made while partially drugged? ‘The good news is there’s no other fracture, just a sprain.’ He’d let her find out for herself how much of a nuisance a sprain could be.
‘I want to leave. Don’t like hospitals.’ She raised her head a couple of inches to look around. ‘Yes, this is a hospital. Thought so. Get me out.’
‘I want to take you away from here, too. Someone will be round to check you soon enough. Unless they’ve come up with something else, we’ll go. I want to know something, Alex. Did Harry do anything to you … like give that shoulder a good whack?’
She blinked several times. ‘No.’
That wasn’t a ringing denial. ‘You didn’t say anything about your shoulder until I saw it was hurting.’
Her green eyes stared into his and seemed well focused now. ‘It was all pretty emotional. You were angry and you had a right to be. I should have got myself together and called as soon as I was out of that house. Then I was nervous. Just a mess, Tony. Hang in here with me. We’ve got enough trouble without making more.’
He would lay odds that she was holding something back but he couldn’t figure out why.
‘Knock knock.’ Hugh from the Black Dog poked his head into the room. He smiled at Alex. ‘You’re verra lucky. At least you aren’t in one of those damn wards, Alex. What’s going on with you?’
‘Cracked clavicle and sprained ankle,’ Tony said. The man was a bit too good looking, gave off too much male self-assurance for comfort. ‘How did you know we were here?’
And what was his story anyway. He looked like someone who already had the world at his feet and didn’t need to manage a pub in an English backwater. He looked relaxed and confident – and concerned about Alex.
‘Are you doing all right, Alex?’ Hugh asked, frowning. ‘What happened to you … ah, no, I shouldn’t press you on that, not tonight. And I better be quick before they chuck me out of here. I had to use my Scottish charm to be allowed to visit you at all.’
‘You didn’t tell Lily,’ Alex said, using her right hand to push herself up. ‘It would be better if she saw me back in Folly—’
‘No, I didn’t tell her.’ He looked around the plain room. ‘At least it’s a bit quiet in here at night, hm?’
‘Yes,’ Tony replied for Alex. ‘You didn’t say how you knew to come.’
‘A reporter told me – at the Dog.’
Tony saw Alex gape.
Hugh held up a hand. ‘I know, who would expect someone like that to know? Apparently the media have people listening in on emergency broadcasts of any kind. That’s how he knew to come to the Dog in the first place. The call about Alex came in while he was trying to be subtle but grilling me about what’s happened in Folly – to Pamela.’
‘He just came in and started asking questions?’ Alex said. ‘Did he think you’d know everything and tell him every detail for some reason?’
Tony rubbed the back of her neck. ‘It’s their job, love. They get paid for digging out stories and if they have to be obnoxious I suppose it’s part of what they’re paid for.’
The trust with which she looked at him did some interesting things to a heart he used to think was partly frozen. ‘We don’t want anymore open poking around than we can help. These people get in the way.’
A glance at Hugh showed his curiosity at Alex’s remarks.
He cleared his throat and moved to the bottom of the bed. ‘That’s why I came as soon as we had our reporter tucked up in one of the rooms at the inn. He said some things I think you’d like to know, even if only to file away.’
Their reputation as self-appointed sleuths on their winter adventures had obviously reached Hugh, which, naturally, they would.
‘Excuse me,’ Alex said. ‘I need to use the lavatory.’
‘I’ll call a nurse,’ Hugh said.
‘That’s not necessary. All I need is a hand to the door. I’ll be fine – I’ve got to be if I want to get out of here by morning.’ Carefully, she moved the sheet aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
Tony stood behind her and firmly tied her gown shut. He got her safely to her destination and she gave him a bright smile – with raised eyebrows – as she shut the door.
‘You two are pretty close,’ Hugh said, amusement in his eyes and a quirky smile in place.
‘Is there anything you’d like to say that might upset her?’ Tony said, ignoring the personal remark.
‘I don’t think so. It’s all about Pamela and what could be a heap of scuttlebutt – I don’t know what to think.’
The toilet flushed and water ran in a sink as Alex must be doing her best to wash her hands. She opened the door, hopping, and grasped Tony’s arm. ‘I could go home. Really, I feel great. Sore in places but OK. Can I get out now, do you think?’ She looked as if she expected him to spirit her away. ‘You know the longer you’re in a hospital the more likely you are to get some deadly bug.’
He laughed. With an arm under her elbow, supporting her by the wrist, he guided her back to the bed, pulled up the pillows and made her lean against them while he replaced the sheet. ‘I promise we’ll probably be away from here just as soon as someone with the right papers and a pen comes to kick you out.’
The corners of her mouth turned down. ‘What do you know, Hugh?’
‘This is weird,’ he said and walked to the window to look out at a night sky. ‘The reporter – his name is Patrick Guest from a Gloucester paper – waited for the bar to empty out. The major and Leonard Derwinter were tucked on a window seat with their heads together, but that was all.’
‘Not Heather Derwinter, though?’ Alex said. ‘She doesn’t have enough to do. It makes her nosy.’
‘Not Heather,’ Hugh said. ‘And they couldn’t hear what we were saying. Guest was all sweetness and light, but he was trying to ask questions without giving anything away. I don’t think he’s too good at assessing others. I was the barman and probably a bit thick. He wanted to know if Pamela had boyfriends.’
‘Where would that come from?’ Tony said. ‘She’s … she was a widow and I don’t see how he’d pick up anything from emergency radios that would lead him in that direction.’
‘I said I didn’t know.’
‘Good for you,’ Alex said approvingly. ‘Nosy parker. He’s adding two and two—’
‘And coming up with four,’ Tony said. ‘But she wasn’t running around with lots of people. Not as far as I know.’
Alex’s secret smile made him bring his face level with hers. ‘What’s that for?’
A shrug didn’t feel so good and she sucked in a breath before telling him, ‘You’re not the man people go to with so-called Folly facts, or dreamed up rubbish, Tony. I don’t think Pamela had lots of men in her life, but she liked their company and she was very … feminine. But what business is that of anyone else?’
‘If someone she was seeing killed her, it’s the business of quite a few,’ Hugh said. ‘This Guest chappie never took his eyes off my face when he said he’d a tip that Pamela Gibbon could have been pregnant when she died.’