56 LOUISE

Irina (Hamish’s Mum)

Don’t ask me how I know, or what it means – I don’t know – but Phil had a trank in his system. Diazepam.

Common enough sedative, isn’t it?

Yeah. For humans as well as dogs (the vet gave Hamish a prescription for it last year for the fireworks).

Maybe his GP put him on it for stress?

Not at those levels, I don’t think. Looks like he had enough to take down an elephant.

So… You think it was an overdose? Why’d he have a drink at the Bells then go to the park to OD? And then hide his own phone in the bushes in the dog park?

I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t an OD. I mean, if it was, I think Andy’d have closed the case already.

The Bells doesn’t strike me as the sort of place where someone would get roofied with diazepam. And besides, why would someone drug Phil?

It might be something, it might be nothing. I dropped a text to Grace, asking if she knew whether Phil had a prescription for diazepam, then walked the boys back through the beer garden to the canal path.

‘Hey.’

I looked up from my phone and blinked at the young woman from the pub. She was still fidgeting with the strap of her top. ‘Gonna walk home. Can’t stop you from walkin’ wi’ me, if you’re headin’ in the same direction.’

I hadn’t asked to walk with her, but understood that she probably needed to cover her back in case someone was watching. The boys and I followed her onto the canal path, heading north again. I glanced at the dogs. Luther was still recovering from being poisoned; Klaus had short legs. Both had walked a lot today; I hoped they’d be okay to walk a little more.

‘Information ain’t cheap,’ the woman pointed out as soon as we were out of sight of the pub.

I had no cash on me, other than the £20 note that I kept in the zipped compartment of my dog-walking bag. For emergencies, or if we stopped by the market on the way home. Those stalls were the last place that still hailed cash as king.

‘Information might not be free, but it has to be worth the cost.’ And that cost had to be less than twenty quid.

The woman seemed to consider it. In the harsh light of day, she had an unhealthy pallor. Red veins on her nose and cheeks defied her heavy foundation, and that vest that she kept fiddling with looked to be on its last legs.

It began to feel like she might be wasting my time. ‘Look, tell me what you know. Then we can decide what it’s worth.’

‘Not gonna happen.’ She shook her head, her lank hair barely moving. ‘It don’t work like that.’

Bartering would have been easier if I had two tens instead of a twenty. That said, one of the first rules of negotiation was to be okay with walking away from the table.

I stopped and swivelled so that my back was to the sun.

‘Wot’s yer problem?’ she demanded, shielding her eyes from the light.

‘I don’t like being played.’ I took the twenty out of my bag and tucked it into Luther’s collar. ‘If your information is good, that’s yours. If it isn’t, well, it’ll go towards treats for the dogs. Your call.’

She squinted at me and then at the twenty, considering her options. She jerked her head, a silent assent. ‘You know what’s across the street from the Bells?’

‘A Tesco Express. Lighting shop. Dry-cleaner’s. The vet’s.’

‘Yeah. So sometimes people take their pets to the vet. Then instead o’goin’ home, they wait at the pub, wi’ a pint.’

‘So, my friend was waiting at the Bells last Saturday night? While, say, his dog was at the vet’s?’

‘Yeah, maybe. I dunno.’

‘There’s a lot you don’t know. The dogs will be grateful for that sack full of treats.’

‘He were there,’ she said. ‘That man you was showing on your phone. The one in the news. Was waiting there with a pint. Came in looking rough.’

‘Rough?’

‘Rough.’ She nodded her head. ‘But not like he’d been roughed up. Not bruised. Not pissed. Jus’… I dunno. Rough.’

Her vocabulary was only slightly better than Klaus’s.

‘How was he dressed?’

‘Jeans. Blue-an’-white checked shirt. Like you said in there. Nice shoes. Too posh for the Bells on a Saturday night.’

‘Did he meet anyone?’

‘For a while, he sat by the window. Looked across the street. Waitin’. As I said, like the others.’

‘The others? Pet owners?’

‘Yeah. Kept checkin’ his watch. The vet’s, it closes at six on Saturdays. He didn’t get no call from them. Was after six when he left.’

‘How long after six?’

‘I dunno. Maybe half an hour. An hour?’

She was right that Village Vets closed at six on a Saturday. Which meant that assuming the vets had a bit of paperwork to finish off at the end of the day – though from what I could see, they did most of that between appointments – they were probably gone by six thirty or maybe seven.

‘Was he drinking with someone else? Another person waiting for their pet?’ If it was someone from the Pack… oh God. What if someone from the Pack had done this to Phil? And because of the Pack chat, they’d know exactly what was going on!

The girl took on a coy look. ‘Wasn’t drinking wi’ them, no.’

‘Them? So, someone was there with him, but they weren’t drinking?’

‘Didn’t say that.’

‘He sat with someone who wasn’t drinking?’ I repeated, trying to get my head around it. Why go to a pub, even to wait, and not order a drink? Even if it was a coffee or soft drink?

‘Didn’t say that either.’

I was fast losing patience. ‘Then what are you saying?’

‘Someone came in to see him. Bought a couple o’ pints. Took ’em over to him an’ sat down.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I dunno.’

‘But not one of the regulars? Someone dressed like Phil? Like me?’ I pulled the twenty from Luther’s collar. ‘Tell me about him.’

She seemed to consider the question. ‘I told you. Your friend took a couple o’ sips o’ that beer. Kept lookin’ out the window. When he left, it were sharpish, and he didn’t look back.’

I tried not to sigh aloud. ‘And what about the guy that bought him that beer?’

‘Oh. That weren’t no bloke. That were a woman.’