“You’ll have more money coming in soon, I hear.”
Pippa cocked her head to one side. “Oh? Why is that?”
“I hear Mrs. Saville left a sizeable amount to the Playhouse in her will.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I think I heard something about that.”
Fay smiled. “If it were me, it would stick in my memory. That’s a huge amount of money for an amateur dramatic society. Almost a life-changing amount.”
“I suppose so. We had no idea that Mrs. Saville was planning to leave us anything like that. We all thought she was living on a fixed income. We were amazed when we heard.”
“The money will be administered by you and Raymond, I suppose?”
“That’s how it has always worked in the past, yes. I’m the treasurer, but as the theatrical director, Raymond has final oversight on all spending.”
“What do you think you will spend the money on? You must have a wish list.”
Pippa’s eyes drifted upwards in thought. “I think it’s time we started implementing official salaries for some of the people who give up hours of their time to work here at the Playhouse. For some of us, it has become a full-time job.”
“Like you and Raymond, for instance?”
“Well, yes. I suppose so. It’s only fair that we should be compensated for our work. Especially Ray – he has practically given up his life to this place.”
“I thought there was bad blood between the two of you after what happened in the past.”
“A few years ago, I would have agreed with you. But lately I’ve been thinking that I didn’t treat him well back then when the whole scandal hit. I don’t blame him for being mad at me. I would have been mad at me too.” Her voice ended on a laugh. “Can I get you a coffee while you’re busy in here?”
“I just had a cup,” said Fay. “But thanks for the offer.”
“I’ll see if Ray wants one then.”
Pippa withdrew her head. A moment later, Fay could hear her going down the stairs and out the door that led away from the backstage area.
Fay gave her about a minute’s start before standing up and following quietly behind her.
Chapter 20
Fay’s shoes made no sound as she followed Pippa along the length of the theater towards the front of house area.
She stayed out of sight as Pippa turned into the front office where Raymond was working. There was no way she could get any closer without being seen.
“She knows about the money.”
Fay jumped. Pippa’s voice was so loud it sounded as though it were coming from right next to her.
“What? How can she possibly have heard?”
Ray sounded equally loud. Fay remembered that they were theater actors, trained to project their voices. Apparently, they had forgotten how to conduct a private conversation without sharing it with everyone within a hundred-foot radius.
“You know what this island is like. Nothing stays quiet for long. Besides, the daughter is staying at that B&B of hers. She probably told her.”
There was a pause while Raymond seemed to be thinking.
“It’s not ideal, but I don’t see that it really matters.”
“She asked me what we plan to do with the money.”
“Nosy, isn’t she? What did you say?”
“I told her about our plan to pay ourselves salaries.”
“Why would you do that? No one was supposed to know about that.”
“I don’t know what it is about her. When she starts asking questions, I feel an urge to spill the beans. But it’s not a bad thing. It’s probably better if we’re open about how we’re spending the money.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you’re as committed to this as I am.” Raymond’s voice was despondent.
Pippa’s voice dropped to a low and intimate purr. Fay had to strain to catch what she was saying.
“You’re not still thinking that I was planning to shoot you on stage, are you?”
“No…” His voice was uncertain. “No, of course not. It’s just that I still have trust issues. I think that’s quite normal after what happened all those years ago.”
“I thought we were over that. I thought you’d moved past what happened back then. I don’t see how this is going to work if there’s no trust between us.” Her voice had turned cold. She was withdrawing from him.
“Don’t be like that, Pips. Of course, I trust you. But it’s a process. It will take a while for us to build up to where we were ten years ago. I’m not the bad guy just because I’m struggling here.”
Pippa laughed. “Let’s face it, we’re both the bad guys here. Don’t forget what we did.”
“I’ll never forget that. I’ll be seeing her face in my dreams for the rest of my life.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. It’s all worth it if it means we can be together, right?”
“Of course.”
There was silence. Fay thought he might have kissed her.
“So, what now?” Pippa asked.
“You’d better not leave her alone for too long. And if she asks any more questions, just send her my way. I don’t feel compelled to spill my guts just because she wants me to.”
Fay turned on her heel and speed-walked back along the passage that led to the backstage area. She could hear Pippa’s footsteps closing in on her. She zipped through the backstage door and scuttled into the costume room. She pulled men’s costumes off their hangers more or less at random. Then she slowed down and looked at them properly. She threw the ones that were most in need of cleaning onto her pile and hung the rest back up.
She was just slipping a coat hanger into a Robin Hood costume when Pippa put her head around the door again. “All okay in here?”
“Fine, thanks. I’m nearly finished. I’ll be able to take this bundle back with me soon.”
“I’ll wrap it in plastic for you. Do you have a car here?”
“No, it’s in for a service. I’ll call Bert at the Bluebell Shuttle to give me a ride home.”
Fay’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out and glanced at the message.
“Turns out my car is ready. Mike and Andy say I can pick it up any time. When I’m done here, I’ll fetch the car and then swing past the theater to pick up my bundle.”
Which she would then drop off at the dry cleaners. But she had no intention of telling Pippa that.
“Brilliant. This is so kind of you, Fay. We really appreciate it.”
Pippa’s face glowed with openness and honesty. It was hard to believe she had just been having a conversation with Raymond about the ‘bad things’ they had done and how much they distrusted Fay.
It reinforced something Fay had learned during her law enforcement career. There was no such thing as an ‘honest face’. People lied and deceived and committed horrible acts and then looked you straight in the eye and swore that it wasn’t them.
After dropping the costumes at the dry cleaners, Fay drove down to the docks. Her car had stopped backfiring and cutting out whenever it came to a stop, but it still lost power going up hills and had now acquired an ominous rattle under the hood. She slowed down as she looked for the bait shop, and then for the holistic therapy center next to it.
Gary Malkin’s homeopathic concoctions had come back with a clean bill of health, but Fay thought he might still know something valuable about Mrs. Saville, even if he didn’t know that he knew it. He was the nearest thing she’d had to a doctor on the island. People trusted their doctors. They told them things they wouldn’t tell anyone else.
If he was still worried about confidentiality, she would have to persuade him that he was doing his late client more harm than good by withholding her secrets.
As Fay circled, looking for a space to park, the noon ferry docked, and a handful of passengers disembarked. Some were islanders back from a morning of shopping on the mainland, while others were clearly tourists. The islanders didn’t linger. They left the docks with purpose, either on foot or in cars they had park
ed at the ferry parking.
The tourists looked around and pointed and exclaimed at everything they saw. They were in no hurry to get up to the village, but lingered on the docks, popping in and out of the various quaint shops that lined the road. The holistic therapy center was one of these. For the first time, Fay could see that Gary’s business was rather well placed. As she watched, several tourists wandered out of the fishing supplies shop and into the therapy center.
Fay got out of the Volvo, slamming the door with a creaky thud. Then she followed the tourists in. Gary was not delighted to see her.
“You again.”
“Don’t sound so thrilled.”
“Are you here to take away something else to have it tested? I can’t afford this.”
“I paid full price for what I took away last time, which amounted to a small fortune. Especially when you consider that I was paying all that money for distilled water and sugar pills.”
“I explained about that. The more diluted it is, the stronger it becomes. The water holds the memory of the substance that was there. That’s what stimulates the immune system and gives us the incredible results we see with homeopathy.”
“Actually, the more diluted a solution is, the weaker it becomes. That’s science. And any great results you might have seen are purely anecdotal and caused by the placebo effect.”
Gary’s chest swelled with indignation. He opened his mouth to scold Fay.
“Excuse me…”
He made himself smile as he turned to help a customer. “Yes, how can I be of service?”
“Do you have these dreamcatchers in a bigger size?”
“Yes, I think I have some in the back. Give me one minute to find them.”
He disappeared into the storeroom, leaving Fay to reconsider the wisdom of her approach. When you wanted someone to co-operate with you, it wasn’t a good idea to start insulting their profession. To make amends, she picked up a stick with colorful feathers on the end of it. It was marketed as a kind of spiritual broom. You were supposed to use it to sweep bad energies out of your home. Fay would give it to the kittens to play with. The cats would get hours of entertainment out of it before it was inevitably murdered by the older, stronger ones.
“I’m sorry,” she said when he had finished selling the dreamcatcher. “I was rude. Look, I’d like to buy this bad energy sweeper thing. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“What are you doing here anyway? I heard that my remedies passed all the tests. Mrs. Saville didn’t get her arsenic from me.”
“That’s true. I was just wondering if she spoke to you about any personal matters that might indicate who had wanted to kill her. It was obviously someone who knew her and knew the village. She must have chatted to you when she came in here to buy her remedies.”
“Anything she might have said to me was said in the belief that I would keep it confidential.”
Fay gritted her teeth. “I know that, and I respect it. But even doctors and lawyers don’t keep confidentiality after death. I’m sure you’d like to see justice done for Mrs. Saville. You can help with that by telling us who she was close to and who she might have been afraid of before her death.”
“I’m sure you figured out from our last conversation that she had started seeing someone – a man. It would have been obvious even if she hadn’t bought those particular remedies. She was like a girl in love – all giggly and blushing. Whoever he was, she was clearly smitten with him.”
“Yes, that has since been confirmed. But is there any indication that she was frightened of him or intimidated by him in any way?”
“Not at all. Think of a teenager in the throes of first love and you’ll have a good idea of what Mrs. Saville was like when she came in here a few weeks ago.”
“What about his influence over her? Was there any suggestion that he was changing the way she thought about things or influencing her in a particular direction?”
Gary shrugged. “I’m not sure what you mean exactly, but I’d have to say no. She seemed the same as ever – just in love.”
Fay felt as though she had reached a dead end. “And there was nothing that was making her nervous or unsettling her? No one she was afraid of?”
“You can keep asking the question in different ways, but the answer is still going to be no. There was nothing like that.”
Fay turned away in disappointment.
“Although, wait a minute.”
“What is it?”
“There was something she was annoyed about a few weeks ago. I don’t know if you’re interested in that?”
“Definitely.”
“Her daughter was in town, which seemed to irritate her. She said something about how her daughter only showed her face here when she wanted to borrow money.”
“Are you sure about that? Her daughter was here in Bluebell Village?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. Her daughter had come to visit. You’d think most widowed ladies would be happy about that, but no. It was the one fly in her loved-up ointment. And she definitely said that thing about borrowing money. I wondered at the time if the new boyfriend was someone unsuitable that she didn’t want her daughter to know about.”
“Can you pinpoint exactly when this was?”
“It must be two or three weeks ago now. Closer to three weeks, I’d say, because she wanted a new supply of Nux Vomica and I had to order it specially for her. I delivered it to her house when it came in.”
There was no law against an adult daughter visiting her widowed mother, of course. But Fay couldn’t help remembering that Candice had sworn she hadn’t been on the island for months before her mother was killed.
Chapter 21
As Fay watched, Gary’s gaze drifted away from hers. He had caught sight of something over her right shoulder. He flinched, rather like a rabbit that was about to flee.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I need to have a word with you.”
Fay turned. It was David. He was standing directly behind her, but his eyes were on Gary.
“Dr. Dyer.” Gary’s voice came out rather high.
“Mr. Malkin. The last time I was here I asked you not to encourage my seriously ill patients to believe that they can give up their prescription medication and take your snake oil instead. You promised me faithfully that you would stop doing that.”
“And I did. I did exactly what you said. I told Mrs. Featherstone to go back on her statins and to take your advice about making diet and lifestyle changes. It’s not my fault if she didn’t listen.”
“I’m happy to say that Mrs. Featherstone did listen – to me, that is – when I explained to her what would happen to her arteries if she stopped taking her statins. It’s Mr. Kirk I’m worried about. Are you aware that he had a stroke two months ago?”
“Of course. That’s why I gave him Arnica pills for angina and Baryta Carbonica to improve his mental acuity.”
“There’s nothing wrong with his mental acuity, except for the fact that he has been listening to you. That man is supposed to be on warfarin to prevent blood clots.”
“I never told him to stop taking his prescription medication. I specifically told him that he should take his homeopathic remedies in conjunction with the medication you had given him.”
Fay thought that David was at risk of having a stroke himself, he looked so angry. “Arnica and warfarin should never be taken together. How can you not know that! Unlike your other remedies, arnica actually has an active ingredient. It thins the blood. Warfarin is already a powerful blood thinner and has to be administered with great care and constant monitoring. You don’t go and throw arnica into the mix too. This man is at risk of having another stroke – a different one this time. Instead of being caused by a blood clot, it would be caused by a hemorrhagic bleed in the brain.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“I think a court of law would disagree with that. If you don’t stop trying to treat my seriously ill patients, I swear
I will sue you for every penny you have. You would have to close this place down and move back to the mainland. In fact, maybe I should do it anyway, just to get you off the island.”
“Look, there is no need to be hasty. I promise I will send your patients packing – the ones that have life-threatening illnesses, that is.”
“And you’ll advise everyone that their first line of treatment should always be to consult a medical doctor. It doesn’t have to be me or my father. It can be anyone. Anyone with a medical degree, that is.”
“I…”
“And you’ll advise them to clear all remedies with me before starting them.”
Gary sighed. “Okay. Fine.”
“Thank you.” He turned to go. Then he looked back at Fay. “Coming?”
“Um… sure. I’m done here, I guess.”
She left the shop as he stood back to let her through the doorway.
“Are you familiar with the saying that you catch more bees with honey than with vinegar?” she asked.
David grunted. “I’ve tried the honey approach. Now it’s vinegar all the way, as he will very soon discover if he puts any more of my patient’s lives at risk.”
“I suppose that’s fair enough. Did you walk here? I can give you a lift back to the surgery if you like.”
He spotted the Volvo and recoiled. “In that? No, thanks. I’d be safer on a three-wheeled skateboard.”
“And to think I just had my car serviced, as you advised. I think you should put your money where your mouth is and let me drive you back.”
David swallowed. “If you insist. How are you getting on with mastering the stick-shift?”
“Just fine, thanks. I don’t stall any more times than is absolutely necessary.”
She strode ahead to the car.
“You know that it’s not necessary to stall at all, right?” He climbed into the passenger seat. “The appropriate number of times to stall is actually zero. You do know that?”
Fay laughed and started the car.
“It still sounds like a pig screaming.”
The Cat's Paw Cozy Mysteries Page 44