Tony placed another call and his dad answered with the sound of his powerful car engine in the background. With one hand, he continued moving hair away from the woman’s face. ‘It’s at Radhika’s place, Dad. Call for an ambulance but you’ll be here quicker.’ He shoved the mobile away.
‘Where do you hurt?’ Tony whispered close to her ear but she only mumbled.
‘Help me, Ivor. I’m going to try to hear anything she’ll say.’ Head to head, they bowed over her and Tony said, ‘Any pain or numbness, Radhika?’
He pulled the hair completely away from her face and she shook her head, no.
‘Want to die,’ she said very softly. ‘Better.’
The two men exchanged glances.
‘I’m going to try to get a better look,’ Tony said. The blood on her face had dried, both of her eyes were swollen almost shut. The bottom lip had a deep cut and blood from her nose had streamed over her lower face. She said nothing more and kept her eyes shut all the way.
‘Dad’s got the ambulance coming, but we’d better call the police.’
‘No! I cannot. I must not. Please, no police. Leave me here.’ Radhika forced out the words as if summoning up her last reserves of energy.
Leave her there to die?
She had feeling in all of her extremities, but that was about the best that could be said for her condition. Giving her shoulder the slightest lift, Tony waited, and when she didn’t make a sound, moved her another inch or so. Gradually, with Ivor bearing a lot of the slight weight, he turned her over and settled her down again.
‘We need a board,’ Tony said, and looked up at the sound of an engine prowling in from the main entrance to the little clearing. He stood and ran to flag his father down.
The older man shot out of the car, Hugh did the same from the back seat and Alex swung her legs from the front passenger seat and struggled upright.
‘Radhika’s been beaten,’ Tony said. ‘She’s … well, there’s blood and bruising and she doesn’t want to talk. I think we’d better try to keep her away from anyone else for a little while – unless she really needs the hospital. I think it might be a fight to get her there. She said she can’t see the police. I’m going to the cottage to see if there’s something we could improvise to carry her.’
‘Boot of my car,’ his dad said, tossing the keys. ‘Folding stretcher and my bag.’ He made amazingly rapid progress in the direction Tony had come from.
‘Please sit down, Alex,’ Tony said, and to Hugh, ‘Let’s get the stuff from the boot. We should warm her up. I don’t know how long she’s been out here. Reverend Davis found her when he was walking Fred.’
When they had the stretcher and Doc Harrison’s bag, they came back past Alex who still stood in the same place. ‘I want to help.’
Tony kissed her cheek quickly. ‘She’s going to need a lot of help, perhaps for more than a day or two, I think. But for now we need to get her into the cottage. She’s talking about wanting to die.’
TWENTY-THREE
‘Shit,’ Hugh said with feeling. ‘What are those two doing here?’
Frowning and walking with a lot of purpose, Harry Stroud and Vivian Seabrook walked toward the cottage from the same direction Tony and Reverend Davis had come earlier.
Tony shaded his eyes from early rays of sun and levered himself up from an age-worn wooden bench. His dad and Alex were in the cottage with Radhika and Ivor Davis had returned to St Aldwyn’s for a service.
‘I asked O’Reilly and Lamb to hold off. There won’t be much they can do anyway if Radhika continues to say she doesn’t know who did it and isn’t filing a complaint.’ Tony braced his feet apart and waited for the company to arrive. ‘They didn’t like it but they’re biding their time. How the devil did Harry and Vivian get wind of this?’
‘Let’s see what they say,’ Hugh said quietly.
When they were close, Vivian speeded ahead of Harry. Her hands were rolled into fists at her sides and there was no missing the shock on her face. ‘I want to see Radhika,’ she said. ‘Is she still in there?’
‘Yes,’ Tony told her. ‘But no visitors yet. Doc James is with her. Alex is in there to help if she can.’
Vivian made to push past but it was Harry who relieved Tony by holding the woman back. With difficulty, he turned her around and held her close. ‘Best wait, old thing,’ he said.
‘She’s a good friend.’ Vivian’s sniffling wasn’t a comforting sound. ‘She came here because of Pamela. Now look what’s happened. Both of them attacked. How could anyone hurt a gentle soul like Radhika? What’s happening in Folly? It’s terrifying.’
Harry rubbed her back awkwardly and Vivian shrugged away. ‘Alex shouldn’t be there – I should. If Alex has her way, the next thing I’ll hear is that I could be guilty of something to do with this.’
‘Bollocks,’ Hugh said. ‘They’ve already said it wasn’t Alex who called in that tip about you. Anyway, that’s history, lass. Sit on the bench and rest yourself. It’s a shocking thing. Meaningless. But the doctor’s already said she can be cared for here, although she’ll need a wee trip to the hospital for X-rays in case anything’s broken.’
‘It’s true then,’ Harry said. ‘Someone … this is awful … someone did attack her?’
‘They did,’ Hugh agreed. ‘She’s so small she would have been easily knocked down and beaten.’
‘Don’t!’ Vivian said. She sat on the bench and covered her face.
Hugh crossed his arms and asked of Harry, ‘How did you hear about this?’
‘We were walking. The delivery driver from George’s Bakery stopped and told us,’ Harry said.
Hugh and Tony both shook their heads from side to side.
The front door to the cottage opened and Tony’s father came out. He shut the door behind him. ‘Where’s the bloody ambulance?’ he said. ‘Radhika’s unlikely to say much but we had to let the police know what’s going on; more or less. I didn’t give much detail, though. That Dan O’Reilly’s a sensible chap. He’ll tread lightly, and he’s agreed to hold off trying to question her for a bit. He told me they were off to the parish hall where his team is. Radhika can’t be subjected to anymore pressure at all yet.’
Tony raised his brows in question.
Doc Harrison pulled him aside and murmured, ‘Her fingers were deliberately broken. Some of the ends are crushed.’
TWENTY-FOUR
The sound of the brass knocker reverberated, but the door scraped open over a worn stone step before anyone could react. Bill Lamb looked over his shoulder at the entrance to the parish hall. ‘Well, well, boss, look what the wind blew in.’
‘Remember what we talked about earlier,’ Dan said. ‘We need co-operation in a community like this. Antagonizing people won’t get us anywhere.’
He half-rose from his seat and waved Tony and Alex over. They looked bedraggled and exhausted.
Tony helped Alex with her hop-and-swing gait, but gave O’Reilly and Lamb a wave. ‘At least it’s not raining,’ he said, nodding at the team members they passed. ‘That’s sun coming through those dusty windows. Busy bees in here.’
O’Reilly wanted to see a whole lot more activity in the hall. They had a ton of incidents but the leads were thin.
The windows were high in the walls. Green, yellow and red patchworks of leaded glass festooned with cobwebs. ‘Come and have a seat,’ Dan said, getting two more folding chairs to pull up to the desk.
‘Coffee?’ Bill asked, and Dan came close to guffawing. His sergeant was already on his feet and heading for the coffee maker Hugh Rhys had brought over from the Black Dog only half an hour earlier.
‘Thanks, Bill,’ Alex said as she dropped into a chair and leaned her single crutch against his desk. ‘We came because we think we have to, even though no one’s making a complaint. Doc James dropped us off. He’d like to talk to you a bit later.’
Bill arrived back with the coffee on a tray with a jug of milk and a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits. ‘Who sh
ould be making a complaint? Doc James said we’d get a full explanation … or is this something different?’
That didn’t get a reply.
‘What’s gone on at that cottage?’ Dan asked. ‘What’s the woman’s name there?’ He started leafing through his notebook.
‘Radhika Malek,’ Alex said promptly. ‘She’s Tony’s assistant at the small animal clinic here in Folly.’ She narrowed her eyes to get a better look at the whiteboards the team had installed.
Case notes, photographs, comments, spiders’ webs of lines joining leads and subjects of interest, but unfortunately all fairly tentative still. Alex was obviously too far away to make out anything she might not already know.
‘She’s been taken into a hospital for X-rays,’ Tony added. ‘She insists she’s coming back home as soon as they’re done with her but I don’t think she should be in that place alone. She needs someone to care for her and … she’s too vulnerable there.’
‘You haven’t said what happened,’ Bill put in.
‘Just what my father must have told you. She was beaten up – badly. I think she’d been lying on the ground a long time when Reverend Davis found her.’ Tony looked sideways at Alex and cleared his throat. ‘Fingers deliberately broken. Ends of some were crushed – the nails. You’ll be the people to take some guesses at what he used to do it. I didn’t see any metal gratings lying around.’
‘Which hospital?’ Dan said without commenting on Tony’s reference to Pamela Gibbon’s murder and the obvious similarity between some of their injuries. He wouldn’t be tolerating further attempts at secrecy. ‘We need someone there with her now.’
‘I’m not sure where they took her,’ Tony said. ‘There was so much confusion.’
Dan was inclined to believe him. ‘Williams,’ he called to a woman DC, ‘find out which hospital a Radhika Malek has been taken to from Folly-on-Weir.’
‘On it,’ the officer replied. ‘Probably Cheltenham or Gloucester unless it’s something really minor.’
‘I can call my dad,’ Tony said, punching at his mobile. ‘He’ll know.’
Watching the man’s easy rapport with his father caused Dan a twinge of envy.
‘Cheltenham,’ Tony said.
‘Cheltenham.’ DC Williams said from her desk. ‘Primary Care Center.’
‘You people are quick but you won’t make her say anything she doesn’t want to say. She’s terrified of something and she obviously has good reasons.’
Only a fool would refuse opinions from someone who might be useful. Dan rubbed the side of his nose. ‘Any ideas about those?’
‘I think she’s hiding something because she can’t afford not to,’ Alex said. Her expressive eyes held the shadows of her lashes and deep anxiety. ‘She thinks if she died it would be a good thing. She said so. I don’t think that means she wants to die … I don’t really have any idea what she means.’
‘Tony,’ Dan said, ‘do you have employment records for Radhika? You must.’
‘Yes, of course. I can’t recite them but there was nothing that stood out negatively. She came from another veterinary clinic with good references. She’s a fine employee.’
‘We’ll want to take a look at those records,’ Bill said. ‘I’ll see to putting a guard on her right now.’ He went to his own desk and got on the phone.
There was something he was missing. Dan splayed his fingertips on his forehead.
‘When she first came here, Radhika stayed with Pamela.’ Alex sounded faraway, as if she were thinking aloud.
Tony murmured, ‘Didn’t everyone know that?’
Dan dropped his hands to answer Tony. ‘I didn’t. Williams! Find out who interviewed Radhika Malek about Pamela Gibbon – after the victim died. Je-sus, not one word have I seen about anything like that.’
‘Pamela recommended her to me,’ Tony said. ‘She spoke to me up at the Derwinter stables first. She told me her friend was staying with her and wanted to move to Folly. Radhika had done some veterinary work at a clinic in Cornwall … St Kew, I think that’s where Pamela and her husband lived before they came here.’
Alex braced her supported elbow on the desk and frowned unseeingly at Dan. ‘It doesn’t take a great brain to work out there are connections and similarities here. How are you doing with the things that were left in the tower at Ebring Manor? Have you traced any of them?’
Bill cleared his throat. ‘We can’t discuss those details.’
Tony shot out his feet and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. His smile set O’Reilly’s teeth on edge. ‘Okey dokey. Alex and I were really taken with the binoculars. Expensive and left behind in an old bag like that?’ He tutted. ‘They must have had other fingerprints on them, in addition to Alex’s and mine.’
O’Reilly looked at Bill who gazed blankly back.
This was touchy. ‘Binoculars?’ he said.
‘Zeiss. Fancy – very expensive.’ Tony was giving him a puzzled look. ‘In a green canvas bag.’
Alex shifted irritably, or more likely she was uncomfortable. ‘In the bag in the tower, with some glacé chestnuts or something. There was a box of those.’
‘Shit,’ Bill said, ‘We didn’t find a bag, or any binoculars.’
TWENTY-FIVE
What looked like a large white napkin, sunshine turning it luminous, fluttered from an upstairs window at Leaves of Comfort. Walking along Pond Street, past the tea rooms, was the shortest route from the parish hall to the Black Dog.
‘Are they surrendering?’ Tony said when they had a better angle on the building and could see Harriet clearly.
‘You were a facetious teenager,’ Alex said, trying not to show how fatigued she was. ‘Forever young, that’s you, Harrison. I can’t hear what Harriet’s saying.’
Tony waved. ‘We don’t need to hear. We’re being summoned. Should have called someone to pick us up from the parish hall.’
‘It isn’t far to the Dog.’ She was glad of his arm around her, his hand firmly gripping her waist. ‘I might even go for a shot of very good brandy.’
‘Me, too. But let’s see what the ladies want. Then I’ll have someone drive my vehicle over for me and take you home for the brandy. You don’t need to be at the Dog today, do you?’
‘Tony! Alex!’ Harriet had pushed the window wide open.
‘Coming,’ Tony called, then under his breath said, ‘you never know, they could have heard something useful, not that I’m sure I should be allowing you to keep poking your nose into all this.’
‘Me?’ Her voice broke off in a squeak.
He grinned down at her. ‘Does the name Gidley-Rains mean anything to you? Looked like it said Bourton underneath. Bourton-on-the-Water, I assume.’
They turned in at the Burke sisters’ gate. Encouraged by the sunshine, a profusion of yellow and purple pansies was starting to open along the pathway. ‘I don’t know,’ Alex responded. ‘I’ll have to think about it … but what did you say about me poking my nose into things? Didn’t you take a sneaky read of the whiteboards at the parish hall? Isn’t that how you found Gidley-Rains’ name?’
‘Hurry, you two. Come right on in. The coffee’s getting cool. And we’ve got a houseful waiting for you.’
‘What’s she talking about?’ Tony muttered. ‘They didn’t know they’d see us.’
He opened the blue door, pushed it wide, and got Alex inside. Seconds later Harriet appeared in the doorway at the top of the stairs to their flat and Katie tore past her. Tongue lolling, whining with ecstasy, she barreled into Tony. Bogie appeared from behind Harriet, his entire body wiggling.
‘Hello, my friend,’ Tony said, rubbing Katie down. ‘What are you doing … here?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘I left her with Radhika, of course I did.’
‘Lily brought them,’ Harriet said. ‘Would you get that girl up the stairs, Tony Harrison? And I don’t mean your dog.’
‘Yes, madam,’ Tony said, and enjoyed lifting and carrying a scowling Alex despite her rigid body
.
‘Lily had to go over to the Slaughters for some local art sale.’ Harriet scratched Bogie’s head and pushed both Oliver, and new boy Maxwell Brady back into the flat. He wore a black eye patch and seemed comfortable with it.
‘What did Mum say about having Katie?’
‘She turned up at the Dog, trailing her leash, around midnight,’ Mary called from the ladies’ sitting room. ‘We think Radhika must have lost hold of her when she was attacked.’
Tony leaned against a wall and returned Alex’s puzzled look. They both shook their heads. ‘Let me get you settled,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll start the inquisition. We’re ready for a warm, fresh roll or two – with or without anything on them.’
‘I’ll heat something up for you,’ Harriet said. ‘Put Alex on the couch.’
The sagging, faded pink velvet couch wasn’t the most comfortable but Alex settled gratefully. The sisters’ sitting room folded any visitor into its pink warmness. Faded, fringed puce velvet drapes framed thick-paned windows and pink and green carpets, worn to silky shine, covered much of the dark oak floors.
Swathed in a green shawl and rocking gently in her favorite spindled chair, Mary Burke faced the window over St Aldwyn’s churchyard. She pointed a thin and elegant finger at Tony and Alex. ‘I’m disappointed in you two.’
Alex raised her brows. ‘Really?’
‘So much going on. So much you obviously don’t yet know. But you didn’t come to see if we might know something useful. You came quickly enough when you needed us for … when you needed us the last time.’
‘I want it all to go away,’ Alex said. ‘It’s unbelievable that we’ve had another murder in Folly – or near Folly. And it’s been a whirlwind, Mary. You know we always want your opinions.’
Settling in front of the small fireplace with her nose on her paws, Katie watched the cats warily while Oliver and Maxwell eyed her from either side of the hearth. Bogie leaned against the couch where Alex lay and cast baleful looks at her.
Out Comes the Evil Page 14