‘It’s helping me,’ Pat assured him. ‘I can walk better. I know I don’t have the shakes like you think of with Parkinson’s yet, but I was having trouble getting started when I stood up. And I can write better as well. It was hard to get my fingers working before.’
Maybe it was the mention of fingers, but as she spoke, David noticed the little movement of her fingers across her thumb, the pin-rolling movement typical of Parkinson’s.
‘There are exercises you can do, simple things to help slow the rate at which the disease progresses,’ he told her, when they’d discussed the pros and cons of further testing and he’d accepted that she didn’t want to go to the mainland.
‘These are for the face muscles to keep them toned.’ He demonstrated the eyebrow-raising and wrinkling of the forehead, went on to mouth-opening and -closing, cheek-puffing and whistling. ‘I’ve a card with them on,’ he told her, when they’d both stopped laughing at the foolish faces he’d been pulling. ‘And stay active, though I doubt I have to tell you that. When walking, hold your hands behind your back—it will help straighten your neck and keep the tremors still.’
He was examining Pat as he talked, taking her blood pressure while standing, then asking her to lie down for a resting pressure.
‘I’ll take blood as well, to see how the drug’s reacting in your bloodstream, and I want you in every week for the next six weeks to monitor the levels. After that we’ll string the visits out more. The problem with the drug is that it can become less effective and we might have to use something else as well.’
‘I’ll be doped to my eyebrows,’ Pat told him, but she offered her arm for the needle and waited patiently while he took a sample of her blood.
He then dropped eight paper-clips on the floor, a little test he’d initiated on her first visit.
She bent and picked them up, then placed them triumphantly on the desk. ‘See, I did it!’
‘Let’s hope you can continue to do it,’ David told her, knowing it was a sure way to tell when her condition was deteriorating and if a different drug regime would be needed.
The visit was over, and he’d reminded her to make an appointment with Rowena before leaving, when she said, ‘That chap didn’t go home to the motel last night. The one who’s here with your sister-in-law.’
Though used to the way everyone knew everything on the island, David still shook his head in disbelief.
‘And how do you know?’
‘Because he left his light on in his motel room and it shines into my yard. Even with the rain, I could see the yellow square lit up on the peach trees out the back.’
‘Maybe he’s afraid of the dark and sleeps with the light on,’ David suggested, while his stomach cramped with the knowledge of just where the man had been.
‘And with curtains open? I don’t think so,’ Pat told him. ‘Anyway, he wasn’t there this morning when I went down early to check on the chooks. I could see right through the window and the bed hadn’t been slept in.’
Was it curiosity disguised as concern, or simply the islanders’ habit of watching out for each other? David wondered, but he didn’t offer any further explanations or encourage any more gossip.
There’d be enough talk around shortly, without him adding to it.
As he showed Pat out, Rowena signalled to him so, when the older woman had departed, he walked across to the reception desk.
He could feel his heart stirring and his body stiffening, just looking at the woman, but steeled himself to hide these facts.
‘Sarah phoned to say she’d check on Margo. Apparently things are moving faster now, and Margo, now Nell’s not here, has decided she’d rather have a woman deliver her baby.’
‘Or her husband’s decided he’d rather not have a murderer deliver his!’
Was it the strain of the pretence with Rowena that had prompted the bitter remark? Whatever it was, he knew it had shocked and possibly hurt her, for her face paled and the lines of strain around her mouth deepened.
But when she raised her eyes to his, it was anger he saw there, not pain.
‘Oh, please!’ she muttered at him. ‘Let’s not start that kind of nonsense. You know you didn’t kill your wife or the detective, so get your act into gear and damn well prove it.’
She glared at him, then rather spoilt the effect by saying, ‘Do you think I’m too old to learn to swear more effectively? Damn’s about my limit, and it seems far too weak to handle what’s been happening around here lately!’
He wanted to smile—and to touch her, hold her. To let her know she’d brightened up his day with her worries over the appropriateness of ‘damn’—but two people were dead, and someone had killed them.
‘You’re right. I’ve got to quit whining and work out a solution. We’ve ruled out money, though if it had been Mary-Ellen who’d been killed it would be different. She went through three short-term husbands, each wealthier than the previous one and each leaving her with more accumulated funds!’
Rowena watched the way his brow furrowed just on one side when he frowned. He’d end up with a single frown mark instead of two. Her eyes feasted on him, feeding all the inner longings, reminding her of the pleasure they’d shared the previous evening.
Well, it had been a joy for her, and if it had been nothing more than easing physical frustration for David, it didn’t really matter because she still had her memories of a passionate, fiery lover.
‘What if it was a mistake?’
The question surprised her nearly as much as it surprised David, who was looking at her as if she were mad.
‘Sorry! That came out of my subconscious, but the pair looked so alike. What if someone intended to kill Mary-Ellen, and killed Sue-Ellen by mistake?’
The furrow deepened.
‘We come back to why.’
‘An ex-husband unhappy over the settlement? Hadn’t she just left number three? Perhaps he didn’t want her to leave? If she had so many husbands, you’d suspect she probably had lovers as well. A jealous lover?’
‘Those are all the reasons I was prime suspect,’ David reminded her. ‘Once they found Sue-Ellen’s lover, and he claimed she was leaving me, it made the police case against me so much stronger.’
‘We’re not talking about you!’ Rowena retorted. ‘Concentrate on Mary-Ellen. Who’d get her money if she died?’
David shrugged, a tired movement of his shoulders which suggested that even thinking about it made him feel uncomfortable.
‘Sue-Ellen, I suppose. Mary-Ellen had no children. I never asked. For all I know, she may be leaving it to charity and has always intended to do just that.’
Rowena thought about it.
‘Well, we know it can’t be that anyway, because neither of them could murder herself in mistake for her sister. They’d be the only two people in the world who always knew for sure who was who.’
David looked at her with such total bemusement she chuckled.
‘I got caught up in my own cleverness there, didn’t I?’
‘You did indeed,’ he said, and for a moment it seemed as if things might be getting back to normal between them.
Which was when Barry walked in.
‘Sarah’s with Margo—she’s given her an epidural and I haven’t much time. Have you still got the big cool-room out on the farm? The one the old fellow used to keep his seasonal fruit in?’
David nodded.
‘But it hasn’t been turned on for years. Why—?’
He stopped short and Rowena knew he’d figured it out. With the airport closed, and the seas too rough for small boats, the bodies couldn’t leave the island until Monday at the earliest.
‘Do you want me to go out and clean it out—see if it works?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Barry told him. ‘We could use the fish co-op—there’s plenty of freezer space because it’s off-season—but everything that goes in there comes out smelling of fish. And the fellow I spoke to at the hospital on the mainland suggested a cold-room
was better than a freezer.’
‘Definitely better as far as deterioration is concerned, but you’re sure it won’t affect the case, storing him on my property?’
Barry frowned at him.
‘Of course it would if you went out on your own! Why didn’t I think of that? We’ll have to wait until the baby arrives, then I’ll drive you out.’
‘I can’t believe this conversation!’ Rowena told the two men. ‘Only yesterday—no, the day before yesterday—everything was normal. Now you two are discussing the merits of freezers versus cold storage for bodies as if it’s nothing out of the way.’
‘Day before yesterday all I had to worry about was whether Junior was going to be a girl or a boy!’ Barry reminded her. ‘And if it was a girl, how I was going to survive her adolescence! Do you think I wanted to find dead bodies littered all over the island? Falling out on me when I open car doors?’
‘Have you had any sleep at all?’ David asked, reacting, as Rowena had, to the level of hysteria in Barry’s voice.
The policeman rubbed his hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp as if to massage some sanity into his brain.
‘Not much,’ he admitted. ‘But the moment Junior’s here and I know Margo’s OK, I’m going home to catch a bit of a kip.’
He looked directly at David.
‘After which, I’ll have a second murder to investigate, won’t I?’
The words sent sharp tendrils of fear into the soft parts of Rowena’s body, but she said nothing, though she did watch Barry as he walked to the door, and sighed with relief when he finally departed.
David heard the sigh and ached to comfort her, but that way lay danger. Rowena was right in that Mary-Ellen wouldn’t have murdered her sister by mistake, but he felt, instinctively, the danger all centred around his sister-in-law. She’d been on the island when Sue-Ellen had disappeared, though whether his wife had died then—indeed, whether she’d died here—remained to be seen. All he knew was that by the time he arrived to join her for a holiday, she was gone.
But now Mary-Ellen was back—and a second person was dead. Fear, not for himself but for Rowena, clutched at his intestines.
‘I don’t want you mixed up in this,’ he said to her. ‘I don’t want you talking about it, or trying to solve it, or in any way getting involved.’
‘And you can stop me?’ she challenged him, her chin tilting upward and her eyes glinting with the light of battle.
‘I can ask you to keep out of it. Even beg you, Rowena. It’s dangerous to meddle in police matters, and foolish. You never know where the meddling may lead.’
‘I have no intention of meddling in police matters,’ she told him huffily, then, because she knew he’d read the lie in her eyes, she dropped her gaze back down to the papers on her desk.
Now that he was unobserved, he could look at her, see her anew as he remembered the woman who’d met and matched his passion the previous evening, giving and taking pleasure with an uninhibited enthusiasm which had escalated his own excitement.
So much so that even recollecting it had his body tightening with desire while his head roared the warnings he knew he dared not ignore.
He lifted the appointment book, pretending to study it while trying to work out why he’d taken so long to fall in love with her.
He knew the physical and mental reactions to what he’d gone through after Sue-Ellen’s disappearance had been normal. Almost like a textbook case, he’d followed the trail of shock, apathy and despair. Waiting for the growth that should come out of all human experience to finally arrive.
‘Spent a bloody sight too long at the apathy stage,’ he muttered to himself.
‘Something wrong? Someone booked in who shouldn’t be?’
Rowena looked up from her work, her clear eyes repeating the question—or possibly asking other questions. Ones he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer.
‘No, no!’ he assured her, and wished he had something else to look at.
Because although he knew he had to put emotional distance between them, instinct told him to stay close to her. To protect her!
He dropped the book on the counter and walked back into the consulting room.
Protect her, indeed! She’d be better protected if he left the island—and that being impossible right now, if he went down to the far end to stay with Ted.
Now, that wasn’t a bad idea, though first he had to go out to the farm with Barry and see if he could get the motor which chilled the cold room working.
He walked back out.
‘I’m going over to the hospital to check on Margo. Phone me on the mobile if any patient happens to wander in.’
Rowena watched him go. After three years, she was closely enough attuned to him to know he had more on his mind than the murders, but what? The mood swings, quick anger and furrowed brow all suggested he was deeply worried about something. Panicky, almost, and David never panicked.
Not for an instant did she believe it could have anything to do with the murder of Mary-Ellen’s tall investigator, but what else could it possibly be?
‘The baby finally arrived—a girl they’re calling Ruby, bless her little heart.’
Sarah burst through the door with the energy that came from a release of tension. ‘Thank heavens!’ she added. ‘I’d have committed murder myself if it had gone on much longer, only I’m not sure which one I’d have killed—the mother or the father.’
‘It’s their first,’ Rowena said, offering an excuse for the couple.
‘And last as far as I’m concerned. If David ever asks me to hold the fort again, I’ll check she’s not pregnant before I agree.’
She spoke so naturally, assuming David would still be here in the future, Rowena felt relieved. Though not relieved enough to drop the subject.
‘Do you remember what time it was when Mary-Ellen and the detective came into the outbuilding yesterday afternoon?’
Sarah frowned at her.
‘I’d forgotten they were there. It was late, not long before we finished. Which was, what?’
‘About seven,’ Rowena reminded her.
‘Then I’d say they were there at six.’
‘And David’s car was there and the keys were in it. Right beside the building.’
‘Yes, but that’s far too early for the man to have been killed. And too risky at that time with people moving about, visitors and staff pottering around. Sure, it was raining but, no, I can’t see it happening then, either practically or from the state of the body.’
‘No, but it means they knew the car was there. What if Mary-Ellen saw it, then suggested they come back later and have a look for clues? He’d have gone to the car with her, whereas it’s unlikely he’d have arranged to meet anyone he didn’t know in someone else’s car.’
‘Unless David arranged it,’ Sarah said, ‘which is exactly what the police will think because they always look at the obvious first. The more obscure suspicions, and the positively bizarre ideas, come a little further down the investigative track.’
She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Leaving David out, your scenario of Mary-Ellen suggesting they have a look is feasible—as long as no one asks for what—but why would Mary-Ellen kill him? She brought him over here, presumably to investigate. They’d been here, what, two days? Why bump him off now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rowena said crossly. ‘I’m just saying he’d have gone to the car with her and sat beside her without considering for an instant he might come to any harm. He couldn’t have been too suspicious of whoever it was to have just sat there and let someone shoot him.’
‘And policemen are by nature and training very suspicious,’ Sarah said, obviously coming around to Rowena’s way of thinking.
‘But motive remains a problem. Why bring the man over here then kill him?’
‘To implicate David?’ Rowena suggested, then she shivered. ‘Though that would mean premeditation. Something she’d cold-bloodedly planned. I can’t believe anyone
would do such a thing! Would hate someone so much they’d kill another person to get their revenge.’
‘No, revenge as a motive for murder seems very weak, unless there’s a history of such behaviour in your family. Money always seems far more likely to me,’ Sarah said. ‘Or to protect a secret—that’s done often enough.’
She spoke as if she’d had experience of it, or maybe she was just tired.
‘You’ve had a rough welcome to Three Ships, haven’t you?’ Rowena said. ‘Anyway, we’ve no customers. Everyone who was booked has cancelled because of the weather, so let’s leave a sign on the door and go to an early lunch.’
But as she wrote the note, her mind still played with motives. Money? Unless Mary-Ellen was married to the detective, that wouldn’t work. But what if he’d discovered something?
‘It’s ridiculous!’ she told Sarah when they’d dashed along the wind-swept street to the café and were once again shedding their bulky rainwear in the sheltered area outside the door. ‘Mary-Ellen’s the logical suspect as far as killing the man’s concerned, but if she had secrets to hide, why bring him here? Why take the risk he’d find out something? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘So what’s new?’ Sarah responded. ‘Up to now, none of it has. Sue-Ellen’s body found in a trunk on a property which was searched when she disappeared. Tell me that makes sense! The indicators of the time of the man’s death…’
They pushed into the interior of the café, where overheated air hit them like the blast from a furnace.
‘Indicators of the time of death!’
Sarah grabbed Rowena’s arm.
‘I’ve been assuming the car was cold—the same temperature as outside—but if he and someone had got into the car to talk, wouldn’t they have turned on the heater? We’ve got to find Barry.’
Rowena began to explain he’d intended going out to David’s property as soon as the baby arrived, but Sarah was already out the door, dragging her damp coat back on.
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