Death in Practice

by Hazel Holt

  I laughed. “Oh Rosemary, really!”

  “Yes, well, I suppose it does sound a bit silly put like that, but you know what I mean.”

  “Yes I do and you’re quite right. It’s very difficult to think of Diana, Ben or Keith as a murderer. Still, somebody killed Malcolm Hardy and if it wasn’t any of them, who could it have been?”

  I happened to be passing the surgery a few days later and on an impulse I went in. Alison was in reception entering something on the computer. She looked up as I went to the counter.

  “Oh hello, Mrs Malory, can you hang on for a second while I finish this?”

  “Of course.”

  I picked up a leaflet from the counter and was studying it when a large black and white cat jumped up beside me and rubbed against my hand.

  “Oh,” I exclaimed, “you’ve still got Toby!”

  Toby was a stray that someone had brought in after he’d been injured by a car. He only had three legs but was amazingly mobile. He had been very much part of the surgery, presiding over the counter with a lordly air and very popular with all the clients. But the last few times I’d been in I hadn’t seen him.

  “There now!” Alison clicked the final key with an air of triumph. “That’s done. Sorry to have kept you waiting, but when I’m entering figures, if I stop in the middle I have to start all over again! Yes, Toby’s back again.”

  “When I didn’t see him I wondered what had happened.”

  “His Lordship didn’t like him being here – said it was unprofessional and Toby would have to be put down. Well, Diana wasn’t having that.” She stroked Toby lovingly and he arched his back in pleasure. “Malcolm made a fuss about it, but he had other things on his mind so he didn’t press the point and we kept Toby out of the way. Mind you, if Malcolm hadn’t died then I think he might have found some way of getting rid of Toby.”

  Toby, aware that he was being discussed began to show off, batting with his paw at the things on the counter.

  “Oh dear, he’s always doing that!” Alison said, rescuing a couple of ballpoint pens that had rolled under the counter. “I’m forever picking things up that he’s knocked down. You’re a wicked boy, aren’t you?” she said lovingly while Toby purred complacently.

  “Now then, what can I do for you?”

  “I need some of that stuff I had before for Tris’s ears. I’ve got a nasty feeling he’s got mites in them. Diana did recommend something the last time he had them but I can’t remember the name.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean. I’ll just go and get it for you – it’s out the back.”

  Alison went off and I continued to make a fuss of Toby who jumped down off the counter (making a perfect landing) and wound round my legs. I was just about to bend down to stroke him when Julie appeared. She looked quite different from the last time I’d seen her, during her quarrel with Malcolm Hardy. Now she looked very subdued and not at all well.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, and her voice was quiet and listless.

  “No, it’s fine – Alison’s looking after me. She’s just gone to get something from out the back.”

  “Oh, right.” She wandered out again and after a while Alison came back.

  “There you are. I’m sure it will do the trick – just follow the instructions on the label, and if you’re still worried come and see Diana. Shall I put it on your account?”

  “Yes please.” I put the spray into my bag. “I just saw Julie. I hardly recognised her as the same girl.”

  “Yes, she’s changed a lot.”

  “I thought she looked dreadful – quite ill. Was she very upset about Malcolm Hardy’s death?”

  “She’s not very well actually – some sort of tummy bug. But no, I don’t think she was upset at all. They’d quarrelled you know, and I think he’d have found a way of getting rid of her from the practice if he’d still been around. No, she’s been much better these days, really helpful.”

  “That’s nice. Well, I’d better be going. I’m so glad Toby’s back – the place really wouldn’t be the same without him.”

  I turned to go when a thought struck me.

  “Is the insulin you use on the animals the sort that humans use?” I asked.

  Alison seemed surprised but answered, “We use Insuvet or Caninsulin, which are purely for vetinary use, but basically yes, they’re the same.” She looked at me curiously. “Are you asking because of Malcolm?”

  “I suppose I am. I just wondered.”

  “The police wanted to know that as well,” Alison said. “I suppose that was one more reason for suspecting someone here killed him.” Then she burst out, “Honestly, Mrs Malory, there’s no way it could be anyone here – I just wish to goodness they’d get it sorted so that we can all get back to normal!”

  Chapter Ten

  * * *

  “I’ve got the tickets for Iolanthe for the Friday,” Thea said, deftly inserting a spoonful of Farex into Alice’s open mouth, “and Michael says he’ll babysit, so that’s all right. We’ll have something to eat at the theatre beforehand and make a real night of it!”

  “Oh lovely. I’m really looking forward to it. Iolanthe’s almost my favourite Gilbert and Sullivan.”

  “What is your favourite?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know – it changes every time I see one!”

  “I love them all – except Yeoman of the Guard, which I’ve never really cared for.”

  “I know, the sad ending, which is not what one really wants from G&S. Oh dear…”

  Alice, having decided that we weren’t taking enough notice of her, waved her small fists in the air and sent the bowl and its contents flying.

  “Wicked girl,” Thea said fondly and went to get a cloth from the sink, while Alice, having achieved her objective, gave a gurgling laugh.

  “Will she be all right with Michael when we go out?” I asked.

  “He’s very good with her, actually – and she doesn’t play him up nearly as much as she does me. Anyway, he’s got a list of instructions a mile long!”

  So we were both happily relaxed as we sat in the theatre restaurant in Taunton before the performance. Because it was a local amateur opera group there were quite a few people from Taviscombe that we knew, coming to support relatives or friends in the cast.

  “The same old faces,” I said. “I do believe I could make a list of who’ll be here every time.”

  But, just before the lights went down in the auditorium, someone I hadn’t expected to see slipped into a seat in the row in front of us. It was Ben Turner. Then the lights went down and the first echoing notes of the overture swept over me and I gave my attention to the stage.

  It was a good production and the singers were excellent. After a while the notes of a flute heralded the entrance of Phyllis. In her shepherdess costume with the blonde curls of her wig tumbling about her shoulders Kathy looked marvellous. The stage make-up heightened and emphasised her natural prettiness, in real life slightly faded, but now vibrant and charming. As she sang she moved gracefully in a dance and I heard a sort of gasp from the row in front and in the light from the stage I saw Ben Turner’s face. He was completely rapt. So that was Kathy’s secret.

  “None shall part us from each other,

  One in life and death are we.”

  Kathy’s voice was clear and true.

  It all fell into place now – Kathy’s distress when Ben was sacked, the fear that he might have to go away; the return of her good spirits after Malcolm’s death when his position in the practice was secure. But also the anxieties that Anthea had noted, Kathy’s withdrawal from her parents in case they guessed her secret, the burden of guilt she and Ben must both feel thinking of his wife in a nursing home and knowing that they could never let anyone know of their relationship. I scarcely heard the rest of the first Act, my thoughts squirreling around. I kept looking at Ben. Whenever Kathy was on stage he leaned forward eagerly, when she was absent he slumped back in his seat, shielding his face with his hand.r />
  In a sort of daze I followed Thea out in the interval – somehow I couldn’t tell anyone, even her, what I had discovered – and made small talk about the production while we queued for our drinks. I was glad to be back in the darkened auditorium (Ben Turner had remained in his seat) and tried to lose myself in the music.

  The Fairy Queen, her splendid contralto voice soaring, was embarked on that song which miraculously combines exquisite music with comic lyrics and topical references. The hint, now, of a long-forgotten scandal and the unreasoning power of love:

  “Oh Captain Shaw!

  Type of true love kept under!

  Could thy Brigade

  With cold cascade

  Quench my great love, I wonder!”

  Sullivan’s music carried the opera forward but when Strephon (I found it hard to think of him as Jerry, who almost got transferred to Canada) and Phyllis were singing their final duet I saw such an expression of misery on Ben Turner’s face that I had to look away.

  “If by chance we should be parted,” Kathy sang

  “Broken hearted I should die –”

  When it was over and the encores had been sung and the curtain calls had been taken, I fiddled around with my coat and my handbag, making sure that Ben Turner had left first. I didn’t want him to know that I had seen him. Even if he hadn’t realised how much he had given away that evening, I felt I had seen something I had no right to see and I didn’t want to have to face him with some banal remark.

  “Wasn’t it good!” Thea enthused as we were driving home, “and wasn’t Kathy marvellous. She looked absolutely terrific. She ought to go blonde – that wig really suited her.”

  “I don’t think blonde is Kathy’s style,” I said. “Not in real life anyway.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Thea agreed regretfully. “It’s a pity though, she looked stunning.”

  Although I was longing to do so, I didn’t tell Thea about Kathy and Ben because she knew Ben’s daughter and it might be embarrassing for her to know their secret. But, because she too was concerned about Kathy, I did talk to Rosemary about it.

  “Good heavens,” Rosemary said. “He’s years older than she is; he’s got a grown-up daughter.”

  “And a grandchild,” I said. “But I think Kathy might well be happier with an older man. Anyway, he obviously adores her – it was written all over his face.”

  “It’s a wonder no one at the practice has spotted it.”

  “I expect they’re on their guard all the time there. Such a strain for them both, poor things. But last night – well, Kathy did look marvellous with that costume and the make-up and everything, and, of course, Ben had absolutely no idea anyone who knew them would be watching him. I felt quite guilty!”

  “I can imagine,” Rosemary said sympathetically. “But what a wretched business, with his wife in a nursing home. She’s still quite young and people with Alzheimers can go on for years. So what sort of future can they have?”

  “No future,” I said sadly, “just going on as they are, I suppose. It is a shame, they’re both such nice people.”

  “Well,” Rosemary said, “this knocks Mother’s little theory on the head – you know, about Ben and June Hardy. What a pity I can’t tell her.”

  “I’m only surprised she didn’t know about Kathy. It’s not very often that something like that escapes her. Anyway,” I continued thoughtfully, “it puts June Hardy in the clear over Malcolm’s murder. If she didn’t have an accomplice she couldn’t have killed him, even if she had been able to get into the surgery somehow without being seen – never a very likely theory, if you come to think of it. It’s just that she was the one with the greatest motive. All that money!”

  “Well, I’m glad about that. June’s such a nice person.”

  “Still,” I said, “it does mean that two other nice people might have had motives for killing that horrible young man.”

  “Who? Oh, you mean Kathy and Ben Turner. Surely not!”

  “I’m not saying they did it, but they had a motive. Kathy was desperately unhappy about Ben having to leave and so was he. And they were both on the spot when it happened.”

  “Would that really be enough reason to kill him?”

  “Depends on the strength of their feelings. I’d say his are pretty strong.”

  “But Kathy – such a quiet, old-fashioned sort of girl. You couldn’t think that!”

  “It shook me when I found that she was having an affair with a married man,” I said. “It seemed so out of character. Especially when I thought it was some trendy young man from the opera group.”

  “Trendy?”

  “I happened to see a bottle of Giorgio aftershave in her bathroom cabinet and drew the wrong conclusion. But, of course, Kathy must have given it to Ben as a Christmas present or something and he couldn’t keep it at home – I mean it’s so not him. Oh dear, isn’t that sad!”

  “How did you happen to see it?” Rosemary asked. “No – don’t tell me! And yes, it is sad. No wonder Kathy couldn’t confide in Anthea. I mean, she’s devoted to Kathy but she would be horrified if she knew what was going on.”

  “I know. I think Jim would be quite sympathetic. Kathy’s always been his favourite. But I don’t suppose she could tell him.”

  “Goodness no,” Rosemary said. “Anthea would have it out of him like a shot! No, poor Kathy’s got no one to confide in. Unless…”

  “No,” I said firmly. “I’m not getting involved.”

  “She really looks up to you…”

  “No!”

  “Oh well. I’ll put the kettle on. Tea or coffee?”

  “Incidentally,” Rosemary said as she was warming the teapot, “you remember what I told you about Diana?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s all right. Apparently Jack had a word with Edward Drayton and he told June all about it – Diana borrowing the money, that is. Anyway, June was very understanding and, since Diana’s paid back the money now, she isn’t going to do anything about it.”

  “Oh, well done June.”

  “Like I said, she’s a nice person. She said she obviously didn’t approve of what Diana had done, but she understood why she did it and is prepared to say no more about it.”

  “That must be a relief all round. Of course!” I said so suddenly that Rosemary looked up from pouring the tea. “Of course, June told me on Sunday after church that she had to see Edward about something. That must have been what it was.”

  “The problem Diana has now,” Rosemary said “is having to pay back to Malcolm Hardy’s estate the money he put into the practice.”

  “Oh goodness, that will be difficult won’t it? I mean, I knew she’d have to find someone to take over the partnership now that he’s dead…” I broke off. “And this means that she couldn’t have murdered Malcolm, even to stop him finding out about borrowing the money!”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Don’t you see? If he was dead she’d have to pay back his share. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted that.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “It’s going to be really hard for her now that he’s dead.”

  “Oh, but the practice must be quite profitable. The surgery always seems to be full whenever I take one of the animals.”

  “I’m sure it is, but I think it was a very large sum of money Malcolm Hardy put in.”

  “Well,” Rosemary said, “I expect all the legal things will take a while so perhaps something will turn up.”

  “I hope so. I like Diana – I’m glad she isn’t a suspect any more.”

  “You never really thought she might be, did you?”

  “I don’t know. It must have been someone connected with the practice who killed him and there aren’t that many people to choose from.”

  Rosemary poured some more water into the teapot and stirred it thoughtfully. “I still find it extraordinary that someone should have murdered him in that peculiar way. I mean, it might not have actually
killed him, if they’d got the amount of insulin wrong and if whoever it was didn’t know exactly what sort of tablets he was taking and what sort of effect they’d have on each other. If you think of it, it must surely have been someone who knew him pretty well.”

  “Perhaps,” I suggested, “whoever it was didn’t mean to murder him at all. Perhaps they just wanted to make him ill, or give him a fright or something.”

  “Who on earth would want to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, “but you must admit it’s a possibility. Asort of gesture that went wrong?”

  “That’s too complicated for me,” Rosemary said. “Anyway, let’s talk about something a bit more cheerful. Did I tell you that Delia’s going to be in the school play? They’re doing ‘Toad of Toad Hall’ for Christmas and she’s going to be one of the weasels. Jilly’s going mad trying to make the costume!”

  That evening I had a committee meeting that didn’t finish until quite late. As I drove home along the road behind Kathy’s flat I passed Ben Turner’s old Land Rover parked there. Somehow the fact that he’d had to park around the corner from the flat, with all that that implied, made me very sad. They were two nice people who were, when you came to think of it, doing no one any harm. Ben’s wife was incapable of caring what he did now and yet, just because they were nice and didn’t want to hurt anyone, they felt obliged to live in this hole and corner fashion. The fact remained that they were considering the feelings of Ben’s daughter and Kathy’s parents and, even if they were prepared to face it themselves, they didn’t want their families put through the misery of the gossip and disapproval of a small town. It didn’t seem fair.

  It did occur to me, though, that if they were determined to keep their relationship secret, then if Malcolm Hardy had found out about them, one or both of them might have had a good reason for wanting to silence him. I tried to put this uncomfortable thought out of my mind and when I got home concentrated on placating the animals who hate me to go out in the evening, thereby depriving them of a lap to sit on or a piece of forbidden chocolate reluctantly disgorged. As I made myself a hot drink Foss weaved round my legs, giving me a tiny nip to declare his presence, while Tris sat with his head on one side fixing me with a mesmeric stare of immense reproach.