Death in Practice E-Book

Hazel Holt

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Sheila Malory Mystery
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 299

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Taviscombe's veterinary practice is facing closure unless they can find a new partner to invest money in the business. Enter Malcolm Hardy; tall, good looking and rich enough to save the surgery. But soon he has offended most of the town, accusing a colleague of malpractice and installing his girlfriend as a veterinary assistant. As far as Sheila Malory is concerned, there is nothing to like about the new vet. But despite his unpopularity it is still a shock when Hardy collapses and dies at the surgery. When the post-mortem reveals unnatural death, suspicion falls on his former colleagues. Could somebody at the practice be a killer? Or might Hardy have other enemies with murder in mind?

Leseprobe

Death in Practice

HAZEL HOLT

For Nat, Ant and Iain

Contents

Title PageAcknowledgmentsDedicationChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyAbout the AuthorBy Hazel HoltCopyright

Chapter One

“You let those animals rule your life,” Anthea said, leaning on the worktop and watching disapprovingly while I cut up some cooked chicken. “They’re thoroughly spoilt.”

“I know,” I said defensively, “but Tris is an old dog now and can’t eat tinned food, and Foss is so picky – if I open a tin for him I always have to give half of it to the birds.”

“Kathy’s just the same,” Anthea went on, now launched on a familiar theme, “always been silly about animals, ever since she was a child – cried herself to sleep night after night when that wretched tortoise died. But even so I never thought she’d end up working for a vet!”

Anthea’s younger daughter is an assistant at our local vet’s, something her mother regards as “the waste of a good education”, unlike her older sister who is not only married with two children (thus providing grandmother fodder) but also head of the physiotherapy department of our local hospital.

“Jean has really got somewhere already and there’s no saying where she may end up. But Kathy’s stuck in that dead-end job – I mean, where will it lead? Nowhere!”

“But she’s happy,” I said, placatingly.

“That’s as may be,” Anthea said austerely, “but she ought to be looking to the future.”

“She’s still young!” I protested.

“She’s thirty-five,” Anthea replied, “and she hasn’t even got a steady boyfriend.”

“Thirty-five’s nothing now,” I said, “not like in our day.”

“Nothing’s like it was in our day, more’s the pity!”

“I agree with you over lots of things, but, from what I can gather, it’s much more fun being a thirty-something nowadays than it was when we were young.”

“Oh fun!” Anthea said. “Life’s not about fun!”

“I suppose not,” I said meekly.

As my friend Rosemary always says, “Anthea is a good soul, kind-hearted and generous to a fault, and one of my dearest friends, but one must always remember that she has no sense of humour.”

“I don’t know what she does with herself,” Anthea said, “she never seems to go anywhere. Just sits at home in that flat of hers.”

Anthea has always resented the fact that Kathy, although unmarried, wanted a place of her own and had taken what her mother described scornfully as “that poky little place down by the railway station”. It is, in fact, a perfectly pleasant flat in a converted Edwardian house, by the station admittedly, but also overlooking the seafront and very nice too.

“But she sings with the Light Opera Group doesn’t she? Thea said how good she was in The Gondoliers.”

“Oh the Opera Group,” Kathy said dismissively. “She’ll never meet anyone there – just a lot of women and all the men are married.”

“Perhaps she just enjoys singing,” I suggested.

“And another thing,” Anthea continued resentfully. “Jim and I hardly ever see her. She used to come to Sunday lunch, but now she just makes excuses all the time.”

I reflected that if Anthea went on and on to Kathy about her single state it wasn’t surprising that she avoided her parents.

“Talk about Mrs Bennett and marrying off your daughters,” I said to Rosemary when I reported the conversation. “Anyone would think we were living in the nineteenth century, not the twenty-first!”

“Well,” I said soothingly to Anthea, “I suppose we can’t lead their lives for them.”

“It’s all very well for you to say that. Michael’s married – such a nice girl, Thea – and you have a beautiful granddaughter.”

“You have two grandsons,” I pointed out.

“They’re wonderful, of course and I’m devoted to them, but I would have liked a granddaughter. If only Kathy…”

Fortunately Foss chose this moment to appear in the kitchen and jumped onto the worktop, poking his nose inquisitively, as he always does, into whatever happened to be there.

“Sheila! Surely you don’t let him do that!” Anthea cried as Foss tentatively put his paw in the sugar bowl.

“Of course not!” I said mendaciously as I scooped Foss up and put him down on the floor.

“Bad boy!” I said in what I hoped was a severe manner. Foss gave me a look of contempt and stalked off into the hall.

This little episode luckily diverted Anthea’s mind from the iniquities of her younger daughter and she reverted to the real reason for her visit.

“Now what about that committee meeting? You really must come – I need you to keep Maureen in order.”

Maureen Phillips is a meek woman who had once been moved to disagree with one of Anthea’s suggestions and who has been, consequently, branded by her as a red revolutionary who has to be kept down at all costs.

“Oh dear I don’t think I can,” I said. “I said I’d babysit for Thea and Michael that evening. But, really, I’m sure you’re more than capable of controlling Maureen.”

“Well that is a nuisance – Marjorie’s busy too. Honestly, I can’t imagine why people say they’ll be on committees if they never turn up for meetings.”

Ignoring the unfairness of her comments (I seem to spend a great deal of my life sitting around tables being bored out of my mind) I did my best to soothe her.

“Do have a cup of coffee,” I said.

But Anthea, probably with the memory of Foss’s dark paw in the sugar bowl, declined and, gathering up her belongings, went away to chivvy someone else.

As it happened I saw Kathy the very next day. Foss, in unheeding pursuit of a rabbit, managed to tear his back leg quite badly on some barbed wire and when I phoned they said to bring him in straight away. Unlike my dog Tris, who regards the vet’s as some sort of unspeakable gulag, Foss doesn’t mind it at all. Like all Siamese he obviously thinks that any attention is better than none and all the girls there respond to his blue-eyed charm.

“Poor boy!” Alison, one of the junior assistants, said as she removed him tenderly from his carrying cage, “what a nasty cut. I’ll get Kathy to clean it up before Diana sees it.”

“Isn’t Simon here?” I asked Kathy as she carefully wiped round the wound. “He usually sees Foss.”

“Oh, Simon’s left. He’s gone to set up on his own at Newton Abbott. Diana’s taken on a lot of his patients. But Keith’s still here, and Ben.”

“Are you getting anyone else? It’s such a large practice – I mean, Ben mostly deals with horses and farm animals, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” she seemed to hesitate, “yes, we are getting someone else.” She looked around to see if anyone was within earshot. “As a matter of fact they’re taking on a new partner. You see Simon had put a lot of money into the practice and, now he’s gone, they’ve had to find someone who can do the same.”

“I see.”

“There was a bit of a cash-flow problem – ” She broke off. “I shouldn’t be telling you this – please don’t say anything.”

“No, of course not. Well, I’ll be interested to see the new partner. What’s his name?”

“Malcolm Hardy.”

“Really? I used to know his father – at least, he was a friend of my parents. There was certainly a lot of money there!”

Just then Diana came in and said I should leave Foss there while his leg was treated.

“It’s a nasty tear,” she said. “I’ll have to give him a light anaesthetic, so come back this afternoon, about two o’clock.”

As one always does, I fretted at the thought of Foss having an anaesthetic. Of course I knew he’d be all right but, although he’s very strong, he’s not a young cat, so, in my anxiety, I was back at the surgery quite a bit before two.

“He’s fine,” Kathy said, “but Diana just wants to have a word before you take him home. She won’t be long if you don’t mind waiting.”

Relieved, I sat in the waiting room which, since surgery didn’t begin until three o’clock, was empty. I inspected the notices on the board. Flyers for dog-shows and sheep-dog trials, advertisement for organic dog-foods, along with the personal cards wanting homes for kittens (“two beautiful tabby boys and a sweet tortoiseshell girl”), dogs (“crossbred lurcher, good with children”) or horses (“hunter, 17 hands, quiet to ride and box”). Then I settled down with a copy of Hello! magazine, which I greatly enjoy but never actually buy.

I was distracted from the lush description of the wedding of a minor European royal by the sound of voices raised in one of the consulting rooms. The door was slightly open and I heard Diana say sharply, “No, that’s quite unacceptable.”

Another voice, male and one that I didn’t recognise, said, “Well those are my terms, take them or leave them. But I think you’re going to have to take them, aren’t you?”

“But we need Ben.”

“Not if we get rid of the farming side. I thought I’d explained – the obvious way to go is with the small animals. That’s where the money is.”

“But…”

“And now Dexters’ are packing up we’ll have all their clients. No, Ben Turner will have to go.”

“But he’s been part of the practice for years.”

“He’s getting past it anyway. Spends half his time gossiping and drinking tea with hill farmers who use us about twice a year. No, there’s no room for sentiment in business, it’s simply not economically viable.”

“He’s on a three month contract.”

“OK. That’ll suit us fine – give us time to build up the profitable side of the business and then, in due course, we can get a young trainee to do some of the routine stuff – it’ll cost us less that way.”

“I can’t persuade you to reconsider, Malcolm?”

“It’s the sensible way to go, you must see that. Anyway, the fact remains that the decision is now mine to take.”

“Very well, if that’s what you say. You will have to tell him though.”

“No problem. Right then, now we’ve got that settled I’ll be off. Tell Turner I want to see him tomorrow morning – ten-thirty. OK?”

There was the sound of footsteps and then silence. After a few minutes I heard Kathy’s voice.

“Oh Diana, Mrs Malory’s here to collect her Siamese… Diana, are you all right?”

“Yes,” Diana’s voice was muffled as if she’d been crying. “Yes, I’m all right. Just give me a few minutes and I’ll be along to see her.”

I quickly moved over to the far side of the waiting room so that Diana wouldn’t know I’d overheard her confrontation with Malcolm Hardy. When she appeared she looked more or less her usual self though her manner was, understandably, abstracted. She brought Foss through in his carrying cage and said, “He’s still a bit dopey from the anaesthetic, but he’s done very well. Just give him a tiny bit of fish or something light to eat, but he may not want anything. Don’t let him out for a few days and I think you’d better put a plastic collar on to stop him chewing the bandages. It was quite a deep wound – I had to staple it.” She smiled slightly at my expression. “That’s what we do now instead of stitches. Anyway, try and keep the dressing on and bring him back for me to see the day after tomorrow.”

“He’s all right?”

“Yes, don’t worry. Oh, and I’ve given him a shot of antibiotic, just in case.”

“Thank you so much.” I looked down at Foss now sitting up in his cage, pleased to be the centre of attention. “He seems to be recovering.”

“Yes, he’s fine. The girls will give you a collar for him.”

She spoke absently now as though her thoughts were elsewhere and so I went away to find Kathy.

I knew from the start that putting a collar on Foss (they look like a sort of plastic Elizabethan ruff and are meant to stop the animal getting at any wound) would be difficult. I finally got the wretched thing fastened around his neck with Foss bellowing his horror and disapproval but then, having decided that he couldn’t see over it he started walking backwards, bumping into things and miaowing piteously. Tris, who always ostentatiously avoids Foss when he comes back from the vet smelling of disinfectant, suddenly appeared and, appalled at the apparition before him, began barking madly. After a few minutes of this I decided that the dressing would have to take its chance and I took the collar off. Foss gave me a cold, reproachful stare and went into the kitchen, where he polished off the chicken remaining on Tris’s plate and complained loudly until I gave him a large amount of fish, after which he went to sleep on my bed for the rest of the day.

I made myself a strong cup of tea and collapsed into a chair. Only then did I begin to think about the conversation I had overheard. Poor Diana Norton was certainly going to miss Simon – indeed we all would. Not only was he a brilliant vet, but he was also kind, considerate and very good at dealing with anxious animal owners. Malcolm Hardy, on the other hand, sounded (from what I had heard today) thoroughly disagreeable. I could only suppose that no one else had been found with a suitable amount of money to put into the practice. It also seemed as if he had a controlling share and was able to do whatever he liked, such as getting rid of Ben Turner. I could understand why Diana was so upset. She’s very loyal and Ben is a nice, capable middle-aged man who’s been with the practice for years. For a moment I thought of leaving the practice as a sort of protest, but, as Malcolm Hardy said, Fred Dexter – the only other vet in Taviscombe – has just retired and there’s nobody else this side of Williton. I was also sorry for Keith, the junior vet, and for Kathy and the other assistants. If the way I had heard him speak to Diana, who was after all a partner, was anything to go by, Malcolm would be even more unpleasant to those he thought of as underlings. All this would give Anthea more ammunition in her campaign of disapproval. Perhaps, indeed, it might be a reason for Kathy to leave. But then, if she did, what else could she do, in Taviscombe at any rate? She was a trained veterinary assistant, but there was no other practice here for her to go to.

“Anthea will like it even less,” I said to Rosemary the next day, “if Kathy goes away. She was cross enough about her getting a flat of her own, but at least she’s still in Taviscombe.”

“Oh, I don’t think she will. Kathy’s a quiet little thing and I expect she’ll just keep her head down and put up with things.”

“You’re probably right,” I agreed. “I’ve often thought it’s extraordinary how someone as shy as that can get up on stage and sing quite big parts with the opera company.”

“Don’t they say that shy people make the best actors because then they can lose themselves in their parts? Anyway Kathy’s got a lovely voice and she always looks as if she really enjoys singing.”

“I believe they’re doing Iolanthe next,” I said, “and Kathy’s playing Phyllis, which is really the second lead.”

“I know, Anthea told me. She was pleased as Punch though she always pretends not to think anything of Kathy’s singing.”

“Oh she’s devoted to her really, it’s just that she wants Kathy to be as she would like her to be. Thank goodness I never had a daughter – I expect I’d have been just the same. With Michael, though, he just went his own sweet way!”

“Jilly was too strong-minded for me,” Rosemary said affectionately. “I could never have influenced her if she didn’t want to be influenced. Perhaps,” she said sadly, “I should have tried harder with Colin.”

Rosemary’s daughter Jilly (married with two children) lives near at hand in Taviscombe and is very close to her mother. Colin (divorced and childless) has always been remote emotionally and, now that he’s living in Canada, is equally remote geographically,

“Colin will be all right,” I said, as I’ve said many times before when Rosemary fretted. “He’s always lived in a world of his own – lots of academics do – and I’m really sure he’s happy in it.”

“Yes, of course, I know you’re right, it’s just… oh you know!”

“I wonder,” I said thoughtfully, “why there aren’t more great works of literature about mothers worrying – it’s a universal experience, after all, and one to which a lot of bosoms would return an echo. It’s a pity Shakespeare wasn’t a woman – he’d have done it rather well, but, being a man, I don’t suppose it occurred to him. I wonder if Mary Arden worried about him. I bet she did when he went off to London to be a strolling player.”

“I’m sure Anthea worries about Kathy,” Rosemary said. “All that disapproval is only because she frets about her.”

“I wonder what Malcolm Hardy will be like to the pet-owners?” I said. “He can hardly speak to them like he spoke to Diana – not if he wants to keep them that is.”

“Well,” Rosemary said firmly, “if he’s unpleasant to me or either of the dogs, I’ll go to Webbers in Williton, however inconvenient it is!”

Chapter Two

Actually, when I took Foss back to have his dressing changed, I had to see Malcolm Hardy. Diana was out on an emergency, Ben was up-country somewhere with a sick cow and Keith was already booked up. The waiting room was quite full (“Sorry we’re running late – it’s this emergency”) and as always I was amused to see how the animals reacted to this unnatural situation. A large, ferocious-looking Alsatian was cowering under his master’s chair trembling and uttering little whining noises. He was being regarded with some scorn by a smug little toy poodle who sat on her mistress’ knee well above the hoi polloi on the floor below. One cat was complaining loudly at the indignity of being confined in a small basket, while another had turned its back on the whole proceedings and had gone resolutely to sleep.

Foss, sitting bolt upright in his cage surveyed the scene with his usual interest and smirked complacently when one of the other cat owners commented favourably on his beauty and behaviour.

The door of one of the consulting rooms opened and a middle-aged woman carrying a Shi-tsu came out. I heard a man’s voice behind her saying, “She’ll be perfectly all right now. Just continue with the lotion and bring her in for me to see next week…”

The woman turned and made some sort of farewell remark and came into the waiting room to make her new appointment. I heard her at the desk saying to Alison, “Such a charming man, I feel he really understands animals!”

Alison gave a grim little smile and busied herself with the computer.

When my turn came I was quite eager to see this phenomenon. Malcolm Hardy, tall and good-looking with dark curly hair and very blue eyes, advanced towards me with hand outstretched. That, somehow, put me off him for a start. He took Foss out of his cage saying, “He really should be wearing a protective collar – did no one give you one?”

“He wouldn’t keep it on,” I said stiffly. “Anyway, he hasn’t chewed his bandages or anything. He’s really been very good.”

He didn’t say anything but gave me a superior smile which quickly disappeared when he took off the dressing and Foss gave a low growl, something I’d never heard him do before.

“Perhaps you’d better hold him,” he said as Foss struggled (something he never did with Simon) “while I look at this leg.”

I held Foss, stroking him to keep him calm while Malcolm Hardy put on another dressing and gave him an injection. Then he quickly bundled Foss back into his cage and slammed the door shut, almost (as I said to Rosemary) as if he was a dangerous wild animal.

“There,” he said, “now he’ll be all right. Just you make sure he wears that collar!” He gave me what I imagine he thought was a boyish smile. “And bring him back to see me in another three days.”

He held out his hand again. I reluctantly shook it and made my escape.

I went over to the desk to make the appointment. “Three days time,” I said to Alison. “With Diana please, and, if she’s not free, with Keith.”

“Not with Mr Hardy?” Alison asked.

“Not with Mr Hardy,” I said firmly.

“Never with Mr Hardy!” I said to Rosemary when I reported back to her on my visit. “You know how good Foss has always been at the vet’s. I remember Simon saying he could never listen to Foss’s heart properly with his stethoscope because he was always purring so loudly! He’s never growled at anyone before. I’m sure that wretched man hurt him when he took off the dressing.”

“So you didn’t care for Malcolm Hardy,” Rosemary said smiling.

“Sorry, was I going on? No, but really, I’m sure you’ll agree when you see him. That smug and superior manner – what I can only call smarmy. I suppose it goes down with some people – well I know it does – but not our sort of person at all.”

“Oh dear, what a shame. And Simon was so marvellous.”

We were both silent for a moment considering our loss.

“You can tell the rest of the staff can’t stand him either,” I said. “Oh well, we’ll just have to see Diana or Keith in future, but it won’t be the same.”

* * *

I came across another disagreeable aspect of Malcolm Hardy’s character a few days later. I was in the pet shop buying a new collar for Foss (he loses them at the rate of one a month) when I saw Ella Wilson. Ella is notable in Taviscombe for taking in stray cats and dogs. She is most persuasive and usually manages to find homes for them, but the old and injured ones whom nobody wants she keeps and looks after with love and devotion. When I last enquired she had fourteen cats and two dogs living with her in the small house on the outskirts of the town. We all rally round with tins of cat food and bags of cat litter, but I know that looking after them all, and the strays she takes in temporarily, stretches her very limited resources to the utmost.  

“Hello Ella,” I said. “I haven’t seen you in ages. How are you?”  

She shook her head but didn’t reply for a moment and I noticed that she looked very drawn and weary.  

“Oh Sheila,” she burst out. “I’m so worried.”  

“Why? What’s the matter?”  

“You know how wonderful Simon and the others were about looking after my cats and never charging – well, now this new man’s come they say they can’t do that any more.”  

“No!”  

“I saw this man – Malcolm Hardy is his name – and he was really unpleasant. Said they weren’t a charity – well, I know that of course, but… well…”

“And Diana?” I asked, “what about her?”

“She was very upset, but she said there was nothing she could do about it. Apparently he has the say about what happens there now. Honestly, Sheila, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Poor little Mitsi has a tumour – Simon said it’s benign but it needs to be operated on. I’ll have to find the money somehow but, as you know, I only have my small pension…” Her voice trailed away again.

“Oh Ella, I’m so sorry. Look, let me pay for Mitsi.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t let you do that! No, I’ll manage this time, but it’s the future I’m so frightened of.”

“I suppose it’s only what we should have expected,” I said to Rosemary later that day,” but poor Ella, she’s at her wits’ end.”

“She does such marvellous work –” She broke off and then said excitedly, “I tell you what – let’s get up a sort of subscription list to raise money for her. There must be heaps of people she’s helped in some way or other. We could get them to make annual donations or something.”

“Brilliant! Let me know what you want me to do. And we’ll certainly let everyone know why we’re doing this and how vile Malcolm Hardy is being!”

“Right, then, let’s make a list and draft an appeal and you can do copies on your computer.”

I looked a little doubtful and Rosemary laughed. “Oh go on! I’m sure you can manage that. Anyway, Michael and Thea will help you.”

The response was very good and soon we had the promise of quite a substantial sum.

I told Diana about the scheme when I took Foss in for his final visit.

“What a good idea,” she said. “Put me down for £25.” She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Look, I’m really sorry about Ella. You know that if it was up to me we’d have continued the old arrangement.”

“Yes I’m sure…”

“It’s just that everything’s different now.”

“Yes,” I said. “I understand, and the £25 will be very welcome.”

She smiled gratefully. “Now then, I’ll just give this young man a final shot of antibiotic and then I don’t think we need to see him again. He’s really healed very well, but do try and stop him chasing rabbits quite so enthusiastically!”

Michael and Thea were very helpful about the support scheme for Ella, as Rosemary had predicted.

“But please, Ma,” Michael said, “for goodness sake don’t go around saying these things about Malcolm Hardy or he’ll be able to sue you for defamation.”

“I’m only saying what’s happened. He really has behaved abominably!”

“But not in any way illegally. And, after all, not everyone shares your obsession with animals. Some people would say it was only good business practice.”

“Oh, very well then. Anyway, we’ve got a splendid lot of promises.”

“We really need to set up a proper fund,” Thea said, “and make it all official and then people can pay annually by standing order. Michael, could you get the papers drawn up tomorrow?”

She was interrupted by a loud wailing.

“Oh dear,” Thea said, “I did hope she’d settled. She’s usually so good about going down in the evening.”

“Shall I go and see to her?” I asked.

“Oh would you? Then I can get on with supper.”

I went into the nursery and found my granddaughter wide awake and demanding attention. I picked her up gingerly. After 30 years one forgets just how fragile a really young baby seems. As I patted her back gently she became quiet and I was pleased to find that some actions still came automatically, even after all that time. I walked up and down the room humming quietly to her, as I used to do to Michael, and gradually she fell asleep and I was able to put her into her cot, where she lay on her back with her tiny starfish hands flung up onto the pillow on either side of her face. I stood for a moment looking down at her and thinking how lucky I was and wishing, with a tinge of sadness, that Peter could have seen his granddaughter and that my mother could have known that her great-granddaughter had been named Alice after her.

A few days later I was just coming out of the post office when I ran into Anthea.

“Oh Sheila, I’m so glad to have caught you. Have you got a minute?”

Fearful of being chivvied into another meeting of some kind, I began to formulate some sort of excuse but Anthea swept it aside.

“Come and have a coffee in the Buttery. I can come back here later.”

With our coffees (“No, nothing else for me, I never eat between meals”) in front of us I waited for Anthea to begin. However, unusually for her, she didn’t plunge straight in but seemed to hesitate. After a moment she said, “I’m really worried about Kathy.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“I can’t make it out. She’s obviously upset about something and she won’t tell me what it is.”

“Is it work?” I asked. “That new man, Malcolm Hardy, seems pretty disagreeable. Has he been unpleasant to her?”

“Well, she doesn’t seem to like him – none of them do – but I don’t think he’s been picking on her particularly. Mind you, now he’s brought this new girl in there’s been even more ill feeling.”

“New girl?”

“Yes, Julie Barnes – do you remember her mother, Cynthia Barnes? She used to be Cynthia Burton, married that farmer out at Winsford. Anyway, everyone thinks she’s this Malcolm Hardy’s girlfriend so you can imagine they all hate her.”

“Good heavens! And you think all this is why Kathy is so unhappy?”

“Oh no, I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”

“What does Jim think?”

“Oh,” Anthea said impatiently, “you know men, they never see anything. He just thinks I’m making a fuss about nothing. No, I wondered whether you could have a word with her.”

“Me?”

“Yes, she likes you – she was telling me how nice it was to see you the other day.”

“It was just at the surgery…” I began.

“And you’re both silly about animals,” Anthea went on. “I’m sure she’d talk to you.”

“Honestly Anthea, I really don’t think…”

“I did think of asking Jean to have a word, but they’ve never been close and Jean is so busy nowadays, what with her job and Philip and the boys. You know how full young people’s lives are these days!”

Widows, I reflected, are always thought to have empty lives and should therefore be grateful to be given any tasks that other people do not wish to perform in order to fill them.

“I really don’t think I can just ask her what the matter is right out of the blue like that,” I protested.

“Oh, you’ll think of something,” Anthea said airily. “You’re awfully good at getting people to talk to you. Look how marvellous you were with poor Margaret Payne when her husband left her. She wouldn’t talk to a soul until you had a word with her and then it all came pouring out!”

“But that was completely different,” I complained to Rosemary the next day. “I’ve known Margaret since we were at school together, she’s my generation. But although I’ve known Kathy since she was a child I don’t really know her. Not enough to ask her personal questions like that.”

“Anthea is the limit,” Rosemary said, “the way she simply tanks over people. Still, if I was Kathy and I had a problem I’d be more inclined to talk to you than to Anthea.”

“Still, I can hardly go and knock on her door and say, ‘Your mother’s worried about you’, now can I?”

“I expect you’ll bump into her, you know what it’s like in Taviscombe, you’re always running into people.”

And, in fact, I did bump into Kathy a few days later – well it was a bit more calculated than that. I was walking Tris along by the sea when I saw a solitary figure sitting in one of the shelters just past the harbour. As I got closer I saw that it was Kathy. She was obviously lost in thought and didn’t notice me approach, in fact she looked very much as if she wanted to be alone, but I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss and called out to her.

“Hello Kathy, isn’t it a lovely day?”

She looked up startled.

“Oh, Mrs Malory, how are you?”

“Fine, though Tris and I have been for quite a long walk and we both need a little rest. Do you mind if we join you?”

“No, of course not.” She bent and patted Tris, who rolled over to have his stomach rubbed.

“You’re so good with animals!” I said impulsively. “You must find your job very rewarding.”

“Oh yes – that is I love working with the animals…”

“But not the people?”

“No, most of them are very nice, it’s just – well, it’s all a bit different now.”

“You mean Malcolm Hardy?” I suggested.

She nodded.

“And this Julie Barnes? Is she Malcolm’s girlfriend?”

“We think so,” Kathy said, “though I don’t think they live together or anything.”

“But?”

“But it’s uncomfortable having her around – we all feel she’s sort of spying on us, reporting what we do and say back to him.”

“It sounds very unpleasant.”

“It is! It used to be such a happy practice, but everything’s horrible now.” She spoke vehemently and I was startled by this show of feeling in Kathy, who has always seemed to me to be an equable kind of girl.

“Do the others feel the same?”

“Diana’s very upset about it all – Malcolm’s taken over all the big decisions and really runs the whole thing, so you can imagine how she must feel. And Keith’s run off his feet – Malcolm gives him all the difficult, tiresome things to do and then keeps on at him saying that he’s not pulling his weight.”

“And Ben?”

“He’s sacked Ben.”

“I’m so sorry. What will he do? There isn’t another practice in the district – will he have to move away?”

“He can’t – well, it wouldn’t be easy for him. His wife’s ill, you see, in a nursing home here.”

“I didn’t know that. How dreadful for him. And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you and Alison and Susie.”

“Oh Susie’s gone – she said she wouldn’t stand for being spoken to the way he did. That’s when he brought in Julie.”

“And how does he speak to you?”

“He’s – well, he’s not very nice. He’s often quite rude and disagreeable and he doesn’t allow us to do half the interesting things Simon and Diana let us do, helping with operations and so on. He says we’re not trained to do them, but that’s not true, we’re both qualified veterinary assistants.”

“It all sounds perfectly awful,” I said. “Do you feel like leaving too, like Susie?”

She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Well, to tell you the truth I have been thinking of it. But, as you say there’s no other practice around here – even if there was a vacancy.”

“And you haven’t thought of moving away?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’d hate to leave Taviscombe.”

“You might go to Taunton,” I suggested. “A lot of your friends in the opera group live around there, don’t they?”

“Yes, but they’re not really my friends – I mean, I know them quite well of course, from singing with them, but well… No, I’ll just have to stay here for the moment and hope that things get better.”

“What’s happened to Susie, where did she go?”

“She’s got a boyfriend who lives near Weymouth – she’s going to work at a practice down there.”

“Lucky Susie.”

“Yes.”

We were both silent for a while until Tris gave a little bark at a passing seagull. I gathered up my courage and said, “Kathy, is everything all right? I mean, I know it’s difficult at work, but you seem very down. Is there something else?”

She stared out to sea and didn’t answer for a while, then she burst out, “No – everything’s awful! Perhaps I should