After he’d gone, Ally asked the girls to see if their mother wanted anything because Morag hadn’t got in there for a couple of days and she might need fresh towels and bedding. Or goodies for the tea tray.
As Julie took herself upstairs to find out, Janey said, ‘We’re both really worried about Mom, but Auntie Wendy’s gone to the chemist to get the prescription so hopefully that’ll do the trick.’
Ally sincerely hoped that it would and could only hope that tomorrow would bring a noticeable improvement.
It didn’t.
Later, Ally would always remember the next day as The Day from Hell.
First of all, there was panic at breakfast time with both girls in tears because their mother now seemed to be semi-conscious.
On top of that, there was no sign of Morag. Then the phone rang. ‘I’m sorry, Ally, but I’m feelin’ bloody awful – all shivery like – and I’m thinkin’ I might have the flu or somethin’ because it’s goin’ round at the moment…’
‘I’m so sorry, Morag. Just take it easy and get well.’
Ally sighed as she came off the phone. For a brief moment, she didn’t know which way to turn, until Ross took matters into his own hands.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Let me phone Amir first and ask if we should get an ambulance or what the system is when a suspect is ill. Then I’ll tidy up down here if you concentrate on the bedrooms.’
It was on days like this that Ally loved Ross more than ever because he never lost his cool.
She went into the dining room to see if anyone wanted anything and found only the two girls in there. ‘Where’s Wendy?’ she asked.
‘Oh, she and Joel have gone off somewhere,’ Julie replied, ‘but we wanted to stay with Mom.’
‘I think your mum should probably be in hospital,’ Ally said, ‘but we’ll see how she is as the day goes on. So try not to worry too much. I shall be doing the bedrooms this morning because Morag’s not well.’
‘We’ve tried to keep our room tidy,’ Janey said, rolling her eyes at her sister.
‘Let me worry about that,’ Ally replied.
Back in the kitchen, Ross had phoned Amir, who’d said tocontact him immediately if they thought it was necessary to call an ambulance. And so she set off to do the bedrooms.
Aware that the girls were in the sitting room downstairs, she decided to clean their room first. It wasn’t nearly as messy as she’d feared, and apart from wiping the shower and replacing towels, she was soon finished. She was finding it all exhausting though, no doubt down to her age, and she sincerely hoped Morag’s flu wouldn’t last long.
Wendy’s room was neat and orderly, and Ally got it done fairly quickly.
As Ally dusted down the bedside cabinet, she noticed the top drawer wouldn’t close properly. She opened it to see what was causing the obstruction and discovered it was a toiletry bag. She tried to adjust it so that the drawer would close, but there was a small plastic box in the way. Intrigued, Ally picked up the box and took off the lid. It contained some sort of seeds.
Ally stared at it all for several minutes, trying to work out why it all seemed strangely familiar. Then she remembered.
Back in the days when she’d been a TV researcher, one of her jobs had been to work out which poisons might be used to kill off the protagonist in a crime drama. She’d had to study all manner of poisons to come up with some answer for what, in the programme, was to be revealed in the coroner’s report.
Ally remembered these. They were laburnum seeds, highly poisonous and easily available. There were no laburnums in the malthouse garden, but there were several in Desdemona’s. Could Wendy possibly have taken them from Desdemona’s garden?
As she put the box back into the drawer, her fingers brushed a crumpled, torn scrap of paper. There was something vaguely familiar about it as Ally unravelled it.
…at the Borgue Boulder, the big rock half a mile from Loch Soular on the path to Locharran Castle.
Ally read the note three times before she realised what it was. This had to be the other half of the note she’d found by Greg’s body and given to Amir. Why was it in Wendy’s possession? Could she have possibly been blackmailing her own husband? And didheknow he was being blackmailed byher? Surely he had no idea, or he wouldn’t have set off for that particular rendezvous when he could sort it all out with her face to face in this very room.
Ally froze for a minute. Then she carefully replaced the lid on the box of seeds, but, on second thoughts, she took a small handful and popped them into her pocket. She was beginning to feel sick.
Wendy?
Wendy, who didn’t want to bother with getting a doctor. Wendy, who’d spooned out Patti’s muesli – and who would notice a few extra seeds in their muesli, for goodness’ sake! Wendy, whose husband had been having an affair with Patti. Greg could only have been killed by Wendy, couldn’t he? Had he thought he was going to meet some blackmailer from the village perhaps?
Ally closed the door and made her way shakily downstairs, wondering what to do first. Then she decided: she’d phone Desdemona, who would probably remember the Watsons’ impromptu arrival but not necessarily what they’d got up to. Nevertheless, it was worth a try.
