“And why weren’t you with them?”
“I left early, I had a headache,” Nova said, her voice rising in panic.
“Nova, we need you to come to the station with us,” Yusaf said, his tone gentle but insistent. “It would be much easier if you came willingly,please.”
“Okay, fine.” Nova looked around her, flustered. “I just don’t know what to do about this place, I can’t leave everyone here unsupervised.”
“Don’t worry, I can hold the fort until Lauren arrives,” Arthur said.
“Are you sure? She should be here soon.”
“Come on, let’s get going,” the second officer said, taking Nova’s arm.
The young woman allowed herself to be led toward the exit, but as she reached the door, she turned back to Arthur.
“You need to speak to Phyllis. Tell her that her theory might be correct after all.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Phyllis
Phyllis sat on the sofa, an embroidery needle motionless in her hand, her eyes fixed on the telephone. The vet had said he’d call her landline with an update this morning, and so Phyllis had been sitting by the telephone since five a.m. She was gasping for a cup of tea and her bladder was uncomfortably full, but she wouldn’t, couldn’t, dare move in case the phone rang while she was out of the room.
Phyllis had never been so aware of the deafening silence of her home. She may have lived here her entire life, but for the first sixty-five years she’d had her mother as a companion, a woman who either prayed loudly or complained loudly from the moment she woke to the moment she went to sleep. Even on her deathbed, Eliza Hudson had barely drawn breath between criticizing Phyllis and demanding water. When she finally passed away, Phyllis had spent a week echoing round the empty cottage, and then the day after her mother’s funeral, she’d gone to the dog shelter and found a small, neglected English bulldog puppy. Phyllis had been accompanied by Craddock’s wheezes, snorts and farts ever since. But today, the onlysound was the agonizing tick of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, tormenting Phyllis with its slow progress.
The clock said it was 10:35. This was well and truly midmorning so why hadn’t the vet rung yet? Was the fact he hadn’t bad news? Did that mean…
Phyllis closed her eyes to try and block out the questions, but that was no help. All she could see was Craddock yesterday: his labored, ragged breaths, the tremors that shook his whole body and the convulsions as he vomited. Phyllis opened her eyes and returned her attention to the mutinous phone.
There was a ringing sound, piercing the silence, and Phyllis’s hand shot out to grab the handset.
“Hello?”
Her word was met with the dead tone of the phone line. Then the ring sounded again and she groaned. It was the damn doorbell, not the phone. For a moment, Phyllis considered ignoring it, but what if it was the vet, coming to tell her the bad news in person? She got to her feet and hurried to the front door. Through the frosted glass she could make out a single dark silhouette on the other side. Her hand was shaking so much she could barely pull back the chain and turn the lock. She took a deep breath, bracing herself for the moment when the bottom fell out of her world. But when she pulled the door back, she saw not the fresh-faced young vet, but the weathered mug of Arthur Robinson.
“What do you want?” Even in the midst of her grief, Phyllis knew that wasn’t a particularly polite welcome, but she didn’t have time for social callers right now.
“Morning, Phyllis,” Arthur said. “I was wondering if I could pop in and—”
“Now’s not a good time.” Phyllis stepped back and shut the doorin his face. The phone was still silent, but it could ring at any moment and what if she didn’t get there in time?
“It’s about Nova,” Arthur called through the glass. “She’s been arrested.”
Phyllis paused in the hallway. Her eyes flicked toward the living room, but then she turned and pulled the door open again. “What are you talking about, man?”
“Just now, at the community center. Sandy was attacked last night, and the police think Nova did it.”
“What? That girl’s terrified of her own shadow; she couldn’t hurt a fly. Why do the cops think it was her?”
“Someone wearing a red coat was seen outside Sandy’s house around the time of the attack. Nova said I needed to speak to you. She said, ‘Tell Phyllis her theory might be right.’ ”
“Of course I’m bloody right,” Phyllis muttered. “Okay, you’d better come in. But take your shoes off, I don’t want your filthy boots all over my carpet.”
Phyllis hurried back to the phone. Arthur was so large that he had to stoop to get through her door, and then he stood in the middle of the room, his eyes surveying the ancient furniture and bare walls, with nothing but a large wooden crucifix as decoration. Phyllis’s mother had made no secret of the fact she regretted getting married and having a child as opposed to becoming a nun, which she believed was her true calling, and so she’d decorated her home as if it were a particularly austere convent.
“It’s a…lovely place you have here,” Arthur mumbled.
“It does me fine.”
