Pneumonia, the young Indian doctor had said. He had been so gentle and kind, and when Lois had finally collapsed and couldn’t stop crying, he’d whispered to Peter White that he should stay and look after her.
“Are you Mr Meade?” the doctor had asked and the vicar had shaken his head vigorously.
“No, no, just a friend.” He had felt ridiculously pleased to be mistaken for Lois’s husband. And Josie’s father. He had a sudden vision of what he had missed. “I’ll just go and get us a cup of tea, Lois,” he said. “If you’ll be OK by yourself for a minute or two?” He felt strong and responsible for something that really mattered. When he returned with mugs of tea, he saw a man standing by the bed, close to Josie.
“Thanks a lot, Vicar,” said Lois, standing up. “This is my husband, Derek. They got hold of him and he came straight over.” She was whispering and he noticed her hand now clutching Derek’s.
“Oh, right,” Peter White said. “You’ll be all right now, then. Not need me any more?” They shook their heads kindly at him.
“Thanks a lot,” whispered Lois. “I don’t know what I’d’ve done if you hadn’t…well, you know…”
“Oh no,” said Peter White. “It was just lucky…Well, I’ll be off now. Let me know if…well, you’ve got Derek now, and I’m sure…”
He backed away from the still figure asleep in the bed, her parents watching over her. As he walked away down the long corridor and out to his car, loneliness, his old enemy, gripped his heart. Self-pity, he told himself. That’s all it is. You could do something about it. Not too late to find a wife and make a real home. He sighed, and drove out of the hospital car park. It was not until he was driving into Farnden that he remembered the urgent warning he’d set out to deliver to Lois, and wondered if she would be at work tomorrow. Very unlikely, he thought, and planned to call her in the morning if she didn’t turn up.
¦
As Peter White had expected, Lois did not come to work. He had every reason to speak to her and ask after Josie, so soon after breakfast he made the call. She answered at once, as if she had been standing by the telephone.
“Oh hello,” she said. “I thought it might be the hospital. They sent me home to get some sleep, but I can’t. I just can’t help worrying about her and – ”
“Lois, listen to me,” said Peter White, a new authority in his voice. “It doesn’t matter a bit if you can’t sleep. Just relax – watch the telly – any old rubbish will do. You can catch up on sleep later. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m coming over to see you. It’ll help to talk to someone, and anyway, I do have something important to tell you. Is that OK, my dear? I shan’t stay long.”
To his relief, she agreed listlessly, saying that she had to go back to the hospital shortly, but would wait for him to come over. “I’ve got this feeling that if I’m not there, she’ll wake up and really need me. You know…”
¦
Both she and Derek had come home in the early hours, and neither wanted to go to bed. They had sat without speaking for a while and then Derek had asked what exactly had happened. She told him about the vicar and Derek wondered why the doctor had never turned up. Then, Lois had broken down again and confessed that she hadn’t ever sent for him.
“I wanted to wait and see if she got better after a sleep. You know how kids do.”
Derek had accepted this, but Lois knew that the truth was something different. She’d been so full of her new discoveries about Nurse Surfleet and Gloria that she’d all but forgotten her sick daughter upstairs. And then that call to Keith. She’d laughed in triumph as she got what she wanted from him. Laughed! And Josie upstairs getting sicker and sicker! Lois had flushed with shame and Derek had put his hand on her forehead.
“Now, Lois, we don’t want you coming down with the bug. Off to bed now,” he had urged. “I’ll be up in a minute.”
¦
Now here was Peter White, worried and pale, sitting in her best armchair, asking about treatment and visiting times and breaking into her endless thoughts of self-blame and condemnation.
“Sorry, what did you say?” He was looking at her closely, as if wanting an answer to some question he had asked.
“Don’t worry, Lois,” he said. “It’s just that I thought I should warn you to be careful. In Farnden, you know. With the other people you clean for. Epecially the Barratts,” he added, ploughing on, though he was not sure that Lois was listening.
“Barratts? Why…what do you mean?” Lois’s eyes had focused on him now, and he had her attention.
“Well, to do with the murder, really,” he said. “There was something not very nice going on in the village. I knew about it, of course. But I considered it none of my business.” May God forgive me, he thought. “I felt sorry for their wives, of course, but you know what they say: Never come between man and wife.” He tried a small smile, but met no reciprocal one from Lois.
“What exactly are you saying, Reverend White?” said Lois. She was sitting up straight now.
“It was mostly Malcolm Barratt and Dallas Baer,” he said. “They were at the root of it. Some book they’d read about couples in America – yes, that was it,
“And me? Why is it dangerous for me?” said Lois, completely alert.
“Because you have the opportunity to…well, not to put too fine a point on it, snoop, my dear. Not that you would, of course,” he added hastily. “But I believe you should be careful. Very careful. Somebody killed Gloria Hathaway and in my view it was not unconnected with what I’ve just told you. And that somebody may be capable of further violence.” Had he gone too far? He didn’t think so. “There’s no need for you to worry any more about it. You have quite enough to think about now. Just be careful, that’s all.” He stood up, and patted her shoulder.
She nodded. “Well, thanks,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”
¦
In the long vigil by Josie’s bed, Lois had plenty of time to think. As she watched her daughter’s face slowly change from parchment to something more resembling a living creature, she began to relax at last. She had sifted all the information that Peter White had told her a thousand times through her brain. He could have been trying to put the blame on Prof Barratt to cover himself. She knew that things were beginning to fall into place. But first things first, she said to herself.
Then Josie opened her eyes, frowned, and said in a frightened voice, “Mum? What’s happened? I feel sick…”
Long Farnden suddenly seemed a very long way away.
? Murder on Monday ?
Thirty-One
Two weeks had elapsed since Josie’s illness and she was beginning to regain her strength, pottering around at home. It had been a worrying time for Lois. Hard on the heels of the shock of Derek’s dalliance with Gloria, the anxiety and feeling of guilt about Josie had reduced Lois to something of an automaton. She organized her household and family into a rigid routine, and even her mother was given orders each day for what was required.
“It’s the only way I can be sure everyone is taken care of,” she said when Derek suggested she might relax and give them all a break. She returned to work, but went through her cleaning tasks efficiently and without, if possible, conversation with her employers. If it was unavoidable, she kept her replies to noncommittal banalities.
She did not want to think of anything but home and family. Remembering the vicar’s warning, she convinced herself that nothing she could do would bring Gloria’s murderer any quicker to justice. The police would succeed. It was time to forget the whole business and concentrate on what was most important. She suspected she had made an idiot of herself, and it was time to make amends.
¦
It was a fine Monday morning and she was just back from the doctor’s house, where Mary Rix had been blithely singing along with her sewing machine in the new, light and airy little room. Dr Rix, too, had been cheerful
