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‘But you only know him through the firm? There’s no personal relationship?’
‘None at all. I’ve only met him twice, in fact – the first time three years ago. His firm owned the boat Terry chartered.’
Sergeant Maddrell watched her as she broke off. ‘The boat you and your husband were on, the one that was wrecked?’
She nodded.
‘And the second time you met him?’
‘At the party for Sean’s engagement.’
The policeman’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Now that is an odd coincidence – that you met him first just before your husband was drowned, and then again, just before you heard a girl drowning in the office block.’
Miranda didn’t answer. Sergeant Maddrell was intelligent enough to seize upon the coincidence, but she still could not tell him that she called the Greek the Angel of Death.
‘Have you talked to Terry and Sean since the girl was reported missing?’ she asked.
‘We’re going down to their country house this afternoon.’
The reply surprised her. ‘Wasn’t Terry at work this morning?’
‘Yes, he was, but we preferred to interview them in the country. I want to get an idea of the ground around it.’
Were they going to search it for the girl’s body? Where would Sean have hidden it? It must be buried somewhere, you couldn’t just leave a dead body lying about. But there was plenty of room to hide it in the grounds of Terry’s country house.
That would suggest, though, that he knew his son had killed the girl. Sean could surely not have buried a body near the house without his father knowing?
The nurse came along with a trolley of rattling medicine containers, pulled back her curtains and nodded to Neil Maddrell in a friendly, bossy way. ‘Sorry, officer, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave now. It’s time for the patients to have their treatments and they won’t want an audience. You can come back tomorrow if you need to ask her any more questions.’
He stood up immediately. ‘I may do that. I hope you’re feeling better by tomorrow, Mrs Grey.’
He walked out of the ward watched by seven pairs of female eyes. ‘Now he’s nice,’ the nurse said, and Miranda agreed with her.
Later, the woman in the bed next to her asked, ‘Was that really a policeman visiting you? Was he asking questions about your accident? It was a hit and run driver wasn’t it? Have they caught him?’
How did such gossip get around? Presumably they had asked the nurse.
‘Not yet, but they have had some information, and they wanted to check it with me.’ Miranda was on medication that left her drowsy and peaceful, and finding out that the police now believed her about Sean was very comforting. The tension had drained out of her. She felt safe, her body heavy and limp.
‘Well, let’s hope they get him soon. They want locking up, driving like that. He could have killed you.’
Had he intended to? that was the question, but Miranda was not going to discuss that with the other woman.
‘I’m Joan Patterson, by the way. Your name’s Miranda, isn’t it? I heard the nurse talking to you. You don’t mind me using first names? Call me Joan.’
She was much older, about fifty, with a thin, flushed face and sharp, curious eyes.
Miranda made a polite response, but her heart sank as she realised the other woman was one of the sort who talks non-stop, barely pausing to give you a chance to reply.
Her mother arrived that evening, along with the other visitors streaming into the ward with bunches of flowers, bags of fruit and boxes of sweets. The patients were all sitting up against banked pillows, beds very tidy, their hair brushed and most of them wearing make-up which they had spent the last half-hour applying slowly and intently.
Miranda had not expected a visitor and was surprised to see her mother, wearing a flowered scarf flowing round her neck, coming along the ward towards her, clutching flowers.
‘Now what have you been up to?’ she asked, dropping the brown-paper-wrapped flowers on to the bedside table and leaning down to kiss Miranda’s cheek. ‘Getting yourself run over! Silly girl.’
‘Hello, Mum.’ Miranda was suddenly surrounded by her mother’s perfume; a home-made essence of lavender Dorothy made every year. She made rose water, too, from the flood of roses which appeared in her garden each spring and summer. On shelves in her kitchen the glass bottles of perfume stood in rows. The sun shone through them and made an impressionistic wash of pink and mauve on the green walls.
‘What on earth were you doing, to get yourself into this state, darling?’
