Tragedy at Two Read Free Page B

He’s dying!” she screamed, and then staff seemed to come from nowhere and the room was full of activity.
     
     
    DEREK WAS MAKING SURE THE DOORS WERE ALL LOCKED AND bolted when the telephone rang. It was Josie and she could hardly speak.
    “Dad? He’s gone. Rob’s gone.”
    “Who is it?” said Lois, and with one look at Derek’s face, knew it was Josie. She took the receiver from him and listened to her daughter’s stumbling account of how everything had been tried but nothing could bring him back to life.
    “Stay where you are,” Lois said. “We’ll be there in no time. Is someone with you?”
    A nurse came to the phone and assured Lois that they would look after Josie until they could pick her up. “Drive carefully, now, Mrs. Meade,” she said. “Arrive alive.”
    Under the circumstances, Lois thought this was probably the most tactless thing she had ever heard said by anyone.

FIVE

    WITH JOSIE SAFELY BACK IN FARNDEN, TUCKED UP IN BED in her old room, the night passed in fitful sleep for them all. Josie had taken pills the hospital gave her, and was troubled with nightmares, all of them involving darkness and violence. Gran took the photograph of her smiling husband and put it on the pillow next to her, and Derek and Lois spent the night waking each other as they surfaced from troubled sleep.
    Next morning was a bad time for them all. Derek said he might as well go off and finish the job he was doing in Waltonby, and Lois and Gran sighed with relief as he went off in his van.
    “Best keeping himself occupied,” Gran said. “You and me can see to all the necessaries, Lois.”
    The telephone rang. Lois sighed. She knew who it was, and went into her office to answer the phone away from Gran’s sharp ears.
    “I was expecting a call from you earlier,” Lois said, and Cowgill replied that contrary to belief, the police were not without sensitivity.
    “How is Josie?” he asked, and winced as Lois said what the hell did he expect when the girl’s longtime partner had been brutally murdered?
    “Right. Please tell her how sorry we are. I need some help, Lois. Rob was, as you say, brutally attacked and left for dead. Now the poor fellow has died, and that is murder. We need to move quickly.”
    “Before they get on the road?” Lois said.
    “What d’you mean? Who? Do you know something, Lois?”
    “Only that one or two nosy parkers in the village have already assured me that it was one of the gypsies camped outside Farnden. I know nowt, and wouldn’t be so stupid as to jump to such an obvious conclusion.”
    “Nor would I, Lois. I think we need to meet, but I realise this will be diffic ult for you. It is just that you and your family can probably give us a good start in our investigations.”
    “A good start! You mean you’ve not started yet? Good God, man, Rob was attacked more than twenty-f our hours ago!”
    Cowgill frowned. “You know as well as I do, Lois, that I used a figure of speech. Of course we began as soon as the news came in.” He paused, and she did not reply.
    “So,” he continued, “I’ll be with you at twelve noon. If Gran and Derek could be there, so much the better. Goodbye.”
    And goodbye to you, too, Lois said to herself. She realised she had pushed Cowgill too far. She should know by now that he could be totally professional when required, even with her. But the sound of someone being violently sick in the bathroom put Cowgill from her mind, and she rushed upstairs. It was Josie, and she had awoken, not remembering for a few minutes. Then the whole nightmare had come back to her with a vengeance, and she vomited as if she would never stop.
    Lois coaxed her downstairs, and with Gran managed to persuade her to have a cup of tea and a piece of toast and Marmite. “You always used to like Marmite when you were a little girl,” said Gran. “It’ll be easier if you can get something inside you. Here, Lois,” she added, “you’d better have some, too. It’s going to