Too Soon a Death: A Scottish mystery where cosy crime meets tartan noir: Borders Mysteries Book 2 (18 page)

She woke with a start when her book fell onto the ground. Four o’clock already. She’d slept for more than an hour. A good thing she was awake now, as the sun had moved round and the large umbrella stuck in the middle of the garden table no longer protected her bare legs from its rays. Wisely, Mac had repositioned himself while she slept but he wandered over, tail wagging, when he saw she was awake.

A text had come in while she slept.
Want to go to beach on Weds? K

Maybe too hot for me. Refuse to wear bikini at present. Z

Have use of beach hut so no excuses.

It was no good arguing and anyway a trip to the seaside might be fun.
OK Pick you up @ 11. Will bring food. You bring drinks & dog.

After going indoors for a glass of water and to replenish Mac’s bowl, Zoe moved her sunbed and sat down again. She stared at her mobile. There had still been no word from Andrew. Maybe she could risk ringing him? He’d told her he didn’t keep her number stored in his phone but had memorised it and deleted the record every time they spoke. If anyone else answered her call, there was no way they could know who she was.

She took a deep breath and pressed the keypad on her mobile. After a couple of rings a male voice which wasn’t Andrew’s said, ‘Hello.’

‘Sorry, wrong number.’ Zoe broke off the connection and flung her mobile, as though it had become too hot to handle, into the chair next to her. She sat wishing she’d withheld her number and waiting for the person who’d answered—was it Andrew’s son?—to call back.

The house phone rang instead.

TWENTY

The phone call late on Monday afternoon had been from Paul. He had sounded so vague about his meeting with Walter that Zoe suspected Walter was listening in as they spoke. All she’d been able to glean was that the partners met to discuss the future of the practice and her name had—not unexpectedly—come up. She had agreed to see them on Tuesday lunchtime. Now that time had arrived and she was walking towards the health centre’s front door, her stomach churning in a way which couldn’t be blamed on the baby.

The trouble with Walter was his unpredictability. During Zoe’s first few months at the practice, he had sometimes lulled her into a false sense of security by behaving like a normal person, then out of the blue he would do something completely unexpected, like that time he accused her of passing on confidential information to the police. She and Paul had eventually discovered the root of his resentment towards her, but she could never relax around him and always felt he was teetering on the edge of a complete meltdown, when he would run through a litany of all her failings and end by telling her to get out and never come back.

Colin sat at the reception desk next to the fan Margaret had claimed while Walter was away. She must have won that particular tug of war; something else for Walter to be grumpy about. Zoe and Colin exchanged greetings and he cocked his head in the direction of Paul’s office. ‘I’m to tell you to join them in there as soon as you arrive.’

‘Thanks.’ Zoe took a deep breath and strode towards the closed door, hoping she looked more composed than she felt.

Paul responded to her knock immediately, telling her to come in. The first thing she noticed was the heat in the room; Paul had obviously given his own fan to Walter as a peace offering. It crossed her mind that if things got too difficult, she would be able to feign a convincing dizzy spell. Both men watched her sit down on the only available chair, which had been positioned uncomfortably close to Walter’s.

‘How are you, my dear?’ Paul asked, as if weeks rather than hours had passed since he last saw her.

‘I’m doing away, as I think the expression goes.’

Paul smiled while Walter, clutching a manila envelope, remained stony-faced.

‘We’re having this meeting,’ Paul said, ‘because I’m sad to say that Walter has decided to leave the practice and return to Wales for good.’

Unsure if she should feign surprise and determined not to express any false regret, Zoe settled on giving a brief nod.

‘I’ve told Walter that you and I—at my instigation—briefly discussed this possibility, as I had an inkling it may be in the offing. And that you were interested in exploring the possibility of becoming—’

Walter held up a hand, stopping Paul mid-sentence. Zoe shifted in her seat, suddenly desperate to move away from his knee, which was nearly touching hers.

‘It’s not quite as simple as that.’ Walter pulled a document out of the envelope he held and passed it to Paul. ‘I’ve been reading the agreement we both signed when I joined the practice. It appears I have a say in who replaces me, and I recommend we cast our net wider than you’re suggesting.’

Despite being clean-shaven now, Paul made the gesture bearded men often use to indicate deep thought, stroking his face with a hand as he read the clause which Walter had helpfully marked with a highlighter pen. Then he put the document down and said, ‘Ah.’

Walter said, ‘I have a friend, currently a salaried GP in another practice, who is very interested in moving here. He’s been waiting for an opportunity like this.’

‘You’ve already discussed it with him?’ Paul asked.

‘Indeed I have. The practice would be in a safe pair of hands if he became your junior partner.’

Zoe took a deep breath. If she couldn’t stop her heart from racing, there would be no need to pretend to faint. Paul caught her eye and smiled. Was he trying to apologise or be reassuring?

She stood up, not as quickly as she would have liked, but at least she got both men’s attention. ‘It sounds like you two have a lot to discuss. I’ll be in my room for a couple of hours, doing paperwork, then I’m off all day tomorrow.’

Avoiding Paul’s gaze, Zoe turned and walked out. Half an hour later, as she was reflecting on how much she hated paperwork, Margaret arrived carrying a mug of herbal tea.

‘I thought you might like this,’ Margaret said.

‘You’re an angel, thank you.’

‘They’re still at it. I even heard raised voices, which isn’t like Doctor Paul.’

‘You know what’s going on, don’t you?’

Margaret sat down opposite Zoe and leaned across the desk. ‘I’m only saying this because he’ll not be here much longer,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never liked that man. My Hector says the sooner he buggers off back to Wales, the better.’

‘You hide your feelings very well. I’m afraid that after my first few weeks, when he made it obvious he didn’t want me here, I couldn’t be bothered anymore.’

‘It’s my job to get on with everyone.’ Margaret patted Zoe’s hand. ‘But there are some of you I like more than others.’

Zoe was about to say how much she appreciated the older woman’s kindness when the door swung wide open and Colin rushed in.

‘Doctor Zoe, I need your help. My patient’s collapsed.’

TWENTY-ONE

Kate arrived at Keeper’s Cottage earlier on Wednesday morning than she and Zoe had agreed, eager to talk about events at the health centre the previous afternoon before she was even inside the front door. ‘I heard about old Mrs Curtis. They’re saying it was another heart attack and you tried to save her. Is that true?’

‘I did try to save her, yes, but it would be wrong of me to tell you any more until the post mortem’s done and her family’s been told,’ Zoe said.

‘She hasn’t got any family.’

‘Even so, I can’t discuss it. You should know that by now.’

Kate shrugged. ‘It was worth a try.’

‘Has anyone ever told you you’re callous?’

‘No, because I’m not. But I’m also not a hypocrite. She wasn’t a very nice woman and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. I was more concerned about you when Mum told me what happened.’

Zoe thought back to the previous afternoon and how she’d rushed to the treatment room with Colin while Margaret called an ambulance. As soon as she saw Mrs Curtis she knew it was hopeless, but they went through the motions anyway, until the paramedics arrived and took over. ‘I’m always sad to lose a patient but it was far worse for the other staff. However ill they are, people don’t usually die while they’re at the health centre.’

‘I hadn’t thought about that aspect of it.’

‘Our newest receptionist was so upset, we had to send her home.’ The arrival of the ambulance had also broken up the partners’ meeting, with Paul rushing to help, followed more slowly by Walter.

This quietened Kate, giving Zoe enough time to put Mac on his lead and pick up a brightly coloured canvas bag she’d rescued the previous night from the sacks of charity shop donations which still stood in her hall. After grabbing a hat and putting on her sunglasses, she ushered Kate out of the house.

‘Can we take the Jeep? I’m more comfortable in it these days.’

‘As long as Mac accepts he’s sitting in the back. It’ll make a nice change not to drive.’

‘You can be navigator. I don’t know where we’re going.’

‘It won’t take us long to get there. Which is good, because I’m gagging to ask your advice about something.’

The drive to Coldingham took them just over half an hour. Zoe thought she had been to the village once before but only on the way somewhere else, and she was in uncharted territory when Kate told her to take a right turn just before the pub. Soon they came out the other side of the village and Kate again pointed to a road off to the right.

The number of vehicles in the car park made Zoe fear the beach would be packed, but as they walked over the dunes she realised that like most visitor attractions in the Borders, Coldingham Bay had room to spare. Small groups of people were scattered across the sand but there was plenty of space between them even with the tide in. Mac whined and strained on his lead, and Zoe felt unexpectedly gripped by a desire to kick off her shoes, run across the sand and plunge into the sea.

‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’ Kate said.

‘I had no idea this was so close to home. Why have you never brought me here before?’

‘I don’t think of you as an incomer anymore, so I assumed you knew about it.’ Kate beckoned Zoe to follow her. ‘Come on.’

As they walked along the beach, Kate explained that Auntie Joan had recently bought a beach hut, something she’d set her heart on several years previously but which rarely came up for sale. ‘She says it needs work, but she’ll wait till the autumn before getting someone in. It’s dark green apparently, which she hates, but that should make it easy to find.’

True enough, the beach hut they were looking for stood out from the white, blue and turquoise ones. Kate unlocked the door and removed the window shutter. Inside, it resembled little more than a clean garden shed, with most of the floor space occupied by folded-up deckchairs, a windbreak, assorted buckets and spades, and a pair of semi-inflated lilos. A gas stove, a full mug-tree and a glass jar of sugar sat on top of a small cupboard positioned against the rear wall.

‘I’m starving already. Must be all this sea air,’ Kate said. ‘Let’s pull the seats out so we can reach the cupboard and find something to eat our lunch on.’

Zoe hoped to find a seat which offered her more support than the old-fashioned deckchairs but eventually had to admit defeat, cautiously lowering herself into one at its most upright setting. She put her foot through the loop of Mac’s lead. Kate had suggested letting him run free but he’d never been to a beach before and might be too excited by the experience to come back, especially if he encountered people with food.

‘You won’t be getting out of that in a hurry,’ Kate said, laughing. ‘But there’s no need for you to. Just stay there and I’ll bring your lunch to you.’

She soon unearthed a foldaway table and set it down in front of Zoe, loading it with plates, glasses and more food than her backpack seemed capable of holding, then turning to Zoe’s bag and bringing out its contents. During all this, unable to maintain eye contact for them to carry on a conversation, Zoe sat back to enjoy the sea breeze which gently ruffled Mac’s coat and admire the view of the horizon where an extraordinarily blue sky met sea just a few shades darker.

‘Eat up,’ Kate said as she finally sat in her own deckchair. ‘We’ll take a walk along the shoreline afterwards so don’t hold back.’

Zoe helped herself to a slice of homemade game-pie, one of Etta’s specialities. ‘You and Erskine okay again?

‘Aye. He said he’d seen you on Saturday morning and that you were a bit snarky with him. He also admitted he deserved it. You can judge how guilty a man feels by the size of the bouquet he gives you. Mine was huge.’

‘I’m glad you’ve sorted yourselves out.’

‘Till next time.’ Kate frowned. ‘You know I said I had something big to tell you?’

‘You don’t look very happy about it, whatever it is.’

‘I need to handle this in a cool, calm and collected manner, so I’m hoping you’ll tell me what to do.’

‘Now you’re being a tease.’

‘You’ll never guess who’s got in touch with me via my website.’

‘George Clooney thinks he may be descended from William Wallace?’

‘I wish. No, here’s the thing, I got an email from Mrs Mather yesterday. Though she goes by her maiden name, Laura Foxton.’

Zoe’s mouth dropped open. ‘Oh my God. Was it telling you to stay away from her husband?’

‘That’s what I expected, when I saw it sitting there in my inbox. Took me ages to pluck up the courage to open it. But it’s actually just . . . strange. Here, see for yourself.’ Kate reached into a side pocket of her backpack and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

Zoe scanned the message. ‘It’s rather businesslike, isn’t it? “I think it would be in both our interests if we could discuss matters”.’

‘From what Erskine has said about her—and that’s not much—she sounds a bit of a cold fish. Her email backs that up.’

‘Which is a good thing, surely? You wouldn’t want to deal with someone seething with resentment who starts sending you ranty emails.’

‘At least that would have been understandable. This has freaked me out.’

‘Presumably this means Erskine has told her about you? After all, she knows you’re deaf.’ Zoe read again from the email, ‘“Because you can’t talk on the telephone I think our best option would be to meet in person”.’