Taylor picked it up and took a closer look. The initials S. and A. and the numbers 14-6-75 were etched on the inside.
Stanley and Alice, Taylor thought. This is Stanley Green’s wedding ring. What’s her husband’s wedding ring doing in the drawer?
She suddenly felt sick. Stanley Green’s ring finger had been missing when they found his body.
Think fast. What’s going on here?
She put the ring back in the drawer and was about to close it when she got the feeling that somebody was watching her.
“Did you find it, love?” Alice stood in the doorway.
“I’ve got it here.” Taylor closed the door. Had Alice seen her find the ring? She handed Alice the bee-sting solution and the cotton wool.
“Are you all right, Harriet?” Alice asked. “You look a bit pale. I’m the one who was stung.”
“I’m fine,” Taylor said. “It must be the past few weeks catching up with me. The cruise will do me good.”
“I’m sure it will.” Alice looked at Taylor and then at the kitchen drawer. She dabbed some bicarbonate of soda on the sting and put the bottle on the kitchen counter. “The food’s ready.”
“It smells delicious.”
It did, but Taylor felt quite sick at the prospect of eating anything. “Could I just use your bathroom first?”
“First door on the right.” Alice pointed towards the corridor.
Taylor locked the door, sat on the edge of the bath and took a deep breath. She tried to think of a reasonable explanation why Alice might have the ring in her kitchen drawer. Perhaps Stanley had merely given it back to her, but then what about the missing ring finger? Perhaps it was Alice’s, but it looked too big, and Alice wore a similar gold band on her ring finger. She flushed the toilet and took out her phone. She brought up Killian’s number and paused, thinking hard.
What am I doing? This is ridiculous. Alice Green is an elderly beekeeper. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. She put the phone back in her pocket and went back to the table.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Alice told her. “I thought seeing as though you’re not going to be at work for two weeks, you might join me in a glass of port. I know you don’t usually drink but this is a special occasion, isn’t it?”
“One glass won’t hurt me. Thank you. This looks delicious.”
“Take a seat. I’ll carve the beef.”
She slid out a chair and Taylor sat down. She watched as Alice carefully sliced into the meat. The knife looked extremely sharp. She put three slices on Taylor’s plate.
“Help yourself to some vegetables. I’ve got some gravy on the boil too.”
She tore off a piece of fat and slid it into the bottom of the jackdaw’s cage. The bird eyed it suspiciously, pecked at it and gobbled it up in one go.
“Easy, boy, you don’t want to choke yourself.”
“Morning,” the jackdaw replied.
Alice put the gravy boat on the table and sat down.
“Cheers.” She raised the port to her lips and took a sip. “This is the bottle you bought me,” Alice told her. “It’s a very nice one.”
“Happy birthday for yesterday.” Taylor took a sip of her own. She wasn’t used to port, and it had a rather odd taste, but it was quite pleasant. “Here’s to many more.”
“Thank you, dear. Now tuck in.”
The port had gone straight to Taylor’s head. She needed to eat something, pretty quickly, to neutralise the alcohol. She ate some beef. “This is delicious.”
“It’s a rare treat for me to have you here. I don’t often have guests. I say you have to make the most of the company you can get at my age.”
“You’re not that old.” Taylor’s head was starting to spin. She had almost finished the port.
“I’m old enough. Old enough to know what’s important.”
“And what’s that?” Taylor was feeling quite drunk now. Her own voice sounded slurred.
“The status quo. Keeping things normal. That’s what’s important. As you get older and you start to count the days you have left and you do what you can to make sure you keep things the same.”
“You’re probably right.” For some reason she’d started to giggle. “Sorry, this port has gone right to my head.”
“It’s all right, love. It does you good to let go once in a while.”
Taylor could see two plates of food in front of her now. Her eyelids sagged.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Alice asked her. “You’ve barely touched your food.”
“I feel strange. Suddenly very tired.”
Her legs were now starting to go numb. Alice stood up and stared at her. The expression on her face was quite disturbing. It was a mixture of sympathy and something darker which Taylor couldn’t put her finger on. She had never seen Alice look like this before.
“You saw the ring, didn’t you?”
“What?” It was hard even to say that. It was taking all her energy just to stay conscious.
“Stanley’s ring. You saw it in the drawer, didn’t you?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“Liar. I won’t have liars in my house.”
“I think I’d better be going. I don’t feel well.”
“You’ll go when I say so,” Alice said. “I can’t have anything upsetting the status quo. It was all a bit of a blur at first but when Milly saw Stanley’s wedding ring, it all started to come back. But then I knew a clever girl like you was always going to do a bit of poking around. Did you enjoy the port?”
Taylor stared at the empty glass. “What have you done?”
Alice took out a bunch of keys and put them on the table. Taylor recognised her spare set. “You have trouble sleeping, don’t you?”
Through the fog in her head, Taylor realised she’d been right about the missing sleeping tablets. How many had gone missing? Eight? Ten?
“Why?”
Alice watched her. “I didn’t mean to kill him, you know. They ran around like headless chickens but none of them had a clue. It was quite funny. I can’t have you ruining everything for me now. You’re a clever one, Harriet Taylor, you’d have figured it out sooner or later. You did it sooner, but that isn’t going to be a problem now.”
“What do you mean?”
“You won’t feel a thing. You really ought to wean yourself off those pills, you know. They’ll be the death of you.”
“Alice.” Taylor’s mouth was now incredibly dry. She was starting to drift off and she knew there was no way she could stop herself. She tried to concentrate and stay awake but it was no use. She could only just make out someone coming into the kitchen.
“Alice,” she heard Eddie Sedgewick say, “that’s enough. This can’t carry on. Let’s have a cup of tea and a chat.”
Taylor watched, like she was in a dream, as Alice stood up, picked up the carving knife and went towards her next-door neighbour. Taylor tried to get up but her legs refused to obey her. She saw Eddie’s mouth open but the words that came out made no sense. She saw Eddie pick up a frying pan from the sink and then everything went black.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
“Welcome back, sleepyhead,” DI Jack Killian said.
Taylor opened her eyes and flinched. The bright light hurt her. She looked at Killian and frowned.
“Where am I?” she croaked.
“Truro. You’re in hospital. You gave us quite a fright back there.”