They looked like two men after the same parking space.
“Ms Townend,” they began together. And stopped and glared. At each other. One fingered his stethoscope, the other waved his ID.
Despite not having had a drop for several days – Griff thought we should respect Lent and I was in favour of anything that cut back his drinking – I was decidedly tired and highly emotional.
At least the policeman should recognize a stop signal, so I held up my hand in his direction and pointed at the doctor. “You first. Before you say anything, I am not prepared to have Griff switched off.” I turned to the cop. “You’ll bear witness to that, won’t you?”
He nodded.
“What’s this about switching off Mr Tripp?” Rankin demanded.
“For his organs.” To show I wasn’t against the idea in principle, I flashed my donor card.
Rankin snorted. “Mr Tripp’s? We want fresh not pickled ones, Ms Townend. And we do in general prefer to wait until the patient dies. And – despite his poor hobnailed old liver – that could be for many years yet. I wanted to talk to you about taking him home, that’s all.”
It took a doctor to do that? My eyes narrowed in disbelief.
“Not so much home, perhaps, as somewhere he can get a moderate degree of care, with medical back-up if need be.”
“And won’t bed-block the dear old NHS,” I observed.
“Or,” put in the policeman, “be so likely to catch MRSA.”
I began to warm to him. “One of Griff’s friends,” I began – for friend read long-term partner – “might fund him a few days in a nursing home.” A very upmarket one, if I knew Aidan and his bank balance.
“Just the ticket. Let the ward clerk have details and she can set it up.” His bleeper went before he could frame any tender words, let alone say them, but I had the feeling that he was as little interested in me as I was in him; Griff’s perennial matchmaking had been inspired by his desire to get me safely married off (oh, yes, properly, in a long white dress in church) before he shuffled off, as he always put it, this mortal coil. One day I’d get round to looking up the quotation, but not yet, just in case it brought bad luck.
So now it was PC Plod’s turn – actually Detective Sergeant Will Barnes, according to his ID. “I understand Mr-”
“Griff. Do call him Griff. Everyone does. And in the circumstances, calling him Mr Tripp seems a bit too appropriate.”
“Except that he didn’t, Ms Townend. Trip, that is. He was pushed, very hard. And kicked, according to the medics. All after he’d been dragged from his van. And we’d like to know why.” His tone was decidedly less friendly; I’d no idea why.
“Have you asked him?”
“He says he’d been to a house sale.’
I nodded. “Yes, at Forley Towers, that ugly Victorian pile. It belonged to some recluse, and now her executors are selling everything up.”
“And you were-?”
“Not with him, obviously.” Or his attacker might not have lived to tell the tale. “I’ve been at our shop all day, repairing some Regency china.” The customer who’d asked me to restore the lovely Worcester chocolate cup wanted it done urgently, or I would never have let Griff go on his own. “What’s this all about, Sergeant? You’re not thinking that I might beat Griff up like that? Me? I’d die for him… if he’d let me, that is.”
He shuffled his feet, but coughed pompously. “Our information is-”
“That I have a criminal record. Well, check out how long ago it was, and see how long I’ve been a decent hard-working member of society. I’ve been with Griff through thick and thin for six years now. He’d have adopted me if he could.” He was a much better parent than my own father had ever been. “Why should I want to hurt the person I love most in the whole world?” My voice only went and cracked, didn’t it? Now I sounded more tearful than outraged – but perhaps, in the circumstances, that’s what I actually was. I grabbed a handful of tissues from a convenient little box someone had left on the arm of an easy chair for slightly different circumstances and scrubbed my eyes. For good measure I sat down heavily. And nearly disappeared in the squidgy upholstery.
Barnes fidgeted with embarrassment. “Has he any enemies? Do you know any reason why anyone else should attack him?”
“No enemies that I know of. You don’t need enemies to be robbed of something precious, do you? Just an opportunist thief or two. Someone who wanted what Griff had bought. And if Griff isn’t well enough to tell you, the auctioneers would know more about that than I do. All I had was this call saying Griff was here and I came straight over.” Though not without setting all the state-of-the-art alarms and locks that Griff insisted on, I have to admit. Even as he knocked on Heaven’s Gate he’d have wanted our precious stock protected – everything from Jacobean stumpwork to Victorian filigree. “I’d like to go back to Griff now.”
My attempts to get out of the chair made him drop his grim professional glare. Smothering a laugh, he even went so far as to help me lever myself out. He had nice firm hands, with a grip that you could rely on. And he let go the instant he ought.
So I said, “If he’s awake, I could ask what he bought. Otherwise, as I said, you’ll have to ask the auctioneer – only,” I added, looking at my watch for the first time since I’d arrived at the hospital, “it’s a bit late, isn’t it?” It was. It was nearly eleven at night.
“Can I offer you a lift home?”
I shook my head. Nothing short of an earthquake would get me more than ten yards from Griff’s side. I’d sleep on the floor beside his bed if necessary.
Griff looked much better the next morning, but was inclined to be tetchy, hardly surprising since there was nowhere this side of his hospital gown that wasn’t purple or red. Goodness knew what else his poor old body had suffered. I think he was relieved to hear that on receiving my phone call Aidan had booked him in for a week’s R & R at an exclusive nursing home to which a private ambulance would convey him.
“But it will be such a long way for you to come and see me, my loved one,” Griff observed wistfully. “And you know I don’t like you driving after dark.”
“If it makes you happier, I shall take up Aidan’s offer to stay overnight with him as long as you’re away from our cottage.” There! Griff would know the extent of my self-sacrifice, and possibly of Aidan’s – we’d never hit it off, maintaining an armed truce for Griff’s sake. “Now,” I said briskly, to cover any emotion, “it’d help the police if you told them what you’d bought at yesterday’s sale. It was obviously something that someone else couldn’t keep their hands off,” I joked.
“They could have had it and welcome. You know Mrs Davenport was asking for a games table to replace the one she had stolen? Well, I found one – pretty cheap, as it happens. A Victorian affair, with goodness knows how many drawers and curves wherever nature wanted a straight line. Rather vulgar, if you ask me, but then so was Mrs Davenport’s original. You might tell her I did my best, if she should happen to call. Lina, there’ll be a picture of it in the catalogue, won’t there? And I’m sure I left that in the glovebox.”
“You hadn’t been trying to carry the table on your own, had you?” I demanded, arms akimbo.
“What, when there were a couple of gorgeous well-muscled lads to put it straight into the van for me?” His poor swollen mouth headed for winsome, but didn’t quite reach it.