A Body in the Village Hall by Dee MacDonald (non fiction books to read TXT) 📕

my tablets,’ Maureen said, slipping off her coat and rolling up the grey sleeve of a tatty, much-washed Aran jumper.

‘Right!’ said Kate, wrapping the cuff round her arm. After a minute she said, ‘Your blood pressure’s a bit high.’ She studied the computer screen. ‘I see you’re on antidepressants, Maureen. You don’t mind if I call you Maureen, do you?’

Maureen shook her head.

‘You appear to have been on these antidepressants for a long time. Haven’t you?’

‘Yes, I suppose I have. What does that matter?’

‘I wondered if you’d ever considered trying anything else?’

‘Like what?’

‘Some sort of therapy; counselling perhaps?’

Maureen looked thunderous. ‘Why would I?’

Kate cleared her throat and chose her words carefully. ‘Well, I can understand you must have struggled with depression for a long time, but there are alternative ways to deal with it, you know. Have you thought about counselling?’

‘Nobody can help!’ Maureen all but spat out the words. ‘What can anyone do? You can’t bring back my Lucy, can you?’

‘No, I can’t, but I can listen. There comes a time when you have to acknowledge your anger and grief, to shout and cry and get it out of your system.’

‘Do you think I haven’t cried?’ Maureen said angrily as she stood up and rolled down her sleeve. ‘You’ve no bloody idea how much I’ve cried! And all I want from you is my repeat prescription!’

Kate decided to have one last try.’

‘Look, I do home visits too. If nothing else maybe I could pop in for a cup of tea and a chat sometime?’

‘I don’t want to make you a cup of tea and have a chat. I just want my damned prescription! Anyway, what’s it to you? Why would you bother? You’ve not long been here, have you?’

‘Exactly! So I’ve no preconceived ideas. I don’t listen to gossip and I wasn’t around here when the tragedy happened.’

Kate saw Maureen soften a little. ‘You’re bloody persistent, aren’t you?’

Kate grinned. ‘Yup!’

With that Maureen picked up her prescription and was gone.

Well, there was a tiny bit of progress there, Kate thought, wondering if Maureen would ever contact her again, or if she should arrive on Maureen’s doorstep and hope to be asked in. She cast her mind back to the many times she’d had to stand her corner, to insist that a patient needed a certain medicine or therapy. Her persistence had usually paid off.

Kate had only had time to glance briefly at Maureen’s medical notes before the appointment, so she decided to have a more detailed look now. The record of her prescriptions went back for years and years – she scrolled down quickly until she got to 2009. The newly bereaved Maureen had had to be restrained from attacking Kevin Barry when he’d been found guilty of killing Lucy. She’d waited until he was being transferred from the court to a prison upcountry and had presumably chosen her moment very carefully because he was on view for a matter of minutes. She’d only managed to swing her handbag at his head and spit in his face before she was grabbed by the police escort. When she’d got home she’d attacked her husband with a bread knife. He had fortunately managed to overpower her. She was then sectioned under the Mental Health Act, spent six months at St Lawrence’s in Bodmin and had been on strong medication ever since.

Kate was appalled. Sad, frail-looking Maureen had attacked two men, one of them her husband. The bread knife particularly horrified Kate, with memories of the knife stuck in Fenella’s heart.

As she was getting ready to leave, Denise the receptionist was talking to Sue at the desk.

‘You’ll never guess what! Kevin Barry’s been arrested for Fenella’s murder!’ Sue said with glee. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

‘Thank goodness somebody’s been arrested,’ Kate said. ‘Presumably we can all sleep easier in our beds now.’

Feeling somewhat deflated, Kate arrived home to find the dog gazing at her sadly and wagging his tail hopefully. Plainly Barney had not yet been taken for a walk.

Kate sighed and made her way up to the summerhouse, which must now be called the studio. Angie, of course, had locked herself in and as Kate approached, she obviously saw the shadow and picked up Kate’s enormous heavy copper-bottomed saucepan from the floor. Then, seeing it was her sister, she laid it down again as she unlocked the door.

‘What on earth are you doing with that pan?’ Kate asked.

‘It’s just in case the killer decides to call,’ Angie said cheerfully, ‘so I can bash him over the head.’

‘But you’re locked inside!’

‘Yes, but it’s not double-glazed, so he could easily smash the glass.’

‘And why would he be so keen to do that? Why, of all the people in the Tinworthy villages, would he choose you?’

‘Because I think he’s a random serial killer, Kate, who probably hates women. Why else would he kill Fenella? He looked through the window, saw her in there on her own slicing the cake and decided he could put the knife to better use.’

‘I take it then you’ve not heard about Kevin Barry being arrested?’

‘Really? Well, he was supposed to be the favourite suspect, wasn’t he? Still, I’ll wait until they prove him guilty before I relax completely,’ Angie said, as she daubed some purple paint over the green and yellow squiggles she’d already created.

Kate decided to change the subject. ‘May I ask why you haven’t taken our poor dog out for a walk this morning?’

‘Apart from the fact I was likely to be murdered, do you mean? Well, I’m feeling really creative today and I have to work when the muse takes me.’

Kate groaned. ‘The muse takes me to put my feet up and have a large mug of tea. Instead of which’ – she consulted her watch – ‘I now have to take Barney along the cliffs and get blown to bits by the wind.’

‘Great for the complexion,’ Angie retorted, ‘and it will blow away all the germs you’ve acquired after being cooped up with all those unhealthy