Angel of Death

‘You must have known her for many years,’ Miranda said, liking him very much. He had a steely centre, she realised, but he was a kind and sensitive man, his smile was gentle and sympathetic.

‘Since she was a child,’ he agreed. ‘Would you like a table by the window looking out into the garden? It won’t be dark for several hours. You’ll have a wonderful view while you eat.’

She followed him to a small table and sat down, glancing out of the open window at a bed of dark red roses whose perfume drifted into the room. There was a fine-meshed net stretched across the window.

‘What is that there for?’ asked Miranda.

‘Mosquitoes – you have been warned to be careful to keep your doors and windows shut? This is not a malarial area, thank heavens; but if you get bitten it could still cause problems. The itching is a nuisance, and if you scratch, you can get blisters, or even worse, it could lead to blood-poisoning. Walking around the gardens after dusk isn’t a good idea.’

‘I saw you coming out of the hotel with a tray, earlier, and walking in among the trees,’ she said, watching him. ‘Don’t you get bitten?’

‘Very rarely. They prefer to bite women, especially fair-skinned women. Our skin is tougher, our blood full of garlic.’

‘Like vampires!’ she said, laughing.

‘Exactly. Garlic is good for keeping insects at bay.’

Casually, she asked him, ‘Were you taking room service to someone?’

She saw his black eyes flicker, his face stiffen, there was the briefest pause, then Milo said blandly, ‘Yes, I was delivering food to one of the bungalows. Would you care for an aperitif, Miss Miranda?’

‘Just some sparkling mineral water, thank you. I drink very little wine or alcohol.’

‘A glass of wine is good for you with your dinner. Helps you sleep, is excellent for your blood. But I will send water to your table right away.’ Milo gave another of his little bows and smoothly glided away. She stared after him, brow wrinkled.

He had lied to her. But why?

Chapter Seven

It was raining heavily as Terry Finnigan went to the hospital with a very expensive bouquet of flowers only to discover he was a day too late.

‘She left yesterday, a nurse briskly told him, hovering obviously to get back to whatever she had been doing when he interrupted.

‘Where did she go?’ he asked and got an impatient look.

‘No idea. Ask the hospital administrator. Excuse me. I’ve got a lot to do.’

He went straight to Miranda’s flat, got no answer there and started knocking on doors in the building. Most people seemed to be out, but at last he found a young woman in a dressing gown with sleepy eyes and the pink nose of someone who has a cold. She told him that Miranda was away.

‘I saw her yesterday, when I was on my way to see my doctor. She was going out with a suitcase. She was on crutches, poor girl. She’d had an accident. I expect she’s gone somewhere to convalesce.’

‘She didn’t say where she was going?’

The woman shook her head. ‘Maybe she went down to stay with her mother, in the country? Her mother was staying here and disturbed a burglar who attacked her. So she went back home, but I don’t know where she lives.’

Terry took the flowers back to the office and gave them to one of the typists who was expecting her first baby without benefit of a husband or even the boyfriend she had had but who had vanished the minute she spoke the dreaded word ‘baby’. Flushed and startled, she held them cradled in her arms as if rehearsing for motherhood.

‘Ooh . . . they’re lovely, thank you, Mr Finnigan.’

‘All men aren’t rats, Sharon,’ he said paternally.

The other girls in the office exchanged looks, raised eyebrows. Could the baby be Sean’s? they wondered, not for the first time, since Sean had had a go at all of them, with varying rates of success. Or was Terry simply a very kind and generous man?

In truth, he had not known what to do with the flowers, but, seeing Sharon’s swelling figure as he walked by her desk he was hit by a sudden inspiration and acted on it at once. He felt sorry for her, poor girl.

He was too busy to have time to leave London for a few days, but the following weekend he drove into Dorset, took a room at a pub in Dorchester, and waited until Sunday morning to drive over to Miranda’s mother’s cottage.

He found her in the garden pruning and weeding, wearing old blue denim dungarees and a t-shirt. She managed somehow to make them look like the very highest fashion.