Pulse(43)

It was certainly antisocial, I thought, but I doubted that it was also illegal, not unless you were purposely trying to put someone in danger.

Isabelle drove very slowly. Maybe it was because she wasn’t used to the car, or perhaps she didn’t like driving at night, but it took us at least twenty minutes to reach her house, a journey I usually did in half that time.

‘Are you sure you’ll be all right, dear?’ she asked when I told her I’d drive the last hundred yards home.

‘Perfectly,’ I replied.

But I was pretty sure that I was still over the limit. I’d had eight measures of whisky and the same again of ginger wine – a minimum of twelve units of alcohol in just a single hour, when the recommended maximum was fourteen for a whole week. True, it had now been some time since my last one but, even so, I wouldn’t fancy my chances with a breath test. But I fancied my chances even less with Grant if he found out I’d been drinking. He’d have me back in hospital before you could pop a champagne cork.

I dug into my pocket for the packet of extra-strong mints I’d bought at the confectionary stall at the racecourse, and popped two of them into my mouth.

I then waited until Isabelle had disappeared through her front door before gently letting out the clutch and driving smoothly, and very carefully, along the road.

No problem.

Imagine my horror, therefore, to find a yellow-and-blue-checked squad car of Gloucestershire Constabulary waiting outside my house, and with a policeman sitting in it.

In panic, I thought about going straight on, but that would have been even more suspicious. We lived in a cul-de-sac and I’d have had to turn round at the far end and come back.

So I pulled into the driveway, quickly crunched two more extra-strong mints between my teeth, took a couple of deep breaths, and climbed out of my car.

‘Hello, Dr Rankin,’ said the policeman. It was Constable Filippos and he held a clipboard not a breathalyser. ‘Your husband said you’d be home soon from the racecourse, so I waited.’

‘Didn’t he ask you in?’ I said.

‘He did but I could tell he was busy getting food ready, so I waited here.’ He waved towards the patrol car. ‘Can you spare me a few minutes?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Come on in.’

We went into the house with me trying not to breathe anywhere near him. Grant and the boys were in the kitchen so we went into the sitting room.

‘Are you on duty?’ I asked, waving a hand at his clothes. He wasn’t wearing his uniform but chinos and a sweater.

‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘I’ve been transferred to CID. I’m a detective constable now.’

‘Is that a promotion?’

‘More like a shift sideways.’ He smiled. ‘But one I really wanted.’

‘Congratulations. Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea?’

Glass of wine? No, perhaps not.

‘Tea would be lovely,’ he said. ‘Milk, no sugar.’

I went into the kitchen.

‘Hi, Mum,’ Toby and Oliver said together.

‘Hi, darlings,’ I replied with a wave. ‘Good day?’

In unison, they both raised their eyes as if to say, ‘Of course it wasn’t a good day, Mum, it was a school day.’

Grant was busy cutting up pizzas and I decided not to go over and kiss him. I didn’t want to breathe alcohol over him either.

‘There’s a policeman waiting for you outside,’ he said.

‘I know. He’s now in the sitting room. I expect he’s come to ask me some questions about that patient who died at the hospital last November.’

‘Trouble?’ Grant asked.

‘No, nothing like that. Probably just some more information needed for the coroner. Could you make him some tea – milk, no sugar – and bring it through? Thanks.’

I went back to DC Filippos.

‘I was just passing,’ he said, ‘on my way back from Stow-on-the-Wold, so I thought I’d pop in and bring you up to date with developments.’

‘What developments?’ I demanded. ‘Have you caught the person who pushed me in front of the bus?’

He was slightly taken aback. ‘Sorry, no. No progress on that one.’

That was because he wasn’t looking, I thought.

‘But I did speak yesterday to those two jockeys that you said were seen arguing with the dead man.’

I nodded. ‘One of them told me.’

‘Then you probably already know what I’m going to tell you.’

‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘He only told me that he’d spoken to the police, not what he’d actually said.’

‘Right. Well, I interviewed them both at the racecourse on Wednesday after racing and they said roughly the same thing.’

‘Which was?’

‘That they vaguely remember having an argument with a man in the car park but they do not know who he was.’

‘What was the argument about?’

‘As far as they could recall, it was about the unauthorised parking of his car in the jockeys’ reserved area.’

‘So where is it now, then?’ I asked.

‘Where’s what?’

‘His car.’

He stared at me.