He and Daglish set off in an anticlockwise direction taking them through the garden and around to the front of the cottage. Daglish picked a fallen leaf off the path and threw it under an azalea bush. ‘The garden boy and the maid have the day off,’ she explained. ‘Talk spreads fast in Roselet.’ ‘Did the Reeds phone you personally?’ Emmanuel stared out to the hills, his face turned from Daglish like a priest preparing to receive an admission of sin. ‘No.’ She hesitated, then continued, ‘Constable Bagley came to the house and said there was a medical emergency in the valley. He drove me out to Little Flint.’ ‘Was that usual?’ ‘I prefer seeing patients here at the cottage. My husband Jim often has the car, so house calls are difficult. He’s away a lot.’ ‘Jim’ and ‘difficult’ were given equal emphasis. There was no car in the driveway now and hadn’t been for the last two days. Maybe Margaret’s husband was on the wide open road, notching up car crashes.
