Wexford nodded. So Mrs Wrangton had intended to go ahead with her plans, and Doreen Betts’s denial had either been purposeful lying to demolish her motive or a post-mortem white-washing of her mother’s character. For it had certainly been black-hearted enough, he thought, quite an act it had been, that of deliberately turning your own daughter and her husband out of their home. He looked back to Roy.

‘You offered to make her tea?’

‘Yeah, well, the daughter, Mrs Betts, said to make myself and her a cup of tea if she wanted, but she didn’t want. She asked me to turn off the TV and then she said she’d got a headache and would I go to the bathroom cupboard and get her aspirins? Well, I’d seen Mrs Betts do it often enough, though I’d never actually . . .’

‘You’re sure she said aspirins?’ Quite suddenly Wexford knew what it was that had seemed incongruous to him in Mrs Betts’s description of her mother’s last afternoon of life. Doreen Betts had specified paracetamol instead of the common household remedy. ‘You’re sure she used that word?’ he said.

Roy pursed his mouth. ‘Well, now you mention it, I’m not sure. I reckon what she said was, my tablets or the tablets for my head, something like that. You just do say aspirins, don’t you, like naturally? I mean, that’s what everybody takes. Anyway, I brought them down, the bottle and gave them to her with a glass of water, and she says she’s going to have a bit of shut-eye in her chair. But the next thing I knew she was coming out, leaning on that walking frame the welfare people give her. I took four, Roy, she says, but my head’s that bad, I reckon it’s worse, and I’m ever so giddy. Well, I didn’t think much of that, they’re all giddy at that age, aren’t they? I remember my gran. She says she’s got ringing in her ears, so I said, I’ll help you into your room, shall I? And I sort of give her my arm and helped her in and she lay down on the bed with all her things on and shut her eyes. The light was glaring so I pulled the curtains over and then I went back to my painting. I never heard another thing till Mrs Betts and the old boy come in at half five . . .’

Wexford closed Practical Forensic Medicine by Francis E. Camps and J. M. Cameron and made his way back to Castle Road. He had decided to discuss the matter no further with Mrs Betts. The presence of her husband, shuffling about almost silently in his furry slippers, his feet like the paws of an old hibernating animal, rather unnerved him. She made no demur at his proposal to remove from the bathroom cabinet the prescription bottle of pain-killing tablets, labelled: Mrs I. Wrangton, Paracetamol.

Evening surgery had only just begun. Wexford went home for his dinner, having sent two items away for fingerprint analysis. By eight-thirty he was back in the surgery building and again Dr Crocker had finished first. He groaned when he saw Wexford.