Bev’s deputy, Dan Birchall, looked like a member of a minor boy band run to seed. The lineaments of a handsome young man lurked beneath the slack fleshiness of his face, the neatly trimmed beard unable to disguise the jowls forming along his jawline. He still moved with a certain grace, almost dancing between the shelves and cabinets. But it was a dance whose tempo was starting to slip and whose steps looked a little more desperate with every passing year. ‘You’re Dr Blessing’s lady, aren’t you?’ was his response when Paula introduced herself. It wasn’t a line that endeared him to her.

‘I’m looking into the whereabouts of your chief pharmacist, Ms McAndrew.’ Paula smiled. There was no mileage in anything other than working the witness for whatever he might know. ‘Her son has reported her missing.’

Dan rolled his eyes. ‘Right,’ he said, stretching the word as far as it would go. ‘Well, suddenly, something makes sense. We’ve been at sixes and sevens all day, wondering what was up with Bev. Because Bev would never just not show. Totally not her style.’

Paula pulled up a lab stool and sat down, indicating he should do the same. But he remained on his feet, leaning against the counter with ankles crossed and arms folded. It made her wonder what he had to hide. If she’d been Tony Hill, no doubt she’d have worked it out already. But her gift was for interrogation; she was accustomed to taking the long way round. ‘So you’ve had no communication from her?’

He shook his head. ‘Not a word. Not a text, not an email, not a message. At first, I assumed she’d been caught up in traffic. Except Bev somehow always manages not to get caught up in traffic.’ He rolled his eyes again. ‘That’s Bev. So organised she listens to the travel news with breakfast. But once it got to half past nine, I thought there was no way Bev would be an hour late without calling in. So I tried her home number and her mobile. I got the answering machine and the voicemail.’ He spread his hands. ‘What else could I do?’

‘Did it occur to you to go round and check she was OK?’

He gave her a peevish look. ‘Why would I do that? It’s not like she lives alone. If anything had happened to her, Torin the Wonder Boy could have called for help. Besides —’ He waved impatiently at the bustle in the dispensary. ‘Look at this place. We were already one down. I couldn’t walk away from the rest of the team. We only took half an hour each for lunch as it was.’ He seemed more irritated than worried. Paula hoped that whatever had happened to Bev wasn’t the kind of thing that would make his annoyance come back to haunt him.