Page 55 of The Other Side
“The way he’d watch her when she wasn’t looking. The way he’d volunteer to drive her home, carry her shopping, fix things around her house. She accepted the help because she accepted help from everyone. I don’t think she realised how much it meant to him.”
“Did she ever encourage him?”
“I don’t think so. Not to be more than a friend.”
“And when he realised?”
“I don’t know if he ever truly did.”
Silence settled between them.
Finally, Drum said, “Did Sonita ever mention being frightened?”
Lily answered immediately. “No.”
“Being followed?”
“No.”
“Receiving strange phone calls?”
Again, she shook her head. “She’d have told me. She was my friend.”
“Can you give me the names and addresses of everyone in the book club?”
Lily wrote them all out.
“Do you think you’d know if anything had been taken from her house?”
“She didn’t have anything of great value. But yes, I could tell. Just as she could for me. She was murdered then?”
“Lily, I can’t tell you that. I’d be in such trouble. What about family?”
“Her husband died fifteen years ago. Her sons… Oh, do they know?”
“I’m sure they’ll have been informed.”
She sagged. “I still can’t believe it.”
Drum parked up and walked his beat, doing his job, popping into shops, checking up on old folks. Everyone today wanted to talk about Sonita. They asked him what was the latest, what had happened, did she suffer… All he could say was that he didn’t know and he felt the pain and guilt of not knowing when he was the one who was supposed to link police and community.
It just so happened that the old folks whose doors he chose to knock on were in the book club. Not that he could tell them more than he had anyone else. It was them he wanted details from, but so far, no one had anything significant to add. Drum still made notes so he could send in a report to Purbeck.
Arthur was the last person he went to see and he looked devastated.
“Come in. Tell me what’s happening.”
Drum took off his hat as he went into the house.
“Do sit down.”
“Thank you.” Drum sat on the couch. Arthur took the chair by the window.
“How are you, Arthur?” Drum asked.
“Lily told you then? About how I feel…felt about Sonita?”
“She just said you liked her. That she was a lovely person.”
