By the time Carol returned to work, the police still had no motive, nothing that gave them so much as a clue as to why the senior partner had disappeared. Carol appeared stunned when told. She said he had been perfectly normal the last time she had seen him. He had said he was looking forward to his holiday and he had left earlier than arranged as he was not driving. She even shed a few tears; it was dreadful to think something bad had happened to such a lovely man!
Carol was by now certain she had committed the perfect murder. She went about her duties as diligently as always, the first to arrive, the last to leave. They were expecting a new partner to join the practice, as Miles could not deal with the clinic on his own. It appeared on the surface as if Peter Frogton had never worked there but he had and in six months the memory of him had not faded. Carol had intended moving on to somewhere else but decided against it; she felt that safe.
Then the idiot woman with the fucking Jack Russell returned, and now her bloody dog was sick and running a high temperature. She was almost as hyper as she had been when she'd called round to make sure the dead dog wasn't her fucking dog.
Miles was allocated the bitch and went into his surgery with the woman talking at screech level. Carol could hear her hysterical voice going on and on about how she had almost lost him once, had even presumed he was dead but that nice girl at the desk had shown her the other dog, and it wasn't her dog because it had the wrong coloured ear. The pitch of her voice allowed everyone waiting in the surgery to hear how she had gone to Battersea Dogs Home and met this poor boy who had an almost identical Jack Russell, but his had a black ear and her Jack had a brown, and this poor boy was weeping because it wasn't his dog at Battersea but her naughty boy, and then this poor youngster had to identify his dead dog at the clinic.
Carol maintained her calm, staring fixedly at the appointments as the screaming bitch was led out, Miles assuring her that her dog was going to be fine but he just wanted to keep the little chap in for the night. The surgery continued until after six and Carol couldn't wait to leave; seeing that woman again had really unnerved her.
'Could you stay for a moment, Carol?' It was the way he said it, like he had something important to discuss.
'Sorry, Mr Richards, not tonight,' she said, avoiding his eyes. She felt as though they were boring into her head as she went out of the surgery door. She gave a furtive glance back through the glass door panel but he wasn't even looking at her; he was on the phone.
Miles thumbed through the old appointment diary, back six months, as he held on for the caller. He then jotted down the address and stared into space. He went back to checking operations, interns, the dogs to be put down, and then he paused, flicked forwards then backwards over the dates. In the past eight months they'd had only one Great Dane, brought in for surgery with cancer of the bowel. Felix had not survived the intricate operation and died under anaesthetic. He was already old for a Dane, at ten years. They had treated eight other Great Danes, but none had been in for either an operation or had, according to the records, died within the time frame. So which was the Dane taken on the morning with the Dalmatian, and the Rottweiler and what had happened to the injured Jack Russell? Had it been claimed? There was no record, and no bills had been made out for the time it had been in the surgery, no X-rays had been taken. Mrs Palin had said a boy had been at the dogs' home, worried about his Jack Russell, so maybe they could shed some light on it all.
Miles contacted the dogs' home, found out Kevin's address, called him, and he agreed to see him at his grandmother's house.
Kevin answered the door. He had food stains round his mouth and his owlish glasses looked crooked. His grandma stood behind him, saying this was ridiculous, they'd already sent one woman to dig it up; it'd be rotting by now.
'It was my dog, it was Rex,' Kevin said, agitated.
Miles tried to make light of it, saying he was sure it was his dog but he needed to ask Kevin some questions about when he had collected the corpse from the veterinary clinic.
Miles stood in the old kitchen, the rotting carcass now in a large hat box. He was very perplexed about the fact someone from his clinic had been to the house, had dug up the dog! It didn't make any sense, unless there was some hidden agenda.
'I promise you will have Rex returned. I just need him for a few days, and I am not here about any vet fees. He wasn't given to you in this box, was he?'
'No, he was wrapped in a mucky towel. I think it's still in my toolbox. Gran was going to wash it but I used it to wipe some chain lube off my bike.'
Miles waited while Kevin fetched the towel, now streaked with oil stains as well as the dark red bloodstains that had turned rust brown.
'Thank you, I really appreciate your help.'
'There was something else,' Kevin said flushing. 'It was caught in the towel.'
Miles nodded. Kevin looked even more embarrassed.
'I gave it to my girlfriend, it was like a charm, you know, off a bracelet. It was about so big.' He indicated with his fingers how small the charm was.
'Does she still have it?' Miles asked.
'I dunno, we broke up. Is that what this is all about? I think it was quite old, like antique gold but it was very small, a little man I think, like a pixie.'
Miles hesitated; he didn't understand the significance of the charm because he had been the only one not present at the Christmas gift exchange.
At the police station, the detective in charge of Frogton's disappearance looked into the hat box with distaste.
'What is it?'
'It's a dead Jack Russell dog and its body was wrapped in this towel that belongs to the clinic. The kid also found a gold charm of a goblin, you know a charm that hangs off a bracelet. I called Hilda our other receptionist and she recalls Peter Frogton giving it to Carol last Christmas. She said it was a little goblin, not a pixie, a gold goblin sitting on a mushroom.'
'Does he still have it?'
'No, he gave it to his girlfriend but they broke up and she threw it away; well, that's what she said. It was a goblin but she couldn't remember if it was sitting on anything.'
Miles remained at the station for two hours going through all the details about how dogs were collected for the incinerator by the mortuary company. The dogs were burnt and the bones and fragments crushed so there would be no remains left. It was possible that Peter Frogton was murdered, his body taken in the place of a Great Dane and incinerated. The Jack Russell was supposed to have been incinerated that same morning but Kevin had collected it for burial in his grandmother's garden.
There was a very long pause. Miles was flushed red in the face while the police officer grew paler by the minute.
'Jesus Christ, you think she put your partner in a doggy bag?'
Before they arrested Carol, they checked her background and discovered her previous prison record. This made for a lot of embarrassment, as they should have been more thorough.
'Apparently she lied to us on her letter from her previous employers. She had only worked there for two years,' Miles said to a stunned, white-faced Hilda. 'Before that she was in prison.'