Connie Towers, the kindly receptionist at New Horizons, looked through a sheaf of papers, then picked up her phone. "Dr Pearson, Mr Fenton has arrived." She hung up and smiled at the patient. "Everything is in order."
The man in the wheelchair, his face lined and hair thinning with late middle age, smiled back. "I should hope so. My solicitors charged me enough to get me in here." He sighed. "It's not easy being all alone at my time of life."
"No, of course not," said Connie sympathetically, pressing a button on her desk to summon an orderly. A muscular young man with short dark hair and deep blue eyes came up to the desk. "You rang, luv?"
She nodded. "I did indeed. Please escort Mr Fenton to room 17." She transferred her attention to the patient. "It has a lovely view of the rose garden."
"Thank you," he said. "I look forward to a successful stay."
The orderly wheeled the patient down the hall to the room, where a tall man in his early forties was waiting. "Mr Fenton, I am Dr Robert Pearson. I'm just going to do a quick check on your vitals. I understand you recently had pneumonia?"
Fenton coughed delicately. "I did indeed, and at my age I don't want to take any chances. I have no family to take care of me, so I decided it was best to check into a care home to recuperate."
"A very wise decision," said the doctor, and he noted pulse, blood pressure, and respiration. "You seem to be in remarkably good health considering your recent illness. Still, it's better to take no chances. Now, if you need anything, simply pick up the phone and call the front desk. I'm sure we'll have you back on your feet in no time."
Dr Pearson left the room, and as soon as the door closed, the patient hopped briskly from the wheelchair, peered cautiously out the door, then closed and locked it. "Well, Bodie?"
His subordinate shrugged. "In the week I've been here, I haven't seen anything remotely suspicious. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be looking for."
"Neither do I," said a new voice. Doyle entered the room by the French window that overlooked the rose garden.
"You're supposed to be looking for anything out of the ordinary!" Cowley snapped.
"The only thing out of the ordinary is the quality of care these people give," said Bodie promptly. "If I ever need to be in a care home, this is the place I would pick."
Doyle asked, "Sir, with all due respect, you put Bodie and me in here as orderlies, and now you're a patient. What's going on?"
Cowley regarded the two men. "The truth is I don't know myself. The Home Secretary's cousin died here a month ago in circumstances that he found suspicious. He asked me to investigate." He took a turn about the room, ending up at the window and eyeing the rose garden appreciatively. "I found there have been three questionable deaths in the last two years. The first was an old woman named Emily Brooks."
"An old woman?" asked Bodie.
"In her eighties, with cancer," said Cowley. "And before you say there's nothing strange about that, she died only three days after changing her will and leaving a tidy sum to this care home. Now that could have been a coincidence. So could the second patient, Edward Martin. He was only in his fifties but he had kidney disease and was on dialysis. He was due for a transplant, but two weeks after changing his will in favor of New Horizons, he suffered catastrophic kidney failure and died." Bodie and Doyle exchanged a look and Cowley nodded. "Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times, that's a pattern."
"I take it the Home Secretary's cousin suffered a similar fate," said Doyle.
"That is correct," said Cowley. "Patricia Walker, a woman in her forties. She had been in and out of hospital for years with heart disease. Most unfortunate. Her husband left her a widow with an immense fortune, almost half a million pounds. She left it all to this care home, then suffered a massive heart attack a month later."
"People who are gravely ill do tend to die." Bodie sounded thoughtful. "Did any of them leave relatives to contest the wills?"
"No," said Cowley grimly. "It's possible these people were carefully chosen for their wealth and their isolation. Hence my cover. I'll stress that I'm a rich man with no one to leave my money to. If these deaths were not coincidences, I should make a very tempting target."