Chapter 16 #2
Lara put her book down and picked up her phone.
‘I thought you might like to hear what I found out about the pills in Penny’s cupboard.
’ Abby sat forward in her chair. This evening she had changed into a dress of diaphanous silver lace.
She had a handsome shawl in oyster pink draped around her shoulders and a spray of flowers in her hair.
Lara was getting so used to these extravagant outfits that she passed no comment (although she did think she recognised the flowers from a spray Becky had made up earlier).
Instead she said, ‘They are Phenobarbitone and are used for people with epilepsy. So it seems Penny may be a sufferer.’
‘Poor Pinky,’ Abby murmured.
‘I know Penny doesn’t drive,’ Lara continued, ‘and that might explain why. Anyway, I remembered something else about Phenobarbitone – which I checked with my dad – they used to be prescribed as sleeping pills but doctors stopped using them as they were considered too dangerous. Too many people overdosed on them.’ She let the words hang in the air.
Abby nodded slowly.
‘I also looked up the paintings that Dr Patil inherited,’ Lara continued. ‘I didn’t get very far, so I’ve emailed my friend, Fiona. She’s a curator at the V for the clothes she had worn on the hill were by association equally with her person included in the compass of his affection: they seemed at this early time of his love a necessary ingredient for the sweet mixture called Bathsheba Everdene…