The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson (most difficult books to read .txt) 📗

‘Ooh, hoisted by your own – mobile phones off – petard, my dear.’ Clive’s glasses were steamed up, Stella couldn’t see his eyes.

‘We’ll tell you what we all took away with us.’ Joy appeared marginally more cheerful.

‘…sorry, but it means you all have to leave too. I’m responsible for locking up the tearoom. We shall continue tomorrow night.’

‘What if we’re busy tomorrow?’ Andrea ran the zip up and down her parka, reminding Stella of Jack’s four-year-old daughter Milly when she was cross.

Heading across the tearoom with the remains of the cake, Felicity flung up the counter flap and shouldered the door to the servery.

Stella and Gladys were gathering up mugs when they heard her call, ‘Don’t help, I’m far better on my own.’

No one noticed Stanley hoovering up crumbs under the table.

Chapter Five

Thursday, 12 December 1940

‘Good to see you, doc. ’Struth, you got here quick.’ George Cotton strode into a room crammed with several dark-wood cabinets, a high-backed sofa, armchairs and plant stands. A technician was arranging arc lamps delivered by one of the police vans.

‘I was close by.’ Dr Northcote smiled.

The two men shook hands. One, a divisional detective, pulled away from retirement on his allotment to replace conscripted police officers, the other, at thirty-nine already a celebrated Home Office pathologist, were divided by class and did not meet socially, but mutual regard ensured each was relieved to find the other at the scene of a murder.

‘Not quick enough to save French Annie.’ Northcote indicated the body of a young woman lying twisted at the foot of the sofa. ‘Killer can’t be far, she’s still warm.’

‘Chrissakes.’ Cotton spun on his heel and rushed out of the house. His voice rang in the street as he bellowed at the three constables clustered by the gate.

‘Check every house, alleyway, the dustbins, shelters in gardens, there’s a public one near the Black Lion. Boats, skiffs. If he’s on the eyot, he’ll be stranded, comb every ruddy inch. And,’ Cotton waved a hand at a houseboat moored nearby, ‘take that apart.’ He heaved a breath. ‘There’s a monster out there. Find him.’

Cotton was still panting when he returned to the murder room. He noted the upturned chair and rucked Turkey carpet. ‘She must have struggled. Surprising not more neighbours didn’t hear.’

‘There was a raid on, don’t forget.’ Dr Northcote was crouched, the skirts of his coat between his haunches. ‘Anyway, people keep themselves to themselves these days, you know that.’

‘Unless they’re nicking stuff from dead people’s destroyed homes. I could swing for the schoolteacher we nabbed last night; he’d stolen a wireless set off a woman killed by a strike, because his own had stopped working. How such minds work, beats me.’ Cotton raked through dark hair, which took years off his actual age of forty-six.

‘No morals,’ Dr Northcote agreed.

Standing next to the pathologist, George Cotton considered the corpse. He didn’t need Northcote to put her at between nineteen and twenty-five, and she’d been pretty, with looks that needed no make-up. Her fake blonde hair was washed and curled. If she’d been anything like June, that would have kept her busy – she’d probably worn curlers to bed last night. This picture pierced his heart. Thinking of June, Cotton said, ‘I’m thinking that black velvet dress and her silk stockings cost a bob or two.’

‘The coat and this mink must have been given by a satisfied customer.’ Northcote was reading his thermometer.

One stocking was torn at the calf. The tear too slight, Cotton reckoned, to have occurred in her attempt to escape. One shoe was half off, the leg twisted beneath her at a dreadful angle.

‘Definitely murder?’ Not a question.

‘Strangulation, George.’ The doctor pointed with a six-inch rule. ‘See those abrasions? My guess is a ligature. A length of material, a tie most probably. Wound on the back of her head is with a blunt instrument of some kind.’

‘The poker, perhaps?’ Cotton went to the large marble fireplace and examined a silver companion set beside the grate. ‘It’s here, at the back. I doubt he had the presence of mind to return it.’

‘I think an ashtray. The wound is less specific than the head of a poker. There isn’t an ashtray here, bet he pocketed it.’ Northcote got to his feet.

‘Spur of the moment thing,’ Cotton mused. ‘Still warm, you said?’

‘I hate to give you a time, but on this occasion, I can safely state French Annie here’s only been dead about half an hour.’

Cotton didn’t like Northcote’s habit of referring to all dead women as Annie, whether French or Old.

‘No sign of anyone in the vicinity, sir.’ A young man with acne-scarred cheeks in a suit of what Cotton fretted was black-market tweed – crime was no longer the proclivity of seasoned criminals – hovered by the door.

‘Check if this address is where this lady lived, Shepherd.’ Cotton fiddled with the rim of his hat.

‘There, I can help you, George.’ Northcote picked up his bag. ‘The house owner is one Oliver Hurrell, aged fifty-three—’

‘You know him?’ Cotton dreaded being called to the fatality of a friend.

‘Only by death. Hurrell, solicitor of this parish, was killed by shrapnel fire-watching at the Commodore yesterday. Germans got there first, but the chap would have dropped dead of apoplexy soon enough – arteries furred like London Underground cables and riddled with disease.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘No relations. I’ll show you the file on him.’

‘In that case what was this woman doing here?’ Cotton rubbed his chin. ‘All dressed for a night out.’

‘Not my job, but I’d say this lady was one of the blooms of the night.’ Northcote clipped shut his bag.

‘She doesn’t have the look of a prostitute. Her skin is too good, she looks well.’ Cotton wasn’t arguing, this was how they worked. One posing a theory, the other expanding on it or countering with another. ‘If she is, that outfit is too dear for picking up customers from the