A Body in the Village Hall by Dee MacDonald (best business books of all time .txt) 📗

that made Kate hesitate just long enough for him to add, ‘This is my first big job, see? My auntie lives in the village and she said how nice you were and that you’d found the bodies and everything.’

His manner, if not his looks, reminded her of Jack. Then he smiled hopefully and she noticed he had beautiful teeth. He also had a very red nose and he was shivering. Kate had been advised by Woody to avoid the press at all costs, but there was something about this boy.

‘Come in for a minute,’ she said, standing to one side. ‘You look frozen.’

He followed her into the kitchen, dumped his backpack on the floor and headed straight for the log burner to warm his hands. ‘Nice and warm in here,’ he said, sniffing.

‘I’m not sure what I can do for you, Jordan,’ Kate said. ‘I’ve absolutely nothing to say to the press. But you look so cold! Would you like a hot drink?’

‘Oh, I could murder a cup of tea,’ he replied, then clamped his hand over his mouth. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, should I, with all those murders going on round here?’

Kate smiled as she filled up the kettle and got out a couple of mugs. ‘How old are you, Jordan?’

Jordan had pulled out a chair and seated himself at the kitchen table.

‘I’m eighteen,’ he said, ‘and I might be a junior reporter at the moment but I’ve got big plans. One day I’m going to be working for The Times or The Guardian or one of the national papers in London. But you have to start somewhere, don’t you? Can I have milk and three sugars, please?’

‘I’m sure you’ll do well, Jordan,’ Kate said as she stirred his tea and handed him the mug.

‘And I want to be a crime reporter,’ he went on, taking a gulp of his tea, ‘so aren’t I lucky that all this is going on locally? Couldn’t be better! I managed to persuade them to let me cover this story so I’ve got to come up with something.’

Kate knew that the Cornish Courier didn’t have a huge circulation, unlike most of its better-known rivals.

‘The old hacks are all hanging around up at the police station in Launceston,’ he said, ‘and they take the piss out of me, but I’m going to show them.’

‘No doubt you will,’ Kate said as she watched him slurp his tea, his nose slowly returning to its normal pink.

‘There’s a load of them down the lane there,’ he said, ‘but I sneaked away when they weren’t looking. The thing is, Mrs Palmer, we’re not supposed to bother you cos we get handouts from the police every so often but, to be honest, they don’t seem to have much clue. But they’ve got some woman under arrest, I’m told.’

‘And do you think I do? Have a clue?’ Kate asked.

‘Well, that’s what I’d like to find out, because you found the bodies, didn’t you?’

‘I found Kevin Barry but I wasn’t first on the scene with Mrs Barker-Jones,’ Kate informed him.

‘But you must know everyone round here and who’d be likely to do it?’

‘Strangely enough I don’t. I’ve only lived here for a couple of months.’

Kate noticed a drip forming on the end of his nose and, seeing him about to disperse it with the back of his hand, she grabbed a tissue and handed it to him.

‘Oh thanks,’ he said, giving his nose a hearty blow. ‘The hacks all reckon it’s that Grey couple who did it. There’s a load of press up there outside the house waiting for one of them to come out.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure of anything yet,’ Kate said, watching with some amusement as he withdrew a tatty notebook out of his bag and searched in vain for a pen.

‘Here you are,’ she said, handing him a biro. She couldn’t help liking the lad, although she felt he had a considerable journey ahead of him before he got to the dizzy heights of reporting for The Times or The Guardian.

‘So,’ he said, pen poised, ‘you’ve only been here a couple of months and you’ve had to deal with two bodies!’

‘That’s about it,’ Kate agreed, then added with a wink, ‘but it wasn’t me whodunnit!’

He grinned at her as he drained his mug. ‘Could I write a little piece about you, Mrs Palmer? How you came to live here from, er, where?’

‘West London,’ Kate replied.

‘Wow! So you come from great big London to a tiddly Cornish village and straight away you’re surrounded by dead bodies! How cool is that!’

‘That’s a slight exaggeration.’ Kate was beginning to wonder if it had been wise to let Jordan over the doorstep. ‘It’s only because I’m a nurse that they asked me to have a look at Mrs Barker-Jones’s body.’

‘But what about the Barry bloke?’

‘Ah well, yes, I found him washed up on the beach.’

‘That wouldn’t have happened up in London now, would it?’ he asked, frantically scribbling.

‘We’re a bit short of beaches up in London,’ Kate agreed. ‘Anyway, that was pure chance while I was walking the dog.’

Jordan laid down the pen and studied her with a very serious expression. ‘No, Mrs Palmer,’ he said, ‘I don’t think it was. I think it’s a sign. I think it was a sign that you’re meant to be involved in all this.’ He was now becoming quite excited. ‘I’m a great believer in signs.’

‘I fear it was purely coincidence,’ Kate said, panicking slightly about what sort of piece he was planning to write, ‘so please don’t go putting stuff about signs into this article of yours. Really, the less you say about me the better.’

‘OK,’ he said, writing again. ‘Is there any more tea?’

He’s not short of nerve, Kate thought. But he hadn’t sounded cheeky so she preferred to think he was just thirsty.

As she refilled his mug he said, ‘I like to get the human angle, you see. Like how do you feel about coming down here and landing yourself