Buried Secrets: The Freeman Files Series: Book 11 by Ted Tayler (highly recommended books txt) 📗

I reached the gateway into the cricket ground,” said Tilly. “I used to let my previous dog have a good run there. She wasn’t as boisterous as Nipper. When I left the field to cross the road several minutes later, I saw Mr Duncan along the lane, opposite his front door. He was running into the village as usual. I almost forgot to look right and left. A car drove past, and I had to step back into the gateway, dragging my dog with me.”

“Did you see the driver?” asked Lydia.

“He passed me before I could catch my breath,” said Tilly. “I saw the car earlier though in the pub car park. Close to where you parked when you arrived.”

“Any idea of the make or model, Mrs Spiers?” asked Alex.

“I don’t drive, dear,” said Tilly. “My sister’s got a Vauxhall. The stranger’s car was a similar shape, that’s all I can say.”

Alex asked Tilly for a phone number in case they needed to get in touch again.

“You’ve been a big help, Mrs Spiers,” he said. “I think it’s time Nipper had his run.”

“Whatever you say, dear. Where are you off to now?”

“We’ll try the landlord of the Crown next,” said Alex.

Tilly Spiers wrinkled her nose.

“He hasn’t been there long, dear. A different company runs it these days. It changes hands often. They don’t get the passing trade they used to in the old days. Its most popular period was forty years ago. They encouraged a certain type of person back then. The place had a rather unsavoury name. Of course, in this modern world that we live in, we live and let live, don’t we?”

Alex made a mental note to ask Neil Davis what the heck Mrs Spier meant. His colleague knew the local dirt about a wide area of the county.

“Didn’t you want to speak to Mrs Huggins, DS Hardy?” asked Tilly. Nipper knew where she was taking him next and was pulling her arm out of its socket.

“Mrs Huggins?”

“The caretaker for the Wesleyan Chapel. She lives next door. Val saw that car. I remember Val telling me she spoke to the older detective about it ten years ago.”

“We’ll pay her a visit on our way back into the village,” said Alex.

Alex and Lydia headed back up the lane to the Crown.

“I didn’t think we were ever going to get away,” said Lydia.

“We learned something useful,” said Alex. “Alan Duncan knew that man. Our return trip to Woodpecker Mews should be the clincher.”

They spent less than ten minutes in the Crown. As Tilly Spiers had suggested, the landlord didn’t have a clue. Alex asked whether any regulars were in who could have been in the Crown that Wednesday evening. The Portuguese landlord shrugged and said his clientele preferred fine wine and gourmet food rather than pints of cider and a burger and chips. The first thing he’d done when he took the pub over was to encourage the locals to drink elsewhere.

Alex and Lydia returned to the car park.

“You didn’t ask him about the old days that Tilly mentioned,” said Lydia.

“I’d seen enough,” said Alex. “Did you see the prices of their main course?”

“If you want the best, you have to pay for it,” said Lydia.

Alex drove them along the lane, keeping a weather-eye open for Nipper jumping out from a gateway, but they reached the chapel unscathed.

Lydia knocked on the wooden door of the cottage next door. There was no knocker or bell.

“Are you the police officers?” said the plump, bespectacled lady who opened the door.

Lydia could tell that Mrs Spiers had popped in to warn Mrs Huggins that they were on their way. Alex reckoned that Tilly and Val attended the primary school in the village together, shortly after WWII.

“We are, Mrs Huggins,” said Alex. “I’m DS Hardy, and my colleague is Lydia Logan Barre.”

“Tilly said you were after that car I saw,” said Val Huggins joining them outside on the front path. “I told Mr Banks at the time that I saw a Vauxhall Zafira several times a week in the weeks before poor Mr Duncan’s murder.”

“Was this in the village, or just on Cuttle Lane?” asked Alex.

“It drove up and down this lane,” said Val Huggins, waving her tea towel to demonstrate. “You didn’t get many people using the lanes. You needed to be a local to know they were there. Of course, more people drive on them in the past couple of years since they started that satnav nonsense. We never had cars using the lanes as a rat-run to reach the A420 when my Vic was alive.”

“If I showed you a photograph, would you recognise the driver?” asked Alex.

“It was a long time ago,” said Val Huggins. “Go on; I’ll give it a go.”

Alex showed her the photo of Drew Taggart. She shook her head slowly.

“Don’t think that was him,” she said. “He had a different look. I’d better be careful what I say, but there’s a place near the roundabout on Bath Road as you enter Chippenham. One of those car hand wash places where half a dozen lads jump on your car as soon as come to a halt.”

“We know what you mean, Mrs Huggins,” said Alex. “What about this chap?”

“That’s the right look,” said Val. “I couldn’t swear to it in court, it was so long ago, but that could well be the driver. Was he something to do with what happened to Mr Duncan?”

“We don’t know, Mrs Huggins,” said Alex. “If we could identify him and find him, we’d like to talk to him.”

“Do you still get joggers on the lane, Mrs Huggins,” said Lydia.

“The younger element loves that health kick stuff, don’t they? My Vic played football in the winter and cricket in the summer. Add that to