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

fresh bottle of London Pride in front of him.

Gratefully Jack took a slug and looking at the Echo, exclaimed, ‘That’s Roddy March.’

‘We know that,’ Bev said.

‘I mean that’s the man on the virtual tour. Wait.’ Jack opened the Rightmove app on his phone and found Northcote’s old London home. Agitated, he kept missing the right circular marker. At last he found it, and enlarged the man crouching by the cupboard. ‘See?’

‘Oh, yes. That is March.’ Beverly remained calm.

‘I recognise that shirt. It’s a company called Geo-Space.’ Graham leaned over the table. ‘We used them for a Jobcentre Plus building. They scan the interior for an accurate reading of the space and stitch in the redesign. It’s a more accurate version than the one they use for home interiors.’ A council surveyor, Graham was expert in computer-aided design.

‘Sloppy editing,’ Graham added, echoing Jack’s earlier thought. ‘Looks like March worked for Geo-Space. What’s he looking for?’

‘March must have believed Northcote’s real killer was linked to that house,’ Beverly said. ‘When did Northcote leave Ravenscourt Square?’

‘Nineteen forty-one,’ Jack said.

‘The same year his wife committed suicide,’ Beverly said.

‘Jack, love, send Bev a screenshot of the man by the cupboard to forward to Stella,’ Jackie said.

‘OK.’ Why couldn’t he send it direct? They were behaving as if he and Stella had split up.

So, if he was single, he could do what he liked. Jack knew what he’d do next.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

2019

Stella

‘What’s she doing here?’ Janet ducked under the ‘Do Not Cross’ tape. ‘Get the hell out. Now.’

‘I’m a witness, darling.’ Lucie bared her teeth in a wolfish smile. ‘Stella and I found the body. To save you time, I can confirm our clockmaker has been murdered.’

‘You talked to a reporter,’ Janet muttered to Stella as she stalked past her into the house.

‘It wasn’t like—’ Stella trailed in Janet’s wake, with Lucie shadowing.

‘I will tell you what it’s like. For the second time in two days you’re first to find a body and this time you’ve brought the gutter press.’

‘Three,’ Lucie called.

‘What?’ Janet halted abruptly.

‘Three days,’ Lucie said. ‘We journos worship the god of accuracy.’

‘I’m not sure—’ Stella groaned inwardly.

‘Shut the eff up. You’ve stomped all over my crime scene, no doubt you’ve done a deal on a syndicated story, I do not want her in my sight. Give my sergeant a statement then do me a favour.’

‘Anything,’ Stella dived in.

‘Go home to London.’ Janet looked at Lucie. ‘If I find you—’

‘Tewkesbury is my home. Me and Sherlock are flatmates.’ Lucie held on to Stella’s arm. ‘Come visit, I’m no-carbs, but we can rise to biscuits.’

‘Is this true?’ Janet wheeled around to Stella. Her expression wasn’t anger; she looked hurt.

‘I was going to…’

Janet tramped across the grass to a tent already erected over the sundial. Inside, silhouetted figures were a shadow show. When Janet flapped aside the opening, Stella caught a glimpse of Clive’s contorted body. The tip of the sundial, gold in the arc lights, was sticking out of his chest.

*

‘No more titbits from the constabulary.’ Draped in her cockpit, Lucie stirred a nippet with her devil’s headed swizzle stick.

‘Nope.’ Not much of a drinker, Stella had accepted one of Lucie’s nippets – gin dashed over rocks with a splash of tonic – but it did not take the edge off the nightmare. She’d considered emailing Janet to explain Lucie had already known about Roddy’s murder. While true, it didn’t cover the bit where Stella had told Lucie about finding Roddy, or his dying words, whatever they were.

On the towpath outside Clive’s house after giving their statements, Janet had informed Stella that when she got kicked out of the police, she’d blame Stella. Unfair – Janet had chosen to open up to her. Ultimately though, Janet had trusted Terry’s daughter as the next best thing to Terry. Stella had let Janet – and Terry – down. She checked her phone, in case Janet had texted.

‘Don’t bother, kiddo.’ Lucie’s corncrake voice, hardened by the years when she’d been a dedicated smoker, broke into Stella’s misery. The devil’s head bobbed as she chased an ice cube around her empty glass. ‘We’re on our own. A terrible irony that Roddy March cared about victims getting assigned the right killer and now the venerable constabulary will file him as collateral damage in a robbery with violence.’ She rose to replenish her glass.

‘It’s a police matter, we should leave it to them.’ Stella repeated what she’d said to Jack in the abbey the night before.

‘Off your high-horsey-horse, Stellagmite.’ Lucie hooked up the ice and, tossing it into her mouth, crunched it up. ‘I’m an investigating journalist, this is my matter too.’

‘How hot was the kettle?’ Stella suddenly said.

‘I didn’t make you tea, you changed your mind and went for a nippy-noo.’

‘At Clive’s house, when you were going to make tea, you didn’t have to fill it, remember?’

‘Warmish and no, it was pretty full.’ Concocting her third nippet, Lucie said, ‘I see where you’re going.’

‘Clive’s killer was there just before we arrived. Clive either filled the kettle to make his visitor a drink or because we were due soon. Either way, he was killed minutes earlier. He probably told whoever was there that we were expected.’

‘Why did someone want him dead?’ Lucie was asking her swizzle stick.

‘They had got wind Clive knew something about Roddy’s murder?’

‘Or… let’s suppose our murderer was only on a fishing trip to hook out what Clive knew and while he was showing them his sundial, he or she realized he knew too much.’

‘You think they didn’t mean to kill him then?’

‘No one wants superfluous blood on their hands, although I doubt it was spur of the moment. Impaling a clockmaker on a sundial is such a glorious idea.’ Lucie, back in her chair, conducted her swizzle stick in time as she spoke.

‘Clive gives a tour of the clocks. He shows how his sundial gleams in the moonlight, turns his back and, crunch. He’s kebabbed.’ Despite sounding jaunty, Lucie appeared sickened by this description.