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

refused, she’d blow the gaff. His term. In a moment of madness, he gripped her throat. She wasn’t meant to die.

‘A stupid mistake – Banks and Cotton’s superior had dealt with Cotton. They dismissed it as a trivial matter compared to the pummelling the Germans are giving us. Cotton is to be farmed out to his allotment. As a pioneer in his field, Aleck is indispensable to the war effort.

‘Whoever reads this, I will secrete it in Giles’s favourite hidey-hole where Aleck won’t find it. For Giles it was sweets; for me it is the revelation of a woman scorned. Whenever you read this, please take it to George Cotton who I trust will seek justice. Should he no longer be alive it must go to Downing Street and straight into the hands of Mr Attlee, another good man, and despite what Alecks says, far superior to Mr Churchill.

‘Julia Northcote. New Year’s Day 1940.

‘PS: Wolsley Banks will accept that I died by my own hand. But if I am dead it is because my husband wanted me dead. I pray it does not come to that.’

Although she knew the contents, after he had finished reading Beverly looked as stunned as Jackie felt. She said, ‘Presumably it was never given to Cotton or to Clement Attlee.’

‘It’s my guess that Roddy was the first to read it. For some reason he chose to leave it where he found it,’ Jack said.

‘It was Aleck Northcote who got the rope from the shed and strung his presumably unconscious wife from the top banister.’ Beverly had gone pink. ‘He knew how to make it look like suicide, but he’d never have been doubted. If it had been ruled murder, Northcote would have been the prime suspect; awkward since they’d already got him off the hook for Maple Greenhill’s murder.’

‘We found the inquest report on the National Archives database before you arrived. Northcote reported returning from work to find his “beloved wife suspended by a rope from the banister. I began to cut her down but knew I lacked the strength to haul her over the balustrade. I couldn’t let her fall to the hall below.”’ Jack spoke in a monotone.

‘He should have known to leave her until the police came.’ Jackie had the bug – she too was ready to fight for Julia Northcote.

‘Northcote told the inquest that the balance of her mind was disturbed by the Blitz and the blackouts. The press took Northcote’s side, his wife had abandoned her family,’ Beverly said. ‘Her death went badly with a public expected to rally round the flag and be “in it together”.’

‘Virginia Woolf killed herself a couple of months later and the papers gave her a hard time for jumping ship,’ Jack said. ‘Yet again, Northcote got away with murder. He was knighted, as was Banks the coroner. Cotton’s boss Robert Hackett got a CBE for services to his country.’

‘Can we try to trace this Inspector Cotton?’ Jackie said. ‘Sounds like he was the fall guy.’

‘If George Cotton were alive, he’d be a hundred and twenty-six. Unfortunately, he died ages ago in 1979 in his eighties. And here’s another sign, he’s buried in your cemetery,’ Jack said. ‘We are meant to solve this case.’

‘It might be opposite our house but it’s not my cemetery.’ Jackie was sharp. ‘OK, guys, I have to ask, how did you find this?’

Jackie kept her face blank as Jack confessed to finding Beverly in Northcote’s old house in Ravenscourt Square where he too had planned to sneak in and find what Roddy March had been looking for.

‘How did Roddy March know the box was hidden there?’

‘I rang Geo-Space, the company who made the virtual tour, just before you arrived. March wasn’t down as the photographer, but there had been a Wolsey Banks who did a brief stint for the company.’ Beverly paused for Jack to make the connection.

‘If he was considering removing it, then someone interrupted him.’

‘Did March’s killer think he had Julia’s letter and try to get it from him?’

‘That presupposes Roddy and his killer knew about her letter,’ Jack said.

‘If the murderer knew the letter was in the house, why not take it? That they didn’t suggests they were unaware it was there.’ Jackie knew they were too polite to say they had been over this ground.

‘Meanwhile, Lucie has texted saying the police are thinking it a stranger murder. They’re looking for the gang members responsible for the spate of muggings and robberies in the areas. Which means,’ Beverly clapped her hands, ‘we’re on our own with this case.’

‘Not quite.’ Jackie began gathering up the papers. She stowed them in their cardboard box. ‘Take that with you.’

‘Take it where?’ Jack and Beverly asked at once.

‘Tewkesbury.’ Jackie laid the box on Stella’s desk. ‘We are in this together and we’ll come out of it together. You go and join Stella and Lucie’s team and, this time, don’t take no for an answer.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

2019

Stella

Roddy’s room was, as Stella had expected, sealed with police tape. Relieved, Stella was horrified when Gladys peeled off the tape and unlocked the door. ‘That lady detective won’t know. Lord knows when I can get on with reletting it. Although the very idea of a stranger in Roderick’s bedroom…’ She rubbed her hip which if, as Roddy had promised and now Lucie was rashly promising too, would be replaced when Lucie’s true-crime book was a bestseller.

‘His mum and dad aren’t even allowed in,’ Gladys announced as they stood in the bedsit breathing stale air. Hearing this, Stella’s horror that they were trespassing shot sky high.

The smell of dirty washing, dominated by socks. The shape of Roddy’s head was outlined on the pillow. Stella imagined him hunched over his laptop pecking out his podcast script with one finger. Sprawled on the bed recording the podcast which, he’d promised Gladys, would change their lives. Stella pictured Roddy slamming shut the laptop, snatching his combat jacket and hurrying to the Death Café.

With no idea it was