The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson (books for students to read TXT) 📕

me.’ On a clean page, Stella drew a circle marked with the names of each participant. Roddy on her left, the nice landlady Gladys Wren, Andrea the abbey gardener, then Clive who had actually known the murdered Professor Northcote, then Joy the organist. Felicity had been on Roddy’s left. Stella slid the book across the table to Janet.

‘You’ve put March close to you, was that deliberate?’ Janet took a picture of the diagram on her phone.

‘I didn’t mean to, but actually he did sit nearer to me than anyone else did around the table.’

‘To hear Mrs Wren, first name Gladys, you’d think the sun shone of out March’s everything.’ Janet sat back with her coffee. ‘He’d take her shopping, do the bins, sit up drinking sherry which, Roderick, as she called him, always brought himself. Such a lovely fella. He told her he wasn’t the marrying kind, I said get away with you.’

‘They never said they knew each other, although I did notice Gladys liked Roddy.’ Janet’s bad imitation of Gladys’s accent made Stella feel protective of the only member of the group who she had liked. ‘Felicity was cross when she thought Roddy came with me – maybe he warned Gladys it was best to pretend they were strangers.’

‘Mrs Wren’s nest is a tall rickety house opposite the Tudor House Hotel. From the outside it’s a dump, but it looked like you had waved a wand in there. The five-star hygiene rating put me to shame,’ Janet said. ‘Apart from Gladys Wren and Roderick March, did you get the sense any of them already knew each other?’

‘I thought I was the only stranger. I’m sure Joy and Clive did, they were quite offhand with each other.’ Stella looked at her diagram. ‘Joy’s patience with him was thin, but it was with Gladys too. Andrea the gardener didn’t know anyone. I got the strong feeling she wished she hadn’t come. It was Felicity’s first time, and she got annoyed that everyone kept straying off death; Joy was the only one who answered the questions properly.’

‘Felicity Branscombe, retired Home Office pathologist, she’s lived in Tewkesbury for five years. This will make you laugh, she told me when she was an “eminent pathologist” her nickname was Cat Woman. Tony my sergeant said it’s in a true-crime book on that Salt Cellar Murder in the eighties which was solved because of her autopsy.’

‘She told us she was known as Cat Woman at the Death Café.’ Stella felt less amused than surprised. Felicity had struck her as not the sort to accept a nickname. Stella wouldn’t mind being known as Cat Woman.

‘In her youth, she was as agile as a cat and wore close-fitting black. She reckoned it was important to stand out from the men.’ Janet pulled a face. ‘Not a bad idea, I thought. I looked her up. Felicity Branscombe was considered the cream of her generation.’ Janet was reading from her notes. ‘She didn’t seem bothered that Roddy March crashed her Death Café. But if she had been, it hardly merits murder. Unless she planned a Burke and Hare body snatch for old times’ sake. She actually offered to come out of retirement and do his PM. She’s seventy-odd.’

‘I doubt she’s lost the skill. I read Felicity does world lecture tours.’ Stella couldn’t admit it was Lucie who’d googled.

‘Slap my ageist wrist. Why not? She’s brighter than I feel.’ Janet tapped Stella’s diagram. ‘Joy Turton was on the organ when you got there. That puts her in the abbey with March if it was him on the other side of the pillar. You said she stopped then began practising chords so she had the opportunity.’

‘The interval between the music and the chords seemed short, it was silent in that time. Wouldn’t Roddy have shouted out when he was stabbed?’

‘He was stabbed in the back. The blade went right through.Initially he may not have comprehended he’d been stabbed.’ Janet walked her fingers on the chequered tablecloth. ‘Then Joy scoots away and lands back at the organ where, flustered, she can only bash out chords.’ Like Janet, Terry had brainstormed crime scenarios with Stella as bedtime stories. Stella loved hearing them, but her mum had said it was one good reason for leaving him.

‘Or she chose chords because they are louder. The organ was deafening.’ Stella couldn’t see Joy getting flustered.

‘Felicity the Facilitator can obviously wield a knife, but since she left after you, how did she get past you?’

‘I would have seen her,’ Stella agreed.

‘I see what you meant about that Andrea Hammond, the gardener. Boy, was she hard work. However, for all she’s a sulky bitch with a pruning knife, CCTV backs up her story that she was cycling off along the high street before you called it in. Oh, and she did know people, she too lodges with the redoubtable Gladys Wren. She had passed March on the landing by the bathroom, but claims not to have said more than hello. I didn’t get the sense Mrs W was keen on Andrea, but I also got the sense that she likes blokes better.’ Janet moved her finger around Stella’s diagram of the Death Café table. ‘That clock man, Clive Burgess, is as thin as a pin, but we’ve established it doesn’t take strength to stick even a strapping man like March in the back. He said he hadn’t seen March before that night and I tend to believe him. Gladys Wren had more to lose than gain by March’s death, no more gratis sherry, she’s lost a lodger and her tears were definitely real. Of all of you, she’s the only one who seems genuinely sorry.’

‘I don’t see her killing anyone.’ Stella resented the implication she wasn’t sorry.

‘That leaves the perfect stranger.’ Janet groaned. ‘A copper’s nightmare.’

It was all a nightmare. For the umpteenth time, Stella wished she’d stayed in the flat. Takeaway, chat with Lucie, bed, then up early to clean…

‘…according to the tox report, Roderick March’s