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

Stella had learnt that the veteran reporter’s tough exterior encapsulated a soft heart.

‘Of course, the man on the towpath.’ Stella jolted, spilling gin on Stanley, asleep on her lap. ‘That’s why Clive’s front door was open.’

‘’Fraid so.’ Lucie frowned. ‘It was so damn dark down there.’

‘We have to tell Janet.’ Stella patted Stanley dry with her sleeve.

‘We do not. We shall form our own fight club. Wait for Granite-Janet’s face when we drop the real murderer into her in-tray.’

‘She’ll ask why we didn’t mention the man on the towpath.’ Stella didn’t want to get one over on Janet.

‘She has no reason to ask and if she does, we forgot. Which we did.’ Lucie was undeterred. ‘I’m betting it’s one of your Death buddies. Roddy March came there to warn the person who was threatening him that he was on to them. Rash move.’

Stella’s phone pinged with a text. ‘It’s Bev.’

‘She’ll be telling you Jack can’t live without you.’

‘She’s forwarded an email.’ Stella opened her laptop and scrolled to her inbox.

‘…you might give the guy a break…’ Lucie was saying.

‘Roddy came to see me,’ Stella said. ‘He wrote to me after we came to Tewkesbury. Bev said she found the email in junk. She’s at Jackie’s. They said I should see it. Roddy wanted my assistance with his podcast about Northcote’s murder at Cloisters House. No wonder he expected me to know him. He must have assumed I was in Tewkesbury because I was interested in Northcote’s murder.’

‘Cheek of the chap – you, his assistant? But why not talk to you?’

‘He tried, but was called away. Then later, at the Death Café, I supposed he was hitting on me, so I gave him the brush-off.’

‘Atta girl,’ Lucie chirruped. ‘So, how does Clive fit in?’

‘Clive overhears something at the Death Café, or was he in the abbey too? Maybe he saw something that at the time meant nothing, then the next day he learns Roddy has been murdered and whatever it was makes sense. He did say something. I ignored it.’

‘Come on, what was it?’ Lucie said.

‘I thought he was joking, something about the Beatles.’ The gin was, after all, smoothing the edges.

‘All of them, one of them?’ Lucie glared at her. ‘John, Paul, George—’

‘Lennon. He said “Think John Lennon.”’

‘That’s as code-worthy as chamomile.’ Lucie pulled open a bag of figs with such force the bag split, spraying figs everywhere. Chocolate, carrots, figs, Stella admired Lucie’s effort to keep off the cigarettes.

‘Car wo my. Or mo.’ Stella snatched Stanley mid-flight as he aimed for a fig.

‘John Lennon was shot around early December in 1980 by a man who had got Lennon to sign Double Fantasy, his last album, I remember it well. I had to spend the next day in bed.’ Lucie looked wistful. ‘Can’t see how that helps us now.’

‘Clive had met Northcote – what if he killed him? He never got paid for the clock he mended for Northcote. A silly reason, but Clive seemed pretty upset about it when he told us. What if he mended the clock and killed him, like Lennon’s killer?’

‘Northcote owed him for the clock, killing him meant Clive would never get his money. Stella, by now our killer will know you’ve bagged a ringside seat at both Roddy and Clive’s murders.’ Lucie washed down her fig with nippet. ‘Your picture’s been in the news, the killer could think you know more than you do. Have you seen anyone out of the ordinary?’ She was making another nippet.

‘No, but I haven’t been looking.’ Jack said, ‘Never assume you are unobserved.’ Or was that Terry?

‘Our murderer will be well aware you’re the Detective’s Daughter, Hygiene Queen of Crime with a hundred per cent solve rate.’ Lucie handed Stella the gin and tonic. ‘Drink this, you’ll need it.’

‘Why?’ Stella was back on the country lane, brake lights red in the pitch dark. She had noticed someone out of the ordinary.

‘Because if I’m right, you could be the next victim.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

2019

Jack

SIR ALECK NORTHCOTE

1901–1963

FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST

LIVED HERE

1929–1941

Jack peered through the rain-spattered windscreen at the plaque. Then at the top floor from where, nearly eighty years ago, Julia Northcote had strung up her noose. Scant comfort that, had she lived, Julia would now be dead. Jack felt as sad as if she had died yesterday and Julia Northcote had been his own mother.

How had Giles felt when he learned of her death? Did he, like Jack had, still write letters to his mummy after supper at boarding school? In his cell at Pentonville prison waiting for his last dawn, had Giles cried for Julia?

Next door, the Coach House which, Jack had read in the Tatler, was where Northcote had garaged his Daimler, was now a bijou bolthole of brushed steel and repointed bricks with a separate gate.

11.11 p.m. Jack lived by signs. The time was good luck. He and Stella had got into a thing of texting each other with a heart if they noticed it was 11.11. She wouldn’t welcome him doing that now. When he’d seen SJX on a Toyota Hybrid – Stella Jack Kiss – that very day Lucie had texted urging him to see Stella in Tewkesbury. Not every sign was a good sign.

When he left Jackie and Graham’s, Jack’s low mood was lower still. The others were working with Stella and Lucie. Whatever Beverly said about Jack being on the team, if Stella didn’t want him, that was that.

Before Jack met Stella, he’d been on a mission. He would find out who murdered his mother and kill them. He was looking for what he called a True Host, one who has murdered or plans to murder. A True Host because Jack gained entry to their home and, secreted in an attic or spare room, became their guest.

Stella had been investigating one of her father’s cold cases. After a shaky start, they agreed they had objectives in common and teamed up. But Stella, the police-officer’s daughter, hadn’t cared for Jack’s MO. Hiding in people’s