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

her tactical-strength boots into the gap when Andrea tried to slam the door. This wasn’t what happened.

‘Nice of you to see us, Andrea.’ Lucie barged into the hall and, ignoring Andrea’s threat to call the police, pounded along the passage. Stella shut the door in case Andrea flew out into the street yelling for help.

‘I’d kill for a cuppa.’ Seating herself at Gladys Wren’s Formica table, Lucie showed her teeth.

‘I said I won’t talk to you. Leave now.’ Andrea’s whooshing motion was wasted on Lucie who was ferreting in her bag. In the harsh strip-light, her complexion was sallower than outside in the abbey gardens.

‘I abandoned a jolly nice pot of lapsang for you.’ Lucie took out a package wrapped in tissue. To Stella’s amazement, at the sight of what was Lucie’s scone, complete with jam and cream, Andrea switched on the kettle and assembled mugs. Wishing she’d had the presence of mind to bring her own cream tea, Stella sat at the table.

‘How long were you and Roddy together?’ Lucie darted dainty licks at her scone.

‘How do you know that?’ Andrea flopped down at the table.

‘Ooh, where to start? With tea, I think?’ Lucie pointed at the kettle as it boiled.

‘I don’t have to talk to reporters.’ A superfluous protest since, clearly, Andrea did have to talk to Lucie. She resumed tea-making – Lady Grey, Stella noticed.

‘OK, babes, if you’re a gardener, I’m a blue-headed unicorn,’ Lucie said. ‘Can you even call a spade a spade? You lived cheek by jowl to Roderick March yet, at the Death Café, you were strangers. Not even the nod of recognition we’d expect, given you lived under the same roof. We know March was operating incognito, he’d instructed dear Mrs Wren – she is a poppet, isn’t she – to act dumb around him. But what were your instructions?’

‘Roderick didn’t expect me to be there. I wanted to mess up his plan.’ Andrea plonked a chipped mug in front of Stella. ‘Show him I can’t be walked over.’

‘Why?’ Stella said.

‘He’d gone there to ask you out. He’d missed his chance at the Abbey the day before because I phoned him.’

‘He couldn’t have known I’d be there, I never told him.’

‘He saw your name on the abbey’s cleaning rota.’ Andrea spat out the words.

‘How come anyone could see that?’ Lucie asked Stella’s question.

‘It’s in the abbey’s admin office. Rod sneaked in there.’

‘Is that what Roddy told you, that he planned to ask me out?’

‘His name was Rod. Rod March, and it’s disgusting you can even ask.’ Andrea’s eyes, like small round pebbles underwater, were hard and unremitting.

‘Sorry?’ Stella wilted. The trouble with doorstepping was you could end up in a kitchen packed with murder weapons.

‘Take it from the top, Andrea, skip nothing.’ Lucie accepted her tea from Andrea with a scary smile. ‘We’re all friends here.’

‘We met on Tinder,’ Andrea said.

‘That’s great.’ Stella tried to be encouraging. Lucie shot her a look. Be invisible.

‘Rod was gorgeous, with nice eyes – why was a hunk like him on a dating site? And when he walked into the restaurant – he suggested Nando’s – he was as good as his photo. I was smitten.’ Her smile faded. ‘When I waved him over, he couldn’t hide his disappointment. I waited for his phone to ring – my friend Sally was calling me after half an hour so I could high-tail it if he was a dud; he had to have lined up the same thing.’

‘Did it ring?’ Lucie swiped to a fresh page.

‘No. Of course later I knew he’d have upped and gone regardless of my feelings. But I didn’t know, so I went into overdrive to keep him scoffing his peri-peri wings. I told him about my private project. About an unsolved murder of a woman in 1940, Maple Greenhill. I told Rod that I knew who killed her and that I planned to expose him.’

‘Did you intend it as a podcast, with you as star detective?’ Lucie clacked her teeth. A new and unsettling habit.

‘All my life I’ve slaved at a job, nine to five, five to midnight, weekends, no holidays,’ Andrea said. ‘It was not a bloody podcast… it was for… for me. My private quest, and he stole it.’

‘Roddy stole the idea from you?’ Stella said.

‘Did Rod tell you he was too tired for sex, but not so tired to be up all night on his laptop listening to true-crime podcasts?’ Andrea snarled.

‘Ouch. Let’s play nice,’ Lucie crooned. ‘I’m guessing you’re a teensy bit annoyed with the late Mr March. No matter, trot on.’

‘Rod stayed, he bought more drinks, ordered a plate piled with those Portuguese tarts and had me tell him everything. We went back to my flat and, after sex, like a love-sick idiot, I showed him my notes. Next thing, he’s dumped the cadaver grave thingy for his podcast for my murder. It’s only cos I threatened to cut off his balls with my Victorinox knife that I got to be assistant researcher.’

‘Yet you’re a gardener.’ Stella felt outrage on Andrea’s behalf.

‘I actually knew they were cyclamens,’ Andrea told Lucie.

‘I meant, did he pay you for the research?’ Getting the picture, Stella doubted it.

‘I gave up work and used my savings.’

‘That was some step.’ Stella didn’t know why, but felt Andrea was now lying.

‘Whenever he stayed, before going to sleep – after spending every evening under the duvet recording his podcast, Rod was too tired to have sex. He’d put himself to sleep to a true-crime podcast. We had an ear bud each for better sound. He didn’t care that they were about real dead people, he skipped the bits where their families cried or said they would never get over the loss. Our first row was when I called him morbid and he said did I need a mirror? I said it wasn’t the same…’ Andrea drew breath. ‘His podcast would be the best since Serial. It would add to the greater good, bring closure and restore truth