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

‘I wonder if maybe Agnes’s parents wanted her near them.Poor George, forced to cover up a murder case, then his wife dies.’ Jackie shone the torch on George’s grave. ‘We’re lucky we haven’t had to live through a war on the home front. Life stopped, the blackout, rationing, a swathe of new confusing laws. And the noise, smoke, the destruction of your home, whole streets went. I couldn’t live thinking my children, my family and friends could die at any time.’ Jackie stopped. ‘Sorry, folks, digging up the past has got to me.’

‘My nan’s mum got told off for not having her gas mask on a bus. Nan was there, she got scared her mum would go to prison,’ Beverly said.

‘And they were never needed, thank goodness,’ Jackie said. ‘June, their daughter, died of cancer the same year as George, in 1979 aged fifty-seven.’

‘George had a tragic life,’ Jack said.

‘I’m sure not. A life distilled to paperwork leaves out lots of good bits. Those days when a beam of sunlight lifts your mood.’ Jackie led them back through the secret hole in the railings and switched off her torch. ‘According to one of those newspaper cuttings in Julia Northcote’s Lyons’ Swiss Roll box, Cotton’s right-hand man at the time of Maple’s murder was PC John Peter Shepherd. He also left the police in 1940. He joined the Royal Engineers in January 1941, survived the war and died three years ago in a nursing home, unmarried and childless. Agnes dying in 1940 might explain Cotton leaving the force, Shepherd could have wanted to fight for his country, but something doesn’t feel right. They needed police officers on the home front, so why let Cotton Shepherd go? From Julia Northcote’s letter, I suspect both men were removed from the scene because they solved Maple’s murder and got the wrong result. Ah, here’s your posh new jalopy, Bev.’

They were drenched in car headlights as a racing green Mini stopped in the circle of lamplight and, climbing out, Cleo Greenhill tossed Beverly the keys.

‘She’s fuelled up and ready to go. Handles like a dream.’ Cleo patted the bonnet.

Jackie detected more sincerity in the woman’s tones than she’d expected when Jack told her Beverly had bought a car in fifteen minutes flat. Still, although impulsive, Bev rarely made mistakes.

‘Can we drop you back at the garage?’ Beverly asked when she and Jack had stowed their bags in the boot and were ready to leave.

‘You’re fine, my wife’s waiting.’ Cleo jerked a thumb at a white BMW sports parked further down Corney Road. Jackie knew Cleo had come out for Bev, letting her know she wasn’t the only lesbian in town.

Jack and Bev climbed into the Mini.

‘I’m guessing it’s under guarantee,’ Jackie couldn’t help saying to Cleo as they watched the Mini’s rear lights recede.

‘Three years, plus I’ve extended cooling-off to a month. All I care is they prove that Creep-Bag pathologist Northcote murdered my dad’s Aunty Maple. And, if they do find who killed Northcote in the sixties, if he’s still on this earth, I’ll shake his hand.’ Cleo punched a fist into her palm.

‘I’m sorry they weren’t straight with you. Blame me,’ Jackie said.

‘I knew they weren’t the happy couple they said they were. I could spot Bev a mile off, takes one to know one, and Jack looks like he’s lost a tenner and found a fifty pence piece. Beverly was initially less bothered by the Mini’s TwinPower Turbo or multi-function instrument display than talking about Maple. Although she must have been listening to my list of deluxe features because she bought the car.’ Cleo gave a husky laugh. ‘Jackie, please would you do me a favour?’

‘If I can.’ Jackie liked Cleo Greenhill.

‘If my grandad Vernon killed this Northcote, please tell me first so I can prepare Dad?’

Chapter Thirty-Eight

2019

Stella

‘I was born in this room,’ Joy Turton said.

‘Gosh.’ Stella had no need for her finger test – an aluminium lamp illuminated a veil of dust on the dining table, window sill, along the top of a large television. She hoped it had been cleaner when Joy’s mother was giving birth.

The electronic keyboard, a skirt around the stand that made it look like an altar, and the G-plan sofa were counter to what Stella had expected from Joy’s embroidered jacket with animals and arrows. But Terry had taught her not to expect or assume so maybe the stylish décor, tumbleweed fluff and home-spun garments were reflections of Joy’s complexity. A tussle with the old and the new. Were it not the best route to the organist’s wrong side and would look like touting for work, Stella would offer to clean.

‘You didn’t know Roddy March before the Death Café.’

‘I did know him,’ Joy replied.

‘I got no sense of that at the Death Café.’

‘Why should you have “got the sense”?’ Joy hadn’t offered a drink. Not that Stella fancied risking her crockery. ‘Personally, I was there to discuss death, not to get a sense of anyone.’

‘How did you know him?’ Stella doubted that any suspect her dad had interviewed had scared him like Joy was scaring her.

‘He interviewed me for his podcast.’

‘Why?’ Stella said. ‘You never said you knew Northcote.’

‘Do I have to reiterate my motive for going to the Death Café? I was a child when Sir Aleck met his death. I knew him only as an adult one saw about the town. I met Mr March fussing about the abbey. Now I know he was there for his podcast. I do hate liars.’ She stared at first Stella, then Lucie.

‘Did you hate March?’ Lucie’s fearlessness had, in the past, twice nearly got her killed.

‘You don’t fool me,’ Joy said. Stella wished she’d properly debriefed Lucie on the characteristics of the group – such as she’d observed – before they’d started interviews. ‘I hated Mr March for lying about why he was in the abbey – it was not where his mother worshipped in her youth – but if you’re suggesting I