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

‘Or, how far away.’ Stella saved the spreadsheet just as the doorbell rang. ‘It’s half six in the morning, who can that be?’

‘Who indeed.’ From Lucie’s wide-eyed look, Stella guessed Lucie knew exactly who it would be.

‘Ta-dah.’ Lucie flung wide the lounge door and with a swooping action presented Beverly. And Jack.

‘I hope it was all right to come.’ Jack hung back.

‘Naturellement, Jacaranda,’ Lucie crowed. ‘Bev, help me get breakfast, you must have left before the hotel was serving.’

‘I can leave.’ Jack moved to let them pass.

‘Maybe you could sit here.’ Stella nodded at the leather pouffe in front of the armchair. ‘It’s not that comfortable, but…’ I need you next to me popped into her head. ‘Could you help with this?’

‘A hundred per cent, I can.’ Jack was on the pouffe, leaning over the arm of the cockpit in seconds. He looked at the spreadsheet. ‘Lordy, how many suspects? If I was murdered, I’d hope the number of those wanting me dead was smaller.’

‘You’re much nicer than Roddy March.’ Stella realized that dying in her arms didn’t make March a good guy. He had used Andrea, probably Gladys Wren too, although at least she’d got something back. He’d gatecrashed Felicity’s Death Café where he’d mocked Clive and derided Andrea in his notes. She told Jack, ‘They could all have killed March, and Clive being the next victim doesn’t rule him out as Roddy’s killer.’

Beverly and Lucie returned with bacon sandwiches oozing with butter and ketchup. Bev distributed coffee, which was a great improvement on slippery elm.

‘Jackie said we’re to be one team. Jack and me won’t take no for an answer,’ Bev announced. ‘But we not asking so you can’t say no.’

‘Please stay.’ Stella touched Jack’s arm and, exhausted, she left it there.

‘Deal.’ Lucie patted the sofa for Bev to join her there.

‘What have you both got?’ Stella took a large bite of the bacon sandwich and instantly felt better.

‘Seventy-nine years ago, on the twelfth of December 1940, Maple Greenhill was found strangled in an empty house near the river in Hammersmith during the Blitz.’ Beverly might have been telling one of her dad’s bedtime stories: Stella relaxed. Looking at Jack, Bev swiped at her chin. Taking the hint Jack cleaned the wrong side. Stella leaned across and wiped off the ketchup with her bit of kitchen towel. Ketchup, not blood.

‘Northcote was first on the scene. He’d been called by an ARP officer who heard a woman shouting,’ Jack jumped in, his face suddenly red.

‘Or that’s what Northcote told the police when they were surprised that he’d got there so quickly.’ Bev arched her eyebrows. ‘What if Northcote wasn’t first on the scene but was there all along?’

Stella filled her spreadsheet as Jack and Beverly talked. Maple had lived in the same house on Corney Road as Jackie and Graham did now. From her elderly neighbour, Jackie discovered that George Cotton, the detective, was buried in the cemetery opposite her house. Maple’s little boy had been three when his mother was strangled. Stella squeezed Jack’s arm. That would have struck a chord; Jack was three when his mother was murdered.

‘The case was ruled “murder by person or persons unknown”,’ Jack concluded. ‘Except one thing. Jackie’s neighbour, Phyllis Jenkins, was adamant Maple wasn’t a sex-worker, and so was Cleo Greenhill at the garage. Vernon, who was Cleo’s grandfather and Maple’s brother, said that Maple claimed to be engaged. He said the police had found a cheap ring. Maple worked as a clerk for the Express Dairies, but the Greenhills believed it was because Maple was boxed off as a prostitute that the press lost interest. We saw the fuss when the Yorkshire Ripper murdered a student – sex-workers are disposable, even these days.’

‘Cleo told me that the family always thought there was a cover-up.’ Beverly said. The police knew who had killed Maple, but it didn’t suit for the truth to come out. Thanks to a software program from Geo-Space that estate agents use for virtual tours of properties, we can confirm this.’ Stella could hardly keep up as she added in dates of Julia Northcote’s supposed suicide and the facts gleaned from cuttings that Julia had hastily torn from the press and stuffed in a cardboard box.

‘March somehow gained access to the Northcotes’ London house and he must have known where Julia had hidden the box on – we think – the day her husband, Aleck Northcote, confessed. He faked her suicide a week later on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps she told him she was going to the papers, she would have known not to go to the police.’ Beverly balled up her kitchen towel. ‘How did March know about the box?

‘Perhaps he wasn’t there looking for the box, but to hide it again. It had been a safe place since 1940.’ Stella switched out of Excel and brought up the Ravenscourt Square house on Rightmove. Jack showed her the white circular marker which revealed March crouching in the top room.

‘But why hide it at all?’ Jack said.

‘If someone was on to him, perhaps he thought it was the last place anyone would look,’ Lucie said. ‘We haven’t talked about the charming Andrea. It’s a tedious stereotype, but March has a freshly jilted girlfriend who he effed over; Andrea had the means and the motive to send him to hell.’

‘We only have Andrea’s word for it she was his girlfriend,’ Stella said. ‘She obviously loved him.’

‘Did she love him?’ Lucie bit into a fig. ‘What if the tedious stereotype was cooked up for our benefit?’

‘She made no bones about being angry. If she had killed March, surely she’d have tried to put us off the scent?’ Stella looked up from the screen.

‘How did Roddy March know Julia Northcote had left a letter pointing the finger at her husband?’ Beverly asked. ‘Cleo said he’d been to Maple Motors – he was way ahead of us. I don’t buy the mugger angle, his podcast might be a heap