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

with Cotton, leaving his lighter at Maple Greenhill’s murder scene was basic.’

‘Your clothes must have been bloodstained.’

‘I burnt them in his stove. I took a shirt from his wardrobe, laundered and starched, it smelled of him. When I left, I took the poker – never leave the police a weapon.’

‘What if you had been searched?’

‘As Northcote told me, the police ignore the least likely suspect. They still do. That woman they had on the murders of March and Clive never as much as considered me.’ Felicity spoke as if the murders were nothing to do with her. ‘I booked into the Tudor House Hotel, it’s not far—’

‘I know where it is.’ Stella had cleaned there.

‘After breakfast I went across to Cloisters House to get my autograph. Only to display profound shock when the police officer outside informed me Northcote had been murdered. I sobbed, real tears, I cried for the professional who was my personal deity. Just then Professor Max Watkins, Home Office pathologist, came out of the house. He remembered my intelligent questions at his lectures and autopsies.

‘“Young lady, career-defining cases come rarely, come with me and keep your wits about you.”’

‘I watched him cut and bottle Northcote. I agreed Northcote was bludgeoned with a blunt instrument – not quite blunt, I tentatively proffered – could those indentations on his skull indicate some kind of pattern, could Northcote have been attacked with a fire-iron? “Clever child,” Watkins said. He invited me to motor back to town in a Daimler that “Poor old Northcote himself flogged to me when he got his Rolls.” When Giles Northcote was charged, Watkins was cheerful. “Zeus kills Cronos, the old make way for the young.” As I held the jar containing Northcote’s liver to the light, I blew him a kiss.’

‘Giles Northcote was innocent.’ Stella’s throat was on fire from shouting above the deafening sound. They were ankle-deep in water. Did Felicity plan to die with her?

‘Don’t spoil it, Stella.’ Distracted by water swirling at their feet, Felicity snapped into the present. ‘I’m seventy-four with an international reputation, I speak at international conferences, as Northcote once inspired me, so I guide the young. I won’t be felled by armchair detectives like you and Andrea who have something to prove to their fathers.’

‘My father is dead.’ Stella was telling herself as much as Felicity.

‘Police will be swarming around the abbey, Forensics will be all over Joy. I watched your man friend sneaking about in dear Andrea’s room from across the street. I called the house and left a message with one of Gladys’s greasy lodgers. Soon smoked Mr Harmon out, I can tell you. What a shame he can’t come to your rescue, Stella, but all the roads into Tewkesbury are cut off by floodwater. As pathologist on call, they’ll be ringing me.’

‘You have retired. They won’t be calling you. Ever.’ Stella lost it. She had in fact nothing to lose.

‘…how sorry I will be when I’m told the river has claimed you. I shall treat you with care. My report will state water in your lungs indicates you were alive when you went in. Northcote taught me the corpse is a narrative, my bible. Your bloated cadaver will tell your story. The police will assemble facts and make five. Joy attacked you, and in self-defence you killed her. At Fletcher’s old mill, with only the moonlight to show you the way, you slipped and tumbled into the rushing waters.’

‘You won’t get away with it.’ Not every ending was happy. Felicity was plausible. Respected. Jack and the others thought Joy was their killer. She would get away with it.

‘Stella.’ Jack’s voice. Wishful thinking was skewing reality. Jack was stuck on a road outside Tewkesbury with Andrea – harmless grumpy Andrea. Jack would be annoying her with how he loved Stella…

Rain etched silver lines across the lamplight on St Mary’s Lane. The moon was out. Something floated downstream. A dead sheep, sodden and bloated, was pale in the thin light. Stella saw herself.

‘Stella.’

Felicity turned.

Torchlight, the strobing lamps of squad cars and ambulances. Armed police were on the gantry below the old mill. Stella made out Janet at the other end of the bridge. And Jack.

‘Keep back.’ Felicity again pressed the cartilage knife to her neck. This time not the flat of the blade.

‘I can say it was Joy who killed Northcote,’ Stella shouted at Felicity. ‘That you saved me.’

‘How will you lie to your chap? Isn’t honesty important to you?’ Felicity appeared interested. Stella felt a flicker of hope.

‘I lie to Jack all the time.’ Don’t plead. ‘I’ll say Joy was blackmailing you.’

‘Clever, it could work.’ Felicity spoke into her ear. Stella felt more scared of her now that she was being pliant.

‘I’ll say you found me on the bridge and stopped me from falling in.’

‘Perfect.’ Felicity’s laugh was high, strange. ‘Ah, Stella, I almost feel sorry for you. You underestimate me and, as Aleck found out, people do that at their peril.’

A scream, louder than the water pounding below, rent the air.

‘Jack.’ Stella felt thuds, heard shouts. She was inches from the black river.

‘I’ve got you, darling.’ Stella felt Jack around her. Then she was on a stretcher. Jack held her hand. Voices, faces. Stella touched her neck, it was wet. She was dying.

‘Not a mark on you, popsicle.’ Lucie’s face swam into focus. ‘Before she jumped, she let you go.’

‘She jumped?’

‘The rescue launch is out. A budget-breaking wild goose chase. Ask me, Felicitatus does not intend to be rescued.’

Cat woman.

Stella imagined Felicity slinking out of the water and running nimbly up the bank. Then she passed out.

Epilogue

Christmas Eve

Jackie

‘Shall I be mother?’ Bev waved at the array of teapots on the table and at a murmur of assent, poured Earl Grey, bog-standard and gunpowder tea (Lucie) into a cluster of Tewkesbury Abbey mugs.

Eight minutes past ten. Christmas Eve morning. The Clean Slate Detectives, as Bev named them, had been first into the Abbey Gardens tearoom where, as Jack had noted, everything began.