Read Online A Dreadful Past by Peter Turnbull - Free Book Online Page B

was a mixture of old original, pre-World War Two developments which stood near the entrance to the avenue at the junction with Burlington Avenue and more recent 1960s housing which stood deeper within the avenue, yet the recently built housing blended, both officers thought, sensitively with the original houses. Carmen Pharoah and Thompson Ventnor left the car after securely locking it and walked up the short and narrow front path of number 237, which was lined with a waist-high privet hedge at the side. Carmen Pharoah knocked on the blue-painted front door using the soft yet still authoritative police officers knock, of tap … tap … tap. There was no immediate response. Pharoah and Ventnor glanced at each other and Pharoah was about to knock a second time when at that moment movement was to be heard from within the house in the manner of an internal door being opened with a distinct ‘click’ and then shut. Moments later the front door was opened and a short and finely made woman stood on the threshold of the house. She had, noted the two officers, gaunt and drawn features, piercing green eyes and straggly, uncombed grey hair which reached to her shoulders. She wore a long black dress, the hem of which hung just below her knees, revealing thin calves which stopped in heavy black ‘sensible’ shoes. The woman wore a necklace of multi-coloured plastic beads which she had looped twice around her long neck, and she wore equally inexpensive plastic bangles around each wrist. ‘Yes?’ she said, with a trace of curiosity but without any trace at all of fear or alarm caused by the two strangers who had suddenly presented themselves on her doorstep.
    â€˜Police.’ Carmen Pharoah held up her ID card. Ventnor did the same.
    â€˜All right,’ the woman replied after glancing at each card. ‘I see you’re genuine. Is there some trouble?’
    â€˜Mrs Graham?’ Pharoah asked. ‘Mrs Anne Graham?’
    â€˜Miss … but yes, Miss Anne Graham, and I dare say that you’ll be calling about the murder of the Middleton family all those years ago? Horrible thing to have happened.’
    â€˜Yes, yes, we are.’ Carmen Pharoah replaced her ID card in her handbag. ‘How did you know that?’
    â€˜I didn’t. I guessed.’ Miss Graham glanced continually from Carmen Pharoah to Thompson Ventnor and then back to Pharoah and Ventnor. ‘I thought you’d be very likely calling on me when I saw the evening news on television last night. It said that the police were taking another look at the murders. I must say, you took your time to re-open the case but at least you’re having another stab at it. So good for you, I say. Good for you.’
    â€˜We’re not re-opening it.’ Ventnor held firm eye contact with Miss Graham. ‘It was never closed. Cases are only closed upon a conviction being obtained. But anyway, you sound angry, Miss Graham. Were you fond of the family?’
    â€˜No, no, I wasn’t,’ Miss Graham snorted. ‘I didn’t like them much at all really but I thought then, and I still think, that the police stopped their inquiries all too soon … But then I’m not a copper so I suppose you had your reasons. Or the police all those years ago had their reasons. So why are you investigating again?’
    â€˜We have the time,’ Carmen Pharoah replied quickly and strongly, sensing that Thompson Ventnor was going to tell Miss Graham about the Wedgwood vase which had been seen in the window of an antiques shop and further sensing that it was an item of information which was at that time best withheld from Miss Graham.
    â€˜Yes … it’s a quiet period,’ Ventnor confirmed, taking his cue from Carmen Pharoah. ‘We have the time and so we thought we’d use it. Simple as that.’
    â€˜So how can I help the police?’ Miss Graham continued to look at the two officers with her cold