Read Online A Little Learning by J. M. Gregson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: J. M. Gregson
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Birmingham and Preston.
Except for weekends, when holiday traffic pours towards the Lake District, the section which runs past Lancaster and towards the southern end of the Lakes is a pleasant drive. And all the more pleasant with Lucy Blake at your side, thought Percy contentedly. He wondered how long it would be before Tommy Bloody Tucker tumbled to what the rest of the station already knew: that Percy and Lucy were ‘an item’. Probably the silly old sod wouldn’t even have met the term yet, thought Percy Peach with satisfaction.
He eased the Scorpio up to eighty, the speed at which he reckoned he was safe from exciting the interest of the motorway traffic police, and slid his hand over Lucy’s. A moment later, he gave her thigh an affectionate squeeze. ‘Don’t handle the goods in transit, please,’ said Lucy. ‘Keep both your hands on the wheel and both your brain cells on the matter in hand!’
Percy thought of saying that he would have concentrated completely on the matter in hand, if only she had allowed that hand free range. Instead, he sighed and said, ‘Sound upset, did she, our Mrs Director?’
‘I didn’t speak to her. I spoke to her mother when I arranged our visit. She sounded very upset.’
Mothers-in-law weren’t supposed to be upset by the death of their daughter’s spouse, thought Percy. He was sure that the mother of the woman he had divorced seven years ago would greet his own death with unabashed glee. They drove past the turnings to Blackpool and then Morecambe, Lancashire holiday towns where the seaside-postcard legend of the mother-in-law, which was now so politically incorrect, had been fostered.
Percy favoured most things which were politically incorrect. But he liked Lucy’s mum, a sprightly, cricket-loving lady of sixty-seven, the only woman he had ever met who had recognized that the man the police service universally knew as ‘Percy’ had actually been named after the late, great Denis Charles Scott Compton, the laughing cavalier of cricket. He almost missed his motorway exit through wondering if the feisty Agnes Blake might eventually become his mother-in-law: very dangerous ground, that.
The house they wanted was to the north of the pleasant old town of Kendal, almost in the Lake District National Park. They caught the impressive outline of the Langdale Pikes and the southern fells of Lakeland as the road climbed a knoll before dropping into a village in the shelter of the hill. The house was detached, not large but solid and foursquare, built of grey-blue Lakeland stone at the turn of the nineteenth century. The orange berries of pyracantha blazed bright against the wall by the front door.
They had rather expected the owner of the house to admit them, but the woman who opened the door before they could even touch the bell was no older than her mid-forties. She was tall and erect, with neatly cut ash-blonde hair and a turquoise lambswool sweater above a well-cut grey skirt. She held out a hand to each of them in turn, waved aside their identification cards, and said, ‘I’m Ruth Carter. You want to see me, I believe. Please come inside.’
Lucy Blake caught a glimpse of an older woman, smiling wanly at them from beneath dishevelled hair from the doorway of a kitchen at the end of the hall, but Mrs Carter took them into a sitting room at the front of the house without introducing them to anyone else. She said by way of information, ‘My mother now lives here on her own — my father died six years ago, only a year after they’d retired here from Manchester.’
Lucy said, ‘I spoke to her on the phone. She sounded quite upset by what has happened. Not unnaturally.’
Ruth Carter nodded. ‘George’s death has hit her hard. She was very fond of him.’ She paused, then added almost reluctantly, ‘He was very good to her, in his own way, was George. It’s natural she should be upset, as you say. I’d prefer it if you didn’t speak to her, unless it’s
Except for weekends, when holiday traffic pours towards the Lake District, the section which runs past Lancaster and towards the southern end of the Lakes is a pleasant drive. And all the more pleasant with Lucy Blake at your side, thought Percy contentedly. He wondered how long it would be before Tommy Bloody Tucker tumbled to what the rest of the station already knew: that Percy and Lucy were ‘an item’. Probably the silly old sod wouldn’t even have met the term yet, thought Percy Peach with satisfaction.
He eased the Scorpio up to eighty, the speed at which he reckoned he was safe from exciting the interest of the motorway traffic police, and slid his hand over Lucy’s. A moment later, he gave her thigh an affectionate squeeze. ‘Don’t handle the goods in transit, please,’ said Lucy. ‘Keep both your hands on the wheel and both your brain cells on the matter in hand!’
Percy thought of saying that he would have concentrated completely on the matter in hand, if only she had allowed that hand free range. Instead, he sighed and said, ‘Sound upset, did she, our Mrs Director?’
‘I didn’t speak to her. I spoke to her mother when I arranged our visit. She sounded very upset.’
Mothers-in-law weren’t supposed to be upset by the death of their daughter’s spouse, thought Percy. He was sure that the mother of the woman he had divorced seven years ago would greet his own death with unabashed glee. They drove past the turnings to Blackpool and then Morecambe, Lancashire holiday towns where the seaside-postcard legend of the mother-in-law, which was now so politically incorrect, had been fostered.
Percy favoured most things which were politically incorrect. But he liked Lucy’s mum, a sprightly, cricket-loving lady of sixty-seven, the only woman he had ever met who had recognized that the man the police service universally knew as ‘Percy’ had actually been named after the late, great Denis Charles Scott Compton, the laughing cavalier of cricket. He almost missed his motorway exit through wondering if the feisty Agnes Blake might eventually become his mother-in-law: very dangerous ground, that.
The house they wanted was to the north of the pleasant old town of Kendal, almost in the Lake District National Park. They caught the impressive outline of the Langdale Pikes and the southern fells of Lakeland as the road climbed a knoll before dropping into a village in the shelter of the hill. The house was detached, not large but solid and foursquare, built of grey-blue Lakeland stone at the turn of the nineteenth century. The orange berries of pyracantha blazed bright against the wall by the front door.
They had rather expected the owner of the house to admit them, but the woman who opened the door before they could even touch the bell was no older than her mid-forties. She was tall and erect, with neatly cut ash-blonde hair and a turquoise lambswool sweater above a well-cut grey skirt. She held out a hand to each of them in turn, waved aside their identification cards, and said, ‘I’m Ruth Carter. You want to see me, I believe. Please come inside.’
Lucy Blake caught a glimpse of an older woman, smiling wanly at them from beneath dishevelled hair from the doorway of a kitchen at the end of the hall, but Mrs Carter took them into a sitting room at the front of the house without introducing them to anyone else. She said by way of information, ‘My mother now lives here on her own — my father died six years ago, only a year after they’d retired here from Manchester.’
Lucy said, ‘I spoke to her on the phone. She sounded quite upset by what has happened. Not unnaturally.’
Ruth Carter nodded. ‘George’s death has hit her hard. She was very fond of him.’ She paused, then added almost reluctantly, ‘He was very good to her, in his own way, was George. It’s natural she should be upset, as you say. I’d prefer it if you didn’t speak to her, unless it’s
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