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Authors: Sheila Radley
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exactly?â
âShe drove down to London on the 30th, as far as I can remember.â
âAnd you last saw Athol Garrity on the 29th. Hasnât it struck you as odd, Mrs Ainger, that her departure should coincide with his death?â
Gillian Ainger stood back and looked him straight in the eye. âThe date of Janeyâs departure had been fixed for months. She was in England on a studentâs permit that expired at the end of July. But Atholâs movements were unpredictable, as Iâve already told you.â
âItâs still an interesting coincidence.â
âWhat coincidence are you talking about, Mr Quantrill?â Her voice began to shake with indignant reproach. âI think youâre trying to take advantage of me â to push me into some kind of premature speculation. Have you been able to establish the date of death of the body youâve found? Have you established whether it really is Athol Garrityâs? Because if you havenât â¦â
She stopped, aware that she was becoming shrill; she drew a deep breath, and spoke with firm resolution. âThe Rector and I have tried to help you as much as possible, Mr Quantrill. Weâve given you as much information as we can and I really think â donât you? â that it would be as well if you established your facts before questioning either of us any further.â
The strength of her reply took the Chief Inspector by surprise.
He stood discomfited, recalling that his son was currently suspected of taking part in a particularly senseless act of vandalism on church property, and that the Rectorâs wife knew all about it. He remembered too that the detective sergeant from Yarchester who was dealing with the enquiry was coming that evening to interview Peter at home in front of his parents.
Quantrill found that he had nothing more to say. He handed over the shopping-bag, lifted his hat, and skulked off.
Chapter Eight
âKids â¦â thought Douglas Quantrill sourly, twenty-four hours later. Had he been king that day, he would have banished from Breckham Market everyone under the age of eighteen. Boys especially. His own, to start with.
It was not only Peterâs behaviour â half childishly defensive, half truculent â in front of Sergeant Tuckswood the previous evening that irked him. Quantrill had earlier, during the course of the afternoon, gone with DC Wigby to talk to the two boys who had found the skeleton, and their righteous evasions had left him suspicious and frustrated.
Justin Muttock and Adrian Orris were having an unforgettable half-term holiday. Their discovery had initially terrified them, but as soon as they had unloaded the responsibility of it on to the nearest adult they began to recover. Before long, they thought themselves heroes: taken home in a police car, listened to respectfully by a note-taking constable, cosseted first by Justinâs grandmother and then by their parents, talked to matily by the Rector, and finally visited by a reporter and a photographer from the East Anglian Daily Press .
Their photographs had appeared on the front page of the newspaper on the day of Quantrillâs visit. Justinâs Gran, who was a school dinner-lady and therefore available during the holidays to mind the two boys while their mothers worked at the egg-packing depot, had immediately rushed out to have her hair done, in the hope that a television reporter would soon be on his way to her terraced house in Victoria Road.
Mrs Muttock senior was in her early fifties, a short, round, perkily youthful grandmother; her hair had required only a little assistance to restore its natural darkness, and when Quantrill and Wigby arrived she was wearing a skittish skirt and rather a lot of eye-shadow and lipstick. She had been wearing it all day, to the sardonic amusement of her neighbours, and had still not given up hope that an Anglia Television van might at any moment come
âShe drove down to London on the 30th, as far as I can remember.â
âAnd you last saw Athol Garrity on the 29th. Hasnât it struck you as odd, Mrs Ainger, that her departure should coincide with his death?â
Gillian Ainger stood back and looked him straight in the eye. âThe date of Janeyâs departure had been fixed for months. She was in England on a studentâs permit that expired at the end of July. But Atholâs movements were unpredictable, as Iâve already told you.â
âItâs still an interesting coincidence.â
âWhat coincidence are you talking about, Mr Quantrill?â Her voice began to shake with indignant reproach. âI think youâre trying to take advantage of me â to push me into some kind of premature speculation. Have you been able to establish the date of death of the body youâve found? Have you established whether it really is Athol Garrityâs? Because if you havenât â¦â
She stopped, aware that she was becoming shrill; she drew a deep breath, and spoke with firm resolution. âThe Rector and I have tried to help you as much as possible, Mr Quantrill. Weâve given you as much information as we can and I really think â donât you? â that it would be as well if you established your facts before questioning either of us any further.â
The strength of her reply took the Chief Inspector by surprise.
He stood discomfited, recalling that his son was currently suspected of taking part in a particularly senseless act of vandalism on church property, and that the Rectorâs wife knew all about it. He remembered too that the detective sergeant from Yarchester who was dealing with the enquiry was coming that evening to interview Peter at home in front of his parents.
Quantrill found that he had nothing more to say. He handed over the shopping-bag, lifted his hat, and skulked off.
Chapter Eight
âKids â¦â thought Douglas Quantrill sourly, twenty-four hours later. Had he been king that day, he would have banished from Breckham Market everyone under the age of eighteen. Boys especially. His own, to start with.
It was not only Peterâs behaviour â half childishly defensive, half truculent â in front of Sergeant Tuckswood the previous evening that irked him. Quantrill had earlier, during the course of the afternoon, gone with DC Wigby to talk to the two boys who had found the skeleton, and their righteous evasions had left him suspicious and frustrated.
Justin Muttock and Adrian Orris were having an unforgettable half-term holiday. Their discovery had initially terrified them, but as soon as they had unloaded the responsibility of it on to the nearest adult they began to recover. Before long, they thought themselves heroes: taken home in a police car, listened to respectfully by a note-taking constable, cosseted first by Justinâs grandmother and then by their parents, talked to matily by the Rector, and finally visited by a reporter and a photographer from the East Anglian Daily Press .
Their photographs had appeared on the front page of the newspaper on the day of Quantrillâs visit. Justinâs Gran, who was a school dinner-lady and therefore available during the holidays to mind the two boys while their mothers worked at the egg-packing depot, had immediately rushed out to have her hair done, in the hope that a television reporter would soon be on his way to her terraced house in Victoria Road.
Mrs Muttock senior was in her early fifties, a short, round, perkily youthful grandmother; her hair had required only a little assistance to restore its natural darkness, and when Quantrill and Wigby arrived she was wearing a skittish skirt and rather a lot of eye-shadow and lipstick. She had been wearing it all day, to the sardonic amusement of her neighbours, and had still not given up hope that an Anglia Television van might at any moment come
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