Read Online Burying the Past by Judith Cutler - Free Book Online

But she told the school secretary she’d put some of her best pieces of furniture in store. Just that. Not where. I’ve got someone on to it. It’d be nice to see if she reclaimed them before she died.’
    â€˜It would indeed. And you have a year of death?’
    â€˜It fits in with what you said about the house not being sold till ten years after her death and the market going flat – March, thirteen years ago.’
    â€˜Excellent. Where?’
    â€˜Hammersmith. Sheltered accommodation. She bought her apartment outright, lived there a couple of weeks, talking to the warden every day, and then just died. Phut. Heart, according to her death certificate. She had a minimalist funeral, ashes scattered on Dartmoor. Near those sodding badgers, maybe.’
    â€˜Is her solicitor still alive?’
    Kim blinked.
    â€˜I just thought that putting a ten-year moratorium on the legatee selling something as lucrative as a house might be a bit unusual – he or she might have tried to talk to her about it. Sometimes solicitors are just as nosy as the rest of us – might have wanted reasons.’
    Kim retired to a cubicle. Fran blasted her hands with the drier until Kim emerged again, to use the basin next to Fran’s.
    â€˜You’ve got the team working well, by the sound of it, Kim, not always easy for someone from another force. Is anyone trying to be too clever by half? You’re sure there isn’t? Good. Remember, if anyone plays you up, come down on them like a ton of bricks.’
    â€˜Thanks. But you won’t like what I’ve got to say next too much, Fran.’ She wrinkled her nose and rubbed one leg against the other, like a schoolgirl. ‘I’m afraid there was no trace of any ID on the skeleton, and, more to the point, no trace of a murder weapon. So it looks like we’re going to have to give your garden a bit of a going over.’
    â€˜As I said, the garden’s not a problem. In fact, we’d be grateful to have it dug for us,’ she said, laughing.
    â€˜But you still don’t want us to touch the house itself, even though from what that Paula woman says, you can’t move in for a bit anyway?’
    â€˜Money, Kim, money,’ Fran said. ‘Twenty per cent cuts. If you don’t cut some expenditure, you cut either front-line staff or the back-room people we all depend on. Last year I had to watch them sacrifice a whole team; this year there’ll be more. If we get extravagant on this investigation, there’ll be less to spend on the next. What if we have to skimp on the investigation of a current murder just so we can say we’ve crossed all the T’s and dotted all the I’s on this? In fact, rather than dig up the whole patch, I’d get a metal detector run over it. Maybe find a keen amateur detectorist – the heritage officer might be able to recommend an honest one. No nighthawks, thanks very much. But I’d bet any possible murder weapon disappeared years ago, wouldn’t you?’
    â€˜If the garden’s like the house, yes, I suppose so.’ Kim shook the excess water off her hands, but didn’t attempt to dry them.
    Fran held the door open for her, and they walked into corridor. ‘This Dr Lovage. She sounds a very capable woman – very thorough, very meticulous in her planning.’
    Kim came to an abrupt halt. ‘You’re still thinking of her as the killer, ma’am? But she’s tiny. You can see in those school photos. Five foot four at the most. Slightly built.’ This from a woman who was probably a mere size eight for all she was nearly as tall as Fran herself.
    â€˜Might have been whippy. And nothing like needs must for finding a way to do something. Tell you what, Kim, when I’ve got a moment, which may not be for a few days with the house move coming up, I’m going to try a nice informal chat in the village pub with the locals. After all,