Read Online Denial of Murder by Peter Turnbull - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Peter Turnbull
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âdryâ alcoholic who was by then in full control of her life. After the talk Harry and Kathleen Vicary joined others for a coffee and a biscuit and a chat.
Upon leaving the Assembly Rooms the Vicarys went to the Wagon and Horses pub and joined the quiz team to which they belonged, drinking tonic water while the other members of their team drank beer. Their team was eventually placed fourth out of eight teams when the results were announced, but Harry Vicary felt that fourth was perfectly respectable. It was not the winning that mattered anyway, so he believed, but the taking part. It was also the small items of knowledge he never failed to pick up on each and every quiz night which added to the enjoyment. As he and his wife walked slowly back home through a balmy summerâs evening, Vicary pondered that he had, that evening, learned that a âFletcherâ was an arrow-maker in Medieval times, and during the round on the Great Fire of London in 1666, he had learned that Samuel Pepys had buried a Parmesan cheese in his garden to preserve it from the flames. Interestingly, he had also learned that the fire was sometimes known as âthe food fireâ because it had started in Pudding Lane and had eventually died out in Pie Lane.
Tuesday
THREE
G eoff âthe milkâ Driscoll hummed a catchy tune to himself as he turned his milk float off the Ridgeway and into Lingfield Road. The first thing he did as he straightened the float was to check the road surface ahead of him for any footwear lying upon it. He smiled gently as he saw that the road surface was clear of any debris, although the remnants of the blue and white police tape which had enclosed the area where, twenty-four hours earlier, he had found the corpse of the man, still hung from the shrubs, utterly motionless in the morning air. His discovery of the body had caused a stir in the dairy and that morning, as he was loading up the float, he had enjoyed much attention from his fellow rounds men who had pressed him for details.
Driscoll proceeded up Lingfield Road and then slowed the float to a halt as he saw the body. It was lying precisely where he had found the other body of the man but between two cars which had been parked closed to each other, thus concealing it from view until Driscoll was almost alongside it. A pair of red shoes lay on the ground nearby. Unlike the body he had found the previous day this one was female and, also unlike the body he had found the previous day, this body was Afro-Caribbean.
âThis,â Driscoll murmured softly to himself, âjust cannot be happening to me.â
He applied the handbrake of the float, stepped out of the vehicle and walked, calmly this time, up the steps he had run up the previous morning. Once again he knocked at the door of the large Gothic Victorian house with its complicated roof line and turret windows, and once again the door was opened, casually so, by the same, tall, well-built man who wore the same blue paisley patterned dressing gown. âSorry, Squire,â Driscoll said, employing a familiarity of address he had not used the previous morning, âbut you are just not going to believe what I have found on the road outside your house.â
Once again the householder remained utterly calm, then he nodded slowly and said, âI will call the police,â before shutting his door on Driscoll.
It was, once again, the dawn which woke Tom Ainsclough, as it so often did because of his wont to sleep with the curtains of his bedroom open. He rose slowly, feeling utterly refreshed after a solid eight hours of deep sleep, and sat on the edge of his bed. He half turned, placed his palm on the other side and found that it was still warm from Sara, who had quietly left the house without waking him, having lain there. Ainsclough stood at the window and looked out across the suburban garden to Lambeth Hospital where Sara would be, by then, working as a staff sister. Ainsclough
Upon leaving the Assembly Rooms the Vicarys went to the Wagon and Horses pub and joined the quiz team to which they belonged, drinking tonic water while the other members of their team drank beer. Their team was eventually placed fourth out of eight teams when the results were announced, but Harry Vicary felt that fourth was perfectly respectable. It was not the winning that mattered anyway, so he believed, but the taking part. It was also the small items of knowledge he never failed to pick up on each and every quiz night which added to the enjoyment. As he and his wife walked slowly back home through a balmy summerâs evening, Vicary pondered that he had, that evening, learned that a âFletcherâ was an arrow-maker in Medieval times, and during the round on the Great Fire of London in 1666, he had learned that Samuel Pepys had buried a Parmesan cheese in his garden to preserve it from the flames. Interestingly, he had also learned that the fire was sometimes known as âthe food fireâ because it had started in Pudding Lane and had eventually died out in Pie Lane.
Tuesday
THREE
G eoff âthe milkâ Driscoll hummed a catchy tune to himself as he turned his milk float off the Ridgeway and into Lingfield Road. The first thing he did as he straightened the float was to check the road surface ahead of him for any footwear lying upon it. He smiled gently as he saw that the road surface was clear of any debris, although the remnants of the blue and white police tape which had enclosed the area where, twenty-four hours earlier, he had found the corpse of the man, still hung from the shrubs, utterly motionless in the morning air. His discovery of the body had caused a stir in the dairy and that morning, as he was loading up the float, he had enjoyed much attention from his fellow rounds men who had pressed him for details.
Driscoll proceeded up Lingfield Road and then slowed the float to a halt as he saw the body. It was lying precisely where he had found the other body of the man but between two cars which had been parked closed to each other, thus concealing it from view until Driscoll was almost alongside it. A pair of red shoes lay on the ground nearby. Unlike the body he had found the previous day this one was female and, also unlike the body he had found the previous day, this body was Afro-Caribbean.
âThis,â Driscoll murmured softly to himself, âjust cannot be happening to me.â
He applied the handbrake of the float, stepped out of the vehicle and walked, calmly this time, up the steps he had run up the previous morning. Once again he knocked at the door of the large Gothic Victorian house with its complicated roof line and turret windows, and once again the door was opened, casually so, by the same, tall, well-built man who wore the same blue paisley patterned dressing gown. âSorry, Squire,â Driscoll said, employing a familiarity of address he had not used the previous morning, âbut you are just not going to believe what I have found on the road outside your house.â
Once again the householder remained utterly calm, then he nodded slowly and said, âI will call the police,â before shutting his door on Driscoll.
It was, once again, the dawn which woke Tom Ainsclough, as it so often did because of his wont to sleep with the curtains of his bedroom open. He rose slowly, feeling utterly refreshed after a solid eight hours of deep sleep, and sat on the edge of his bed. He half turned, placed his palm on the other side and found that it was still warm from Sara, who had quietly left the house without waking him, having lain there. Ainsclough stood at the window and looked out across the suburban garden to Lambeth Hospital where Sara would be, by then, working as a staff sister. Ainsclough
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