Read Online Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody - Free Book Online Page A

planning an escape to the wedding dress fitting. I needed to know more.
    ‘It would have been hard for him to face people, after what happened.’
    She gave a bitter laugh. ‘He never cared in the least what other people thought. He was too selfish. Besides, he would have gone on denying that he attempted suicide.’
    ‘In spite of the note? Was it ambiguous then?’
    ‘I can’t remember.’
    ‘When was the last time you saw him?’
    ‘On Friday evening – the day before he was found in the beck. We passed on the landing. He insisted I come to his room, that he had something important to say.’
    ‘And what was that?’
    She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. I told him he might well have something to say, but I didn’t want to hear it. Now of course I wish I had listened, if only out of curiosity.’
    ‘What do you think it may have been?’
    She paused. ‘I’d rather not speculate.’
    ‘Did he leave his affairs in order?’
    ‘Oh yes. He did that all right.’
    Either the newspaper account was wrong, or Mrs Braithwaite was lying.
    ‘So you didn’t see him after he was found?’
    ‘No. Why should I have tried to see him? So that he could gloat – pretend that his grief at Edmund’s loss was greater than mine?’
    She still seemed angry with Joshua. If he came through the door at that moment, I could imagine cocktail glasses whizzing through the air, aimed at his head.
    ‘Is there any relation or friend he would have gone to?’
    ‘The police did pursue that line of enquiry. If you’re asking me was there another woman, almost certainly. One that he would have gone to? I doubt he cared for anyone that much. He cared about the business. He caredabout things – his cars, his house. He was selfish and materialistic. He scoffed at higher things, at anything he didn’t understand.’
    ‘And yet he was prepared to die and leave all that behind?’
    ‘In his self-pity, yes. Don’t waste your time, Kate. I know he’s dead.’
    ‘How can you be so sure?’
    ‘If he were alive, he would have found himself some brilliant barrister to contest the charge of suicide and he would have come back to claim what’s his.’
    ‘Do you object to my taking on the case, for Tabitha’s sake?’
    ‘You’ll be wasting your time. Don’t do it.’
    ‘Do you withhold permission?’
    She looked as if that was exactly what she wanted to do. I remembered what my father had said – that it would be necessary to show all attempts had been made to find the missing person.
    She stared at the material of her chess board dress, closed her eyes for a moment as if dazzled, and then stared at me.
    ‘Tabitha seems determined to torment herself, and me.’ After a long time, she said, ‘You won’t find him. It will only prolong her pain, feed her anxieties. I’m sick of telling her to look to the future.’
    ‘Tabitha desperately wants to try, and I’d like to help her.’
    She sighed. ‘The police house is on the High Street. Tell Constable Mitchell you have my reluctant permission. If you do by some remote chance find Joshua’s bones on the moors or his remains at the bottom of a tarn, you might be good enough to tell me first. I should naturally want a Christian burial for him, but would hate to have a funeral delay Tabitha’s wedding. At her age, this is probably her last chance to leave the ranks of surplus women.’
    I wanted to keep her in the room with me a while longer, having the feeling she may never be so frank again. ‘Do you really and truly feel in your heart that he’s dead?’
    I didn’t believe I had asked that question. There was a sudden glint of compassion in her eyes. I felt my cheeks turn pink but kept my eyes locked on hers, willing her to say more than her ‘simple facts’.
    ‘I don’t feel anything in my heart, as you put it. Not for him.’ She hesitated. ‘I did my duty. I gave him a son and he squandered that son. My Edmund didn’t enlist out of patriotic duty. Oh, that was the clothing on