Read Online Legacy of Lies by Jane A. Adams - Free Book Online Page B

there was no point and that Alec was right. Let Reg Fine do his job and tomorrow may well bring further revelation.
    Most of all she wanted to tell Alec what she felt about the man who had come to the door at Fallowfields and she shuddered inwardly at the knowledge, pure and simple, that he would be back.

Ten
    â€˜H ow far away are we from Fallowfields?’ Naomi asked as DS Fine stopped the car.
    â€˜It’ll be … let me see. Fallowfields is on the other side of Epworth, actually a bit closer to Owston Ferry, and we’re now about a mile outside of Crowle, not far from the river Don and up at the top end of the Isle of Axholme, proper. All in all, it’ll be about eleven, twelve miles. We’re now in part of the Peatlands nature reserve. Much of a nature lover was he, your uncle?’ he asked Alec.
    â€˜Only in a general sort of way. I don’t recall that he went bird watching or anything like that.’
    â€˜Pity,’ Fine said. ‘This is the place for it. I saw a hen harrier here a week or so ago, brought my lad up with me.’
    â€˜You have children?’ Naomi asked.
    â€˜Oh aye. Two of them. Boy’s ten and the little lass is nearly eight.’
    The burr, Naomi noticed, seem to have thickened as they drove further out into the country.
    Alec got out, then opened the rear passenger door for Naomi and Napoleon.
    â€˜So, what’s it like?’ she asked, turning her head and catching the sound of birds and the rustle of wind blowing through grass. There was another sound too, one she had previously associated with the Somerset Levels, an almost subliminal hiss of saturated ground. ‘Marshland,’ she said. ‘Of course. Was this area not drained then?’
    â€˜Not completely. No, the Dutch engineer Vermuyden and his men managed to suck the water from the sponge most everywhere back there in the sixteen hundreds but there’s the odd spot wouldn’t give in.’
    Naomi heard the satisfaction in his voice and smiled in sympathy.
    â€˜There are old peat diggings all over here and on the Thorn and Hatfield moors. Anyone coming here should stick to the paths until they know their way around. They can literally end up in deep water, and that before they know it.’
    â€˜And Rupert, did he keep to the path?’
    â€˜It doesn’t look that way. The hikers that found him said he were lying face up about thirty yards off the track. Pure fluke that they spotted him at all. He was part hidden behind some thorn bushes and when they first spotted him they thought he might be twitching, bird watching, you know.’
    Naomi nodded.
    â€˜But then it occurs to the woman it’s a bit strange, lying on your back looking up at the sky when the sky had nothing in it worth looking at. Not even a cloud, she reckoned. Anyway, they left him to it, and walked on aways, but as they’d joined the track at Belton, and that’s a good six miles back and Thorn is another seven, eight mile further on, they decided not to go so far, so half hour or so later, they come back, intending to grab a bite at Crowle and then walk back to Belton. And there he is, still lying on his back.’
    â€˜How long had he been dead?’ Naomi asked.
    â€˜They wanted to know same thing,’ Fine told her. ‘They were worried that they might have saved the poor chap had they called for help sooner, but no hope of that. The doctor reckoned he’d been gone hours before. Time of death was estimated something between four and eight the previous evening, going on liver temperature and considering the night had been warm, and that’s as precise as the pathologist wanted to go.’
    â€˜That’s not the most accurate way,’ Alec began. Then: ‘Oh, I see.’
    â€˜What?’ Naomi asked. The best way of ascertaining the time of death was decay of potassium in the eyeball. That was very precise. Why hadn’t that been done? ‘I