Read Online Malice Aforethought by J. M. Gregson - Free Book Online

unnecessary expense, any more than they do in schools.’
    Reynolds gave an answering smile in response to the reference to education. He had black hair that curled tightly and plentifully against his head, and his eyes were a very dark brown. They were set in an alert, quizzical face; his skin was dark, tanned almost olive even in the middle of November. He said, ‘I don’t suppose this will take very long, because I haven’t much to tell you.’
    ‘Really? Well, you could start by telling us why it has taken you until Thursday morning to come forward, when we were in the school as early as Tuesday asking for any information available about your colleague Mr Giles.’
    If Reynolds was surprised by the abruptness of this, by the absence of any polite preamble, he gave no outward sign of it. ‘That’s easily answered. I felt I knew nothing that would be useful to you.’
    ‘Even though you had worked alongside Mr Giles for five years? Even though you are apparently planning to marry the woman who was still his wife at the time of his death?’
    Now Reynolds did seem taken aback, perhaps by the baldness of this, and Bert Hook wondered for a moment if he was quite as committed to marriage as Sue Giles had indicated. It was normal nowadays to find different degrees of enthusiasm for marriage in people who acknowledged each other readily as partners. Reynolds said evenly, ‘I knew no more and no less about Ted than most of his other teaching colleagues. Probably less than Mick Yates, whom I knew you had already seen on Tuesday morning at the school. As for my plans with Sue, they are irrelevant, since they had nothing to do with Ted’s death.’
    I wonder, thought Lambert. A cool customer this, who had measured exactly what he was going to tell them when he came here and was not easily going to be teased or intimidated into more. There would have to be some verbal fencing, until an opening presented itself. He said, ‘Tell us all about your relationship with the late Ted Giles, then. Don’t be afraid to state the obvious; bear in mind we still know very little about him.’
    ‘We taught together for five years. But there was no overlap in our subjects; I’m Head of Social Sciences and Ted taught Chemistry and Biochemistry. We met at staff meetings, liaised a little over sixth-form studies and university applications, but our professional lives were almost entirely separate.’
    ‘And your social lives?’
    ‘The same.’ Reynolds stared at the Superintendent evenly across the three feet which was all that divided them, as if challenging him to prove otherwise.
    ‘Even though you were planning to marry his wife.’
    ‘Even though that was the situation, yes. Perhaps, indeed, because of that. It is possible to be civilised about these things, Superintendent, though I don’t suppose the police come across many examples of it.’ Reynolds took out a packet of slim panatellas from his pocket and said, ‘You don’t mind if I smoke?’
    ‘On the contrary, I’d prefer that you didn’t.’ Especially while you’re being so determinedly cool and uncooperative, thought Lambert. ‘When was the last time you met Ted Giles outside school, Mr Reynolds?’
    For a moment he looked as if he would contest the smoking refusal. Then he put the panatellas slowly back into his pocket, smiled as though he were humouring a petulant child and said, ‘I can’t remember the last time. Probably with the rest of the staff on some end-of-term binge.’
    ‘I see. And when did you form your relationship with Mrs Giles?’
    ‘I’ve known Sue for years. But I suppose we began to get serious about a year ago.’
    ‘That’s when you first became lovers?’
    Reynolds looked now as if he would lose his temper. The brown eyes flashed from one to the other of the men who confronted him and the arms he had kept folded flew apart. Then, with an obvious effort, he controlled himself and said, ‘It was, yes. Look, is all this detail really