Read Online Souvenirs of Murder by Margaret Duffy - Free Book Online

the past and busted your cover?’ Carrick said.
    â€˜No, I’ve never come within a mile of the bloke before. He’s a common crook, not someone to interest MI5.’
    â€˜Might Hulton have murdered these people?’
    â€˜He could well have decided to turn over to a new page of his life and tidy up the clutter. That’s exactly how his mind works. We’ll have to see what forensics turns up.’
    The DCI smothered a yawn and said, ‘In the meantime you could always have a go at the murder in the vestry case to keep your hand in. We don’t appear to be getting anywhere with it.’
    â€˜OK,’ Patrick said.
    â€˜I was only joking!’
    â€˜I’ll make your tea for you,’ Patrick wheedled.
    â€˜Earl Grey for preference,’ Carrick said after a few moments. ‘There’s a little shop in Green Street that sells estate teas.’
    It seemed staggering to me that any kind of official permission would be forthcoming on this proposal but the following morning, a full twenty-four hours before Commander Greenway was due to arrive for the debriefing, he rang to inform Patrick that he was extending his permitted area of freedom of movement to a twenty-mile radius of the village. There was then a call from a superintendent at the Avon and Somerset force’s HQ at Portishead, near Bristol, acknowledging Patrick’s temporary secondment to Bath CID and informing him that an official letter was on its way. He made it clear that he, Patrick, would take orders from Detective Chief Inspector Carrick and have no authority over anyone. He emphasized that the arrangement was purely temporary.
    In receipt of the news of this development I said, ‘Patrick, I don’t think you’ve really thought this through.’
    â€˜In what way?’
    â€˜It’s already a bit difficult for your parents and now you’re going to be crawling all over the parish breathing down the necks of the locals, some of them their close friends – while you yourself are under some kind of investigation for murder.’
    â€˜I don’t think Greenway’s too bothered about offending people round here.’
    â€˜No, I appreciate that, but you should be!’
    â€˜I am. And there’s also a lot of folk here who would like me to follow in Dad’s footsteps and even take over from him one day. This’ll be a good test of sentiments. It might even scare them into not telling me any porkies.’
    Are men’s brains weirdly, drastically and differently wired to women’s? Oh, yes.
    â€˜So where do I fit into all this?’ I enquired grumpily, having realized, with a sinking feeling, that I ought to be involved.
    He considered and then said, ‘There might be room in my briefcase for a nursing mother.’
    â€˜I’m not now, thank you.’
    â€˜OK . . . What shall we call it then?’
    â€˜Tea-buyer and squeeze-of-the-moment?’
    â€˜I’ll go for that.’
    Before further consulting with James Carrick we visited the scene of the crime with a view to calling on John and Elspeth afterwards to give them the news. The church was unlocked, as it was normally during the day and there were no longer any restrictions of movement. (The entire building had been closed for just under a week while scenes-of-crime personnel had gone over every inch of it.) I knew that the bishop of Bath and Wells had paid a private visit and prayers had been said, the feeling being that too much of a ‘song and dance’, as Elspeth had put it, would only heighten the sense of tragedy and get the story in all the papers again, thus attracting yet another dose of gawpers.
    John was in the church, up by the altar laying a clean white cloth on it. I heard Patrick sigh as he went forward. Despite present and past difficulties there is a close bond between them but I knew he was not looking forward to this encounter. Hearing movement, his father