Read Online The Ellie Hardwick Mysteries by Barbara Cleverly - Free Book Online Page A

good show—they were hanging on to me because my presence was a necessary buffer between them. When I had gone they would be left alone with each other, with recriminations perhaps and with much sorrow. For the moment I presented them with the need to behave normally. I got to my feet, picking up my bag. I had to take my leave carefully, raising no suspicion that I knew a huge injustice had been done and that one of these charming men was a killer, a killer with the deaths of a young girl, her unborn child and an innocent old man on his conscience.
    Neither man had an alibi for the time of the murder. Rupert was thought to have been in bed and had made a rather stagey appearance in his bathrobe at ten thirty. Edward had told the police in his straightforward way that, as usual, he’d been working by himself in the fields since six o’clock. If the Inspector cared to ask, any one of what he called his chaps might be able to state that they’d spotted him out in the pightle, mending the tractor. Somehow I thought his chaps might be queuing up, tugging their forelocks, to do just that.
    The killer was probably trying to calculate how much I had worked out for myself, assessing from my behaviour how urgently I was trying to get away to raise the alarm, perhaps even working on a scheme to ensure my discretion—or my silence.
    Rupert scrambled to his feet and firmly took my bag. ‘No, it’s all right, Dad! The last thing Ellie wants is to go wandering round a damp orchard at this time of night. We’re not all apple freaks you know! I’ll walk you to your car, Ellie . . . No, I insist! It’s a bit dark down the lane now,’ he said. ‘You left it in front of the church, didn’t you?’
    And we set off together to walk down the tree-lined driveway to the church. He took my hand and held it tightly with what might have been interpreted as friendly concern.
    Distantly, the reassuring sound of the blue and white plastic ribbons outlining the crime scene flapping in the evening breeze was reaching my ears. We crunched on in silence down the gravel. Not much further to go. My hand curled round my car keys in the right hand pocket of my jeans. Fifty yards.
    At the bottom of the drive, Rupert abruptly put down my bag, pulled me into the deep shadow of a lime tree, turned to face me and put two hands on my shoulders. ‘You know don’t you?’ he said.
    I shivered under his hands. ‘Yes, I do,’ I said defiantly.
    â€˜And I want to know what you’re proposing to do about it.’
    Keeping my voice level and unconcerned I said, ‘Nothing. That’s what I’m proposing to do. Who would listen to me in the face of so much evidence pointing so convincingly in a different direction? You’ve said it, Rupert—or was it your father?—It’s a family thing. You can sort it out between you.’
    â€˜How did you guess?’
    â€˜It was no guess! Sharp observation and intelligent deduction!’ I couldn’t let him intimidate me. I looked anxiously down the lane, trying to make out the outline of my old Golf. Could I outrun him if he got angry? Probably not.
    â€˜It was the pills that gave it away.’ I spoke with confidence. I think I even managed a flourish. No one ever attacked Miss Marple in the middle of one of her explanations. And somehow this felt like a dénouement.
    â€˜Pills, Ellie? What do you mean?’
    â€˜In your grandfather’s room. All that stuff about his bad heart and being room bound—no one considered he could have done the killing but then, in his confession, he tells the world that it was all a bluff and, stiffening his old sinews, he does a commando-style exercise in the church for the sake of the family honour. Well, the police are happy they’ve worked out the bluff but they didn’t think as far as a double bluff! The pill bottle by his bed, Rupert—it was half empty. He’d been