Read Online The Funeral Owl by Jim Kelly - Free Book Online

important to use the money for this cottage, a home for the sexton. So the rent covers all the costs. They promised Grandad, the last vicar did, that he could have it for life. Now she wants him out. She’s gonna sell it, and the rent from the Clock Field’s going to help meet costs. That’s what she said to his face: help meet costs. Nice woman.’
    There was something wheedling about Vincent Haig that set Dryden’s nerves on edge. When he spoke his shoulders moved as if he was trying to flex an arthritic neck. His manner annoyed Dryden; he was like one of those charity workers who insist on shaking their collecting tin in your face.
    â€˜Was the promise made in writing?’ asked Dryden.
    Vincent Haig looked sideways. ‘That’s not how these things work. For Grandad’s generation your word was good enough.’
    Dryden’s sympathies were with Albe, but he wondered what they would find if they could spool back to the moment the promise was made. What would they really hear? A cast-iron promise, or just a form of words? It was only human nature, after all, to hear what you wish to hear, and to miss the get-out-clause.
    But there was a story here.
Hard-hearted vicar evicts blind man from his home of thirty years.
What made Dryden uncomfortable was the feeling that Vincent Haig had fed him the information, like bait on a hook. It was also an oddly calculating thing to do as they sat surveying a murder scene. Was this really the right time to discuss a row over who paid the rent on Sexton Cottage?
    The old man came back with a pot of tea on a tray with three mugs. His movements in the small garden were perfectly calibrated, shuffling between chairs and plant pots without error. As he set the mugs down, his free hand checked the flat surface.
    Then he stood looking across the Clock Holt to the church. Dryden wondered what he could see in his mind: a jigsaw of memories, perhaps, in black and white.
    â€˜So you heard the thieves in the night?’ asked Dryden.
    â€˜But I didn’t hear a gunshot,’ said Albe. He shook his head. ‘That’s not right, is it? I hear everything.’
    Vincent Haig stiffened in his seat and set his hand on the table edge, the fingers splayed. Dryden saw that the top of his right index finger was missing – just a half-inch.
    â€˜What
did
you hear?’ asked Dryden.
    â€˜They were good; I said to that copper they were professionals. I didn’t hear a van, nothing on the road at all. But to get the lead off they needed to lever it off the rafters, where it’s been pinned down. I heard that.’ He pulled the lobe on his right ear.
    â€˜Did you look?’
    It was the wrong thing to say but the old man was nodding. ‘I went to the bedroom window. They were up and down in ten minutes. They tried to keep quiet, but there were a few words.’
    â€˜English?’
    Albe Haig shook his head. ‘Foreigners. People want easy lives now,’ he added, and Dryden thought he was searching for his grandson’s face. ‘As if God owes them that. ’Specially foreigners.’
    Dryden stiffened, hoping that this man who he liked – admired, even – wasn’t going to reveal a bitter prejudice.
    â€˜You don’t know that, Grandad,’ said Haig, an easy, mocking swagger in his voice. ‘Just because the one that died was ethnic Chinese, doesn’t mean they all were.’ Dryden noted Vincent Haig’s careful political correctness.
    â€˜I heard them,’ said his grandfather. ‘The voices travel because they’re light – like when we had a choir. Not English, something different.’ He struggled to find the right word. ‘Girlish. But men. Chinese, I reckon, like the copper said.’
    â€˜How many?’ asked Dryden.
    â€˜Three, I think. Unless others didn’t speak.’
    â€˜But no argument? You didn’t hear shouting?’
    Albe Haig sat down. ‘No