Read Online Three Little Maids by Patricia Scott - Free Book Online Page A

friend here somewhere in her background.
    He smiled warmly. ‘Right. I’ll be pleased to accept. Tell me your terms. And we’ll make it so that I can respect your wishes and your family’s.’
    And so it had been settled amicably between them and within the week he had moved in his things and as he’d said there was a lot more when his furniture and books and his collection of Toby jugs, came down out of storage from London. He had lived like a bachelor for the past four years and he could feel the need for some feminine company occasionally.
    But he could do what he liked, she thought, in his own place. He was after all a free agent, as she was, and so far he seemed to be settling in well. And right now, he would be working hard to solve this murder committed right on their doorstep. He wouldn’t need her giving opinions on his daily work and, unless she was asked, she must keep her mouth tightly shut.
    She washed up her cup in the rest room sink when she finished that evening, she wouldn’t be going home to an empty house. She knew she had done the right thing.

     
    11
     
    Constable Townsend put his head round Kent’s office door. ‘We’ve got Mrs Flitch outside in the office, sir. She said she had something she thought you should see. Looks like a diary and , more than likely, it belonged to that girl Maureen Carey.’
    ‘Mrs Flitch?’ He greeted the young woman with a smile as she came into the room. ‘How can I help you?’
    ‘I think I can help you, Inspector.’
    ‘I’ll be glad of any possible lead you can give us right now, Mrs Flitch.’
    ‘Well, I found this in Sue’s room this morning.’ She held out a cheap red school exercise book. ‘And I think you ought to read it. It was Maureen’s; it has her name inside. Sue was hiding it in her dressing table drawer and I thought it might help you to catch her murderer. I’m only doing this because I don’t want some other poor kid to be killed.’
    ‘Thank you for bringing it in,’ Kent said taking it from her. ‘Did you take a look at it?’
    ‘I read it and I think she could have done with some help,’ she said, as she left the room. ‘Should warn you though it leaves the Karma Sutra standing behind the starting gate.’
    ‘What ’d you think she meant by that, guv?’ Turner said with a chuckle.
    ‘We’d better read it and find out, hadn’t we?’ Kent said ruffling through the pages. By rights he knew he should give it over to her parents but was it going to be a bad move? This was something she hadn’t wanted anyone else to read. Especially her folks. She’d left it at her friend’s place for just that reason.
    Maureen wasn’t academically bright but she had been careful in her wording. It took Kent some time to read the tiny neat lettering and she used initials rather than using full names. She’d trusted Susan not to understand it, but her mother had and was obviously disturbed at its contents.
    On reading it, Kent was surprised to discover that even he could still be shocked. Was she lying or merely fantasizing? They would never know now. Perhaps it was her upbringing at home? Having so strict a parent as Mr. Carey had definitely not helped Maureen in her formative teen years.
    Either the girl was very imaginative or she fancied a large number of men. Most of them were much older than her but she mentioned Michael Berkley a number of times. And Raymond figured in it a great deal , in explicit terms, and her thoughts on what she liked to do with him. On reflection, Kent thought he could do with a blue pencil. The language the girl used in it wasn’t taught in school. He wondered again whether he should hand it over to her family but to save them more grief, after it was kept for official use, it could most conveniently be disposed of in an incinerator.
    He put it down on the desk at last. And wiped his hands carefully in his handkerchief afterwards. Turner picked it up and started to read it. He surprisingly took it much