Farewell My Herring by L. C. Tyler

Author:L. C. Tyler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ethelred

‘So, did you get anything out of Hal?’ I asked.

‘He’s determined to stay with Francis and Nowak,’ said Elsie. ‘But I’ll work on him. I don’t give up that easily.’

‘I mean about Claire’s death,’ I said.

‘Obviously I was coming to that. Hal had a long and rather inadvisable chat with Claire in his bedroom at the hotel in Scotland. Well, he claims that’s all that happened. Believe it or not as you choose. Fliss saw Claire emerging in the early hours of the morning. She can probably be trusted to stay quiet, but Claire would have told everyone anyway, as a matter of course. He’d done a deal with Claire – he helps with getting the book published and she doesn’t tell his wife how wonderful he is. Claire could have caused him minor problems at home but he had a way out of it – just do what the lady told him – something you do far too often, Ethelred, so there’s no point in looking like that. No, I think we can rule Hal out as a murderer. What did you find out from Jenny?’

‘Jenny doesn’t dispute that Jasper could have heard Claire in the kitchen at one-fifteen – though she doesn’t absolutely confirm it either. I’m still inclined to believe Jasper heard her voice then.’

‘So that’s Dean with no opportunity,’ said Elsie. ‘Though Jasper reckons Dean might have killed her, if he’d been able to, because Claire rejected him. It seems unlikely. I mean, Dean doesn’t strike me as somebody who does things on the spur of the moment, any more than Wendy does. Hal conversely had slightly more opportunity than Dean, leaving the dining room early and coming back late, but really no motive at all.’

‘I agree about Hal,’ I said, ‘but there’s something about Dean that still worries me, in spite of his alibi. Jenny claims he showed up here last summer, nominally as a lost hiker, but asking to talk to Wendy. She thought it suspicious. So do I.’

‘He hasn’t mentioned a previous visit here,’ said Elsie. ‘Not to me.’

‘Nor to me. And now he’s here, he collared Wendy at the first opportunity,’ I said. ‘Also he told us that he heard of the course when speaking with Claire in Scotland. But he seems to have made up his mind to come here well before that. So, what’s he playing at?’

‘You’re going to be rude about any suggestion that he might be a spy?’

‘Yes.’

‘No idea in that case, but he’s being less than honest,’ said Elsie. ‘According to Fliss, he constantly pursued Claire in Glasgow. But you say his version is that he wasn’t interested in her at all – he just wanted to stop her making a fool of herself with Hal.’

‘It looks like it was Hal who was made a fool of,’ I said. ‘But I really think he and Dean are both in the clear as far as the murder is concerned.’

‘Could Jenny have killed Claire? She clearly didn’t like her,’ asked Elsie.

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