Heatwave by Jane A Adams

Author:Jane A Adams [Adams, Jane A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Published: 2005-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Simon went home for long enough to change, then drove across town to Trigo Place, where Ted Harper had been arrested.

The layout of the road was an odd one. A square of houses facing onto a green, houses in the corners set at right angles to one another and a cut through between those gardens leading through to the next street. He parked his car and wandered down between the houses at the second corner. Looking up to his left he could see the bedroom window from which Naomi and Polly Thompson must have kept watch and a little further on his right, the back gate to the Harper property as it had been then. The gate was slatted and he could see into the garden. Children’s toys were scattered across the lawn and two children played on a swing set. He could just glimpse a woman, their mother presumably, as she moved from the window across to the open back door. She looked quite young. He knew from his check of the electoral role, that the residents were called Williams. He wondered if Nan Harper had stayed for long after her husband’s arrest and if these people knew about the violent past their house had observed.

He returned to Trigo Place and knocked on the door of number twenty seven, the house next to the Harper’s. He had noticed the neat, well established front garden and the old but immaculately kept car on the hard standing just in front of the front door. By contrast, number twenty five, the Harper’s old place, looked slightly overgrown. Not untidy, not exactly uncared for, just the sort of garden owned by a woman with small children and a man that worked all hours. Their gardening tasks were confined to the odd hours at weekends. Unlike that of the house next door.

Older people lived here, Simon guessed. Probably retired. Possibly long resident.

He walked up to the red front door and rang the bell.

At first he thought he’d been wrong in his guess. The girl that answered the door looked no more than twenty. She looked askance at him.

“Whatever you’re selling we don’t want any.”

Simon smiled. “I’m not selling,” he said. “I’m looking for someone, but you’d be far too young to remember them.”

The girl frowned, then smiled as though unable to decide how to take that statement. She half turned – careful to keep one eye fixed on Simon – and shouted over her shoulder. “Nan, it’s someone for you.”

For a moment, Simon was utterly confused. Had he got the wrong house? Was Nan Harper living next door. “Nan?” he asked.

She looked at him as though he were stupid. “My gran,” she said. “Look, what is it you want?”

Simon almost laughed aloud. Nan. Of course. His own grandparents were always referred to as Gran and Grandpa, his mum holding the opinion that ‘nan was common’, but Patrick usually talked about Mari that way. “I told you, I’m looking for someone,” he repeated. “Her name’s Nan.

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