LAMBERT & HOOK MYSTERIES BOOKS 1–8 gripping British murder mysteries set in the idyllic Cotswold Hills by J. M. Gregson

Author:J. M. Gregson [Gregson, J. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books Crime, Thriller & Mystery, A Joffe Books Company
Published: 2024-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

The sign over the door of the village shop read ‘G. G. Farr’, but everyone called him Tommy. A few people knew that the first initial stood for George, but not even his intimates were allowed the knowledge that the second one had inflicted Godfrey upon him. He had been born in Wales at the end of the war, when the memory of gallant Tommy Farr’s contest with the great Joe Louis was still a fresh legend in the valleys. He had never minded that ‘Tommy’; it had given him a kind of distinction among his schoolfellows.

It had meant he had had to fight sometimes, especially when one of his peers sneaked a glance at the register on the teacher’s desk and caught sight of the Godfrey in her round copperplate hand. But he had never minded a scrap: his broken nose and misshapen right ear bore witness to the fact. During his National Service, in the very last batch of young men to be drawn in by that system, he had even boxed a little, fighting with gloves on for the only time in his life. But those days were long gone. He had been here now for almost thirty years, initially with a wife, but for the last ten years on his own.

He managed well enough, even when things were busy, as they were this morning with Christmas so close. He was never ill, and his broad-shouldered strength made light of the lifting of cartons of various sizes around the big, untidy storeroom which no one ever saw. In the shop itself, he had made himself over the years into an adequate conversationalist, recognizing the need to offer small talk as part of his alternative service to that of the supermarkets burgeoning in the towns outside the forest.

He greeted all the women, and all of the children sent on errands, by name. As the morning progressed, he gathered and then retailed various bits of harmless gossip —young Wayne’s cut knee had needed stitches, old Mrs Hardman was having to go into hospital again, that young Sally with three kids already was pregnant again. If he saw himself playing a part, and occasionally derided what he saw, his hearers were not aware of that. They wanted only the odd snippet of news to sugar the extraction of their money, and he provided it satisfactorily. If he remained a secretive sort of man, few of them even registered it, let alone resented it.

He was putting a jar of cranberry sauce in his single display window at the end of a busy morning when he saw Clare Barton drive past. He studied her without any attempt at disguise, for she was too preoccupied to notice his attention. As she turned the old Escort round the corner by his store, she was hunched and intense over the wheel, with a strand of fair hair falling askew across her forehead. She missed her gear change before the car lurched away a little unevenly out of the village.

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