MURDER IN THE COTTAGE an absorbing crime mystery full of twists by LEWIS ROY

Author:LEWIS, ROY
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime thriller mystery and suspense
Published: 2022-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

3

Detective Chief Inspector John Culpeper had had a good lunch and was feeling in a mellow mood. He’d been called upon to give a speech to the Rotary Club in Ponteland and having received the necessary permissions — the Chief Constable was a stickler for the regulations — he had enjoyed his lunch and given his talk. He had begun with the old joke against the police — ‘There was this man who had trouble. He kept sleeping on the job, so he joined the police’ — supplied the local worthies with a string of amusing anecdotes about his experiences in County Durham as a copper on the beat and in Northumberland as a detective, and had sat down to prolonged applause. Moreover, only three of the businessmen present had actually taken their leave early from the gathering. That was a good percentage, he had been informed by the secretary.

‘If the speech is boring, they leave in droves,’ he’d confided.

Culpeper had therefore been filled with a sense of achievement. It was a pleasant, though cloudy, day, and he hadn’t bothered to drive to the village on the outskirts of Newcastle. With a couple of brandies inside him he now enjoyed the walk back to headquarters, which were situated in what had originally been a college of education at the edge of Ponteland. He felt at ease with the world.

As he walked into HQ, he caught a glimpse of Detective Inspector Vic Farnsby, talking to a detective sergeant and a woman, outside one of the interview rooms. He walked on, but there was something about the woman that touched chords in his memory. He had seen her somewhere before. Not in a villain line-up, certainly. She was smartly dressed, not bad-looking, mid-forties maybe, and well-spoken.

Positive in her speech, in fact. Dogmatic, and self-opinionated, — these were the words that came into his head . . . Who the hell was she and where had he come across her?

He walked into the canteen and had a cup of coffee. There were very few people there. The lunchtime rush was over. He sipped the coffee, and mulled over the identity of the woman with the two detectives. She hadn’t been looking too pleased; she’d been prodding a finger at Vic Farnsby. Culpeper smiled. He had no objection to people who prodded fingers at Farnsby, in fact, he quite approved of it. The thought warmed him, he hiccupped and, as the taste of brandy rose in his throat, a little light dance tune began to jig in his head.

It had been a good day so far. Then the jingle died. He had a meeting with Farnsby after lunch. He finished his coffee in a mood less light and carefree.

Vic Farnsby was waiting outside John Culpeper’s office with a sheaf of files when Culpeper made his way there after dawdling over his coffee. Culpeper nodded and brushed past him. When the detective inspector entered the room behind him, Culpeper waved him to a chair, before ensconcing himself behind his desk with a sigh.

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