Mortal Taste by J. M. Gregson

Author:J. M. Gregson [Gregson, J. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2003-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Steve Fenton got only twenty minutes notice of the CID visit.

It was DS Hook, the voice on the phone said, the words slow and clear despite the rich Herefordshire accent. Sorry to bother him on a Saturday morning. It was just a matter of a few questions in connection with the investigation into the murder of Peter Logan. As Mr Fenton was a governor of Greenwood Comprehensive and a former Chairman of the Governors, he might have useful insights to offer. Hook’s reassuring voice didn’t exactly say that this was merely a matter of routine, but it implied as much.

It was only after Steve had put the phone down that he began to get nervous.

He was beset by an overwhelming need to occupy himself in physical action. He got the vacuum cleaner out and ran it over a carpet which did not need it; wiped the top of the units in an already tidy kitchen; behaved, he thought wryly, like a young wife expecting her mother-in-law.

They came very promptly at ten o’clock. The stolid detective sergeant he identified immediately as the owner of the local accent. The superintendent was a taller man with grey eyes which seemed to look into everything and see more than they should. Steve took them into his unused dining room and sat them down on upright chairs on the other side of the table from him. Even as they took the chairs he offered them, he found himself wishing he had seated them less formally in the sitting room, but it was too late for that now.

‘I’m willing to give all the help I can, of course. This is a terrible business. But I’m afraid I haven’t anything very useful to offer you.’ Steve said it nervously, before they had even properly seated themselves, and regretted the banality of it immediately.

Lambert did not react to the disclaimer, did not even acknowledge it. ‘You used to be Chairman of the Greenwood Governors, Mr Fenton. What kind of a man would you say Peter Logan was?’

Steve had rehearsed many scenarios in his mind over the last few days, but not this immediate directness, without any of the normal conversational preambles. ‘Well, I only saw him in a professional context, of course. He seemed to me a very effective headmaster, and the results of his work are there for all to see.’

‘What was your own relationship with him?’ Those grey, unblinking eyes seemed to reinforce the directness of the approach.

Steve tried to seem as open and uncomplicated in his reply. ‘We got on very well. I’m not an educationist, but I listened and learned. What Peter said usually made sense, and I saw my job as encouraging the governors of his school to provide the necessary backing. I like to think we made an effective partnership.’

‘So why did you resign?’

‘Personal reasons. Nothing to do with what has happened to Peter now.’ The man had taken him by surprise. Steve felt that he should not have answered so huffily, that he was making more of the resignation than he should have, drawing attention to the matter.

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