Mournful Songs (DI Mills Yorkshire Crimes Thriller Book 2) by Oliver Davies

Author:Oliver Davies [Davies, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Mills

I gripped the steering wheel tight enough to turn my knuckles white and stared at the road as every tight curve and trailing vehicle slowed us down.

Nora Stickles.

We had just seen her, spoken with her. She’d been a little wet from the rain, but she was otherwise fine. I should have insisted on driving her back to the village and seen her back to her front door myself. The guilt and thoughts rattled around my head, fighting and taking over. The radio was turned low, and only the sound of the engine filled the car until Fry turned to me.

“This isn’t our fault,” she said. Her voice was low and quiet. “You know it isn’t.”

“I should have driven her back to the village,” I replied through gritted teeth.

“You offered.” Fry’s voice was kind but stern. “She said no. What else was there? We couldn’t have known that she would be hurt, or that she was a target.”

She probably hadn’t been, I thought, at least not until we had interviewed her. Who even knew that she had spoken with us? It hadn’t been long since we left the house and certainly not long enough for the word to have got out about it. Unless the killer had been closer to home than either of us realised. Unless they, or someone they knew, was in the village.

I knew that Fry was right. Short of forcing Nora into the car, driving her to the house, locking the door, and sticking an officer outside, there hadn’t been anything we could have done. There had been no hint that the old woman was in any sort of danger.

But the guilt was there. A woman was dead—one that we had failed to protect. I only hoped that the rest of the village wouldn’t turn against us, not when we would need them to help figure out who had done this.

The rest of the drive was silent. Fry sat up as we slowed through the village. Eventually, I pulled over to the pub where the landlady stood outside, waving at us. I warily parked and climbed out, ready for whatever curses and complaints were likely to come assaulting down on us.

Instead, she hurried over and gripped my arm with one hand and used the other to dab at her face with a well-wrung tissue.

“Oh, Inspector! Thank God,” she cried. “It’s awful, just awful,” she was saying.

I took her hand in mine whilst trying and failing to remember her name. I didn’t think we had ever learnt it. I led her over to the wooden bench outside the pub and sat her down. Fry appeared beside me and offered a clean tissue to the woman.

“We’re so sorry,” I said as she blew her nose loudly. “What do you know, Miss—?”

“Lee. Susan Lee.”

“What do you know, Susan?” I asked, sitting beside her on the bench.

Susan shook her head as she waved one hand in the air. “I barely know anything! I can’t make heads or tails of it, Inspector.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.