Murder by Fire by Faith Martin

Author:Faith Martin [MARTIN, FAITH]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime, thriller and mystery
Published: 2018-03-15T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Hillary leaned back in her chair and rubbed a hand ruefully through her hair. It was getting too long again, and would soon have to be cut. Luckily, she’d been going to the same hairdressers in Summertown for decades, and they knew how to maintain her chestnut hair in the neat near-pageboy bob she preferred. Six good brush strokes through it every morning and it behaved itself — well, nearly — for the rest of the day. Now that was what she considered a decent haircut.

She sighed, and let her mind wander over what they had so far.

The second witness’s description of the man seen leaving the cul-de-sac where David Merchant had died vaguely fitted that of the artist Francis Whyte, of course. That had stuck out immediately. But the trouble with that was, there were plenty of lanky blond men in Oxfordshire. And her witness hadn’t sounded all that enthusiastic about being able to identify him, and she wasn’t sure of a result if they hauled Whyte in for a line-up. And, as a general rule, she preferred to be at least reasonably confident before she set up an identity parade.

Still, she made a mental note to do the follow-up interview with Whyte herself within the next day or two, although she couldn’t as yet see any realistic motive as to why the painter would want his landlord dead. Even if he was about to be evicted, she was sure in her own mind that Frank Whyte’s blasé dismissal of such a possibility was genuine. People like him were natural drifters anyway. It was not as if he was about to be turfed out of a beloved home of many years.

Personal animosity seemed unlikely as well. As devout and evangelical as their murder victim may have been, a man like Whyte was far more likely to laugh or shrug his shoulders at the man and his preachings, surely? Even if he had been needled by Merchant, he was hardly likely to hit him over the head and set light to him!

Unless, of course, the victim had found some sort of vulnerable spot that had caught the artist very much on the raw. Hillary sighed. Too much theorizing gave her a headache.

For the moment, she put Francis Whyte to one side.

Could this be a religious or hate crime? Granted, Christians weren’t exactly persecuted anymore or thrown to the lions, but could their victim have got on the wrong side of another religious zealot who didn’t share his particular doctrine?

Hillary shuddered. She hoped not. The last thing they needed was some sort of hate, race, or religious flare-up. But it would have to be considered.

She made a mental note to keep a lookout for any signs of it as the case continued, but she wasn’t really all that worried. In her experience, hate crimes were usually accompanied by graffiti or messages of some kind. Usually, the perpetrator wanted the whole world to know why so-and-so had been targeted, and what their sins/crimes were.

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