No Bodies (The Kent Fisher Mysteries Book 2) by Crouch Robert

Author:Crouch, Robert [Crouch, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

“You should suspend school visits,” Gemma says.

We’re weaving our way through the streets to the nearby Poets Estate, filled with smart 1930s semidetached houses with bay windows and hipped roofs. Somewhere in the midst of Wordsworth, Keats and Byron is Stephen Burke, Liam’s grandfather.

“The children are supervised and they’re not allowed to touch the animals,” I say. “And no one’s been ill. Besides, Charlotte Burke didn’t get E. coli last week.”

“What if Liam picked up the bug and infected his sister?”

“Then why wasn’t he ill?”

“We don’t know he wasn’t. You heard Baxendale. Liam’s in and out of school. Wouldn’t it be great if he could blame Liam’s absence on your sanctuary?”

I’d rather not think about what Baxendale might do.

“If I suspend school visits, people will assume the sanctuary’s the source of the infection,” I say, turning into Byron Avenue. “Frances is so strict with the children.”

“She’ll want to suspend visits,” Gemma says, checking the numbers of the houses. “You should get your animals tested too. If they’re negative, you’ve nothing to worry about.”

And if they’re positive, I’m loading the gun that’s pointed at me.

“If there was a problem, other children would be affected. We’d have other cases. At the moment, this is an isolated case.”

“Remind me who says every outbreak starts with a first case?”

I pull up outside Stephen Burke’s house, taking in the neat garden and the gleaming Audi Quattro. It stands in a driveway where weeds daren’t spread, unless they want to face the wrath of a pressure washer. He’s even jetted the pavement outside his house. We walk up a crazy paved path that strolls between flower beds of petunias, begonias and geraniums, evenly spaced in neat rows as nature intended. Sweet peas, still flowering profusely, cling to netting on either side of the bay window. In the porch, we can’t stand side by side, thanks to the pots of lobelia and fuchsias, dripping with red and purple flowers.

I ring the bell and step back, ID card in hand. A few moments later, a man in his late 40s or early 50s, with thick brown hair, Harry Potter glasses and a pleasant, smiling face, opens the door. Dressed casually in a pink shirt beneath a blue jumper and jeans, he looks like an executive on a day off.

“Stephen Burke?”

“Environmental health?” he responds in a cultured voice “The hospital said you’d be calling. Do you want to talk to Liam? Only he’s in the back garden. I was told to keep him out of school until you’d tested him.”

“Could we have a chat with you first?”

***

Inside, the house looks as pristine as the exterior with simple but tasteful wallpaper and furniture, made from ‘real’ wood, as the manufacturers like to say. I’ve yet to find unreal wood, but I live in hope.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” he asks, pausing by the kitchen door.

“White, no sugar, please.”

Through the arch that leads into the dining room, I can see a child, dribbling a football and dispatching it into a small goal at the end of a long, narrow garden.

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