Poppy Takes the Lead by Leigh Russell

Author:Leigh Russell [Russell, Leigh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oldcastle Books
Published: 2023-08-02T16:07:55+00:00

22

That night I lay awake, mulling over everything that had happened. While wondering how Hannah and Adam had taken the knife without the police noticing, it occurred to me that someone else must have known Hannah’s knife had been sharpened. With a number of unanswered questions whirling around in my head, it took me a long time to fall asleep. I was woken the next morning by Poppy barking at me to get up. Feeling groggy, I stumbled out of bed. My heart raced as we stepped outside, but nothing had been disturbed, and there was no graffiti on the wall. Not only that, but my garden looked a lot tidier than it had done for a while, as the police had taken the trouble to replace all my plants neatly after their search.

As soon as we had a quiet moment in the café, I asked Hannah about the knife sharpener, and learned that he was a stranger.

‘I didn’t take much notice of him, to be honest,’ she added. ‘It’s not unusual for a small rabble of tinkers and peddlers and so on to turn up around the time of the May Day Fair. Hangers on, you know? So when he came to the café, I didn’t really think about it. The knives needed sharpening and he was there with his gear, offering to do it.’

Frustrated, I urged her to try and remember as much as she could about the knife sharpener.

‘Yes, well, it was a man, and he looked a bit disreputable. I mean, I wasn’t sure whether to invite him in. In the end I opened the gate to the yard and took the kitchen knives out to him, so he never actually came inside. He didn’t seem to mind,’ she added, a little defensively. ‘It was a nice day. He probably preferred being outside. But I didn’t stop to chat. I never asked his name, or where he was from, or anything like that. I just gave him the knives and he knocked on the back door when he’d finished and asked for his money and left. I locked the gate behind him and that was it.’

‘What happened when you paid him?’ I asked, not really expecting to hear he had given her a receipt.

‘He asked for cash and it was so cheap, I just paid him without a second thought. I could see he’d done a good job.’ Hannah looked puzzled. ‘I can see you think this is important, but I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

‘It just seems a bit of a coincidence, that’s all. A stranger turns up out of the blue to sharpen a knife which is then used to kill someone.’

‘We don’t know the knife that’s gone missing from the tea shop is the one that was used to stab Silas,’ Hannah protested. ‘If you’re trying to make something out of this, I really think you’re on the wrong tack. Just because we’ve mislaid a knife, that’s no reason to go jumping to conclusions and linking it to the murder.

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.