Siren Song by J.J. Marsh

Author:J.J. Marsh [Marsh, JJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783906256214
Published: 2023-04-19T16:00:00+00:00

10

A peculiar sound, one unfamiliar since she’d been in Spain, woke Beatrice sometime before six in the morning. Rain. Like fingertips tapping on a table top, drops hit the roof, dripped down the drainpipe and swelled the gutters in the street below. She got out of bed to observe the phenomenon, streetlights reflecting off the curtain of precipitation like tinsel.

Getting into bed after watching inclement weather was ten times cosier and she snuggled up with every expectation of falling into a comfortable doze. Then a vision crossed her mind. Water filling all the creeks, rivers, streams and wells.

Phrases battered her brain as if they’d been waiting in the wings.

I threatened to throw her down the well.

She deliberately pollutes the water supply so surveyors undervalue the selling price.

Filled my water bottle from the well

One hundred percent clean, that much I know.

Forgotten to drink so I emptied my water bottle in three gulps.

“Shit!”

She scrambled out of bed, dragged on her dressing gown and rapped on the room next door.

“Will? Are you awake?”

He opened the door in a matter of seconds, blinking and wearing nothing more than his underwear. “What is it?” he whispered.

“I’ve had a thought. Can I make you a coffee and pick your brains? You might want to put some clothes on. It’s a bit too parky for boxer shorts.”

Will rubbed his face. “Give me a second.”

When he emerged in his tracksuit, she had prepared the coffee and was sitting at the kitchen table, making notes.

“Sorry to drag you out of bed so early.”

“That’s OK. Once we’re done here, I’ll go for a run. You said you had a thought?” He reached a banana from the fruit bowl and began peeling.

Beatrice explained her theory and by the time she had finished, Will’s eyebrows were practically in his hairline.

“That’s pretty outlandish, even for you. Once again, I’m hearing no hard facts, only hearsay. Based on what one resentful man told you, you suspect a professional lawyer of tipping bottles of Smirnoff down his well so that he’d collapse and cause the death of one of his neighbours. I’m not buying it. Looking at it from the supposed perp’s perspective, there’s way too much that could go wrong! How much would she have to pour down there to make sure he was drunk on the day of the festival? How could she be sure he’d drink it and not taste the alcohol? How did she arrange for him to consume it just before he went up the human tower? I’m not buying it, Beatrice. This time, you’re way off base.”

“She has form with this kind of thing! She has previously poisoned other water supplies in order to acquire their land.”

“That’s a matter of police record, is it? Not what some bitter old geezer told you.”

Beatrice scowled at him.

“You wanted a sounding-board,” he said. “Not my fault if you don’t like what you’re hearing. Look at this another way. From what you and Mia told us on the way home, I could concoct an equally coherent and possibly less fanciful explanation.

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