The Case of the Disgraced Duke by Cathy Ace

Author:Cathy Ace [Ace, Cathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Welsh cozy mystery, cozy village mystery, British traditional mystery, female sleuths
Publisher: Four Tails Publishing Ltd.
Published: 2022-08-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Annie told her knee to stop bouncing under the table, but it wouldn’t listen. She’d been waiting in the small, plain, windowless room at Swansea Police headquarters for what felt like hours – even though her watch told her it had only been forty-five minutes since the smiling constable had left her there – to stew. And, boy, was she simmering away.

Mavis’s texts through the morning had been informative, but only up to a point. Mavis and Althea had indeed managed to get hold of the chief inspector, and he had, apparently, understood why Annie had done what she’d done. He’d even promised to speak to someone in Swansea about her situation. Then she’d heard no more, so had no idea what might befall her whenever an officer chose to grace her with their presence.

As she’d sat on a bus that drove along some impossibly narrow, winding roads, then along the magnificent sea front to reach the center of Swansea, she’d tried, relatively unsuccessfully, to speak to Tudor; he’d been out in the woods surrounding Anwen-by-Wye with Gertie and Rosie, where the reception was abysmal, so they’d ended up agreeing to talk that night, when he’d shut the pub, which seemed like a very long way off. Not even Carol had been able to chat; too busy with her search for missing pickle jars and trying to placate Albert – who seemed, at the time Annie had been on the phone, to be practicing screaming for Wales.

The only person she’d been able to have a sensible conversation with had been Christine, who’d listened attentively, had told Annie with certainty that she was sure everything would turn out just fine, and reassured her she’d have stuck to her cover story too, had she been in the same situation. But none of that had really helped because – while Annie liked Christine a great deal, and even admired her spirit in many ways – she was convinced that, quite often, Christine saw life as a game she was playing, and the higher the stakes were, the greater her excitement.

Annie didn’t find her current circumstances to be at all exciting. If she ended up with something on her record, because of her lies, what would that mean to her ability to continue being a private investigator? And if she couldn’t do that – what would she do? She couldn’t go back to the City of London to work, she’d burned her bridges there. Her parents would be devastated if she had to move in with them – which would most certainly be on the cards if she had no income. Not that they wouldn’t have her, of course – in fact, Eustelle would probably be beside herself with glee to have her only child under her roof again, though Annie had moved out aged seventeen and had been independent since then. As both her parents had taught her, self reliance was an absolute necessity.

Annie’s knee struck the underside of the table with a thump just as the door opened and a woman entered.

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