The Staveley Suspect by Rebecca Tope

Author:Rebecca Tope [Rebecca Tope]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allison and Busby
Published: 2018-05-02T16:00:00+00:00

Moxon materialised five minutes after Bonnie had gone home, ten minutes before Simmy intended to close up for the day. She was much more pleased to see him than might have been expected, since he couldn’t possibly be bringing good news. Her pleasure arose from a handful of negatives. He wasn’t young enough to be her child; he wasn’t ordering flowers; he wasn’t going to get complicated about emotions; he wasn’t either of her parents. Compared to those, his probable reason for being there was almost a relief.

She had forgotten about Tony yet again. Since Moxon had expressed complete ignorance of the events in Worcestershire or Gloucestershire or wherever it was, she had dropped the connection in her mind between the two men. The detective represented Staveley and the death of a man on the road. He might have come to say the case was resolved, nothing more to be done. Good news was, after all, conceivable.

‘We heard from the people in Worcester,’ he said. ‘About your ex-husband.’

‘Oh drat.’

‘It’s nothing too troublesome, actually. They want to confirm your contact details, that you are who his team say you are, and the basic facts of the matter at the time when he first met the woman. They could have done it all online, through normal databases, but they went the extra mile for some reason.’

‘So now what?’

‘From what you told me, I really can’t see any benefit to their case in summoning you in person. You can’t add any material testimony, can you? What do they think you’ll say? That the midwife clearly fell instantly in love with your husband and gave him every encouragement, so that his subsequent behaviour was entirely rational? That’s the only defence I can think of. Unless they want you to say he’d had mental health issues for years, which you and he covered up, which would explain the total absence of any medical notes to that effect.’

‘Stalking is quite mad, though, isn’t it? By definition.’

‘The jury’s out on that, as they say.’ He smiled. ‘I imagine your friend Mr Harkness is enjoying the legal complexities of the matter quite a lot.’

‘He would be, if he wasn’t so busy. His exams start just after Easter, and he’s drowning in revision. I don’t know how he does it.’

His direct look suggested that he did not quite believe her. ‘You’re telling me he’s taking no interest in this Staveley business?’

‘Ah. No, not quite. He seems to be able to snatch an hour or two of free time for that.’

‘So I gather.’

Her thoughts whirled to hidden cameras, surveillance of the Kennedys’ house, spies in the quiet streets of Staveley. ‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s a small world,’ he said. ‘Word gets around.’

‘Maybe so, but how exactly?’

‘You must surely be aware that most people record every detail of their lives on Facebook and all those other platforms that live inside mobile telephones. It often feels as if there are no secrets left in the world. Debbie Kennedy is no exception.

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