A Restless Evil by Ann Granger

Author:Ann Granger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2011-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

‘I went to see Ruth,’ Meredith said that evening, peering dubiously into a pot of boiling pasta. ‘She’s bearing up well, all things considered. She thought your Sergeant Holding was nice, but she couldn’t answer any of the questions she was asked.’

‘It’s early days,’ Markby said absent-mindedly. ‘Perhaps Ruth will start remembering things in a day or two, when the shock subsides.’

‘It doesn’t look as if there’s anything to remember. Neither of them had enemies, according to Ruth, and it’s hard to see how they could have done. They don’t appear to have much to do with anyone. Neither of them has any family.’ She hooked a piece of pasta from the pot with a fork and held it towards him. ‘Try this and tell me if you think it’s al dente.’

‘It’s hot!’ Markby juggled the piece round his mouth. ‘It’s about right, I think. Here, I’ll drain that.’

He carried the saucepan to the sink. Meredith waited until the boiling water had splashed away down the plughole.

‘Alan?’

‘Mmn?’

‘You don’t think Ruth killed Hester, do you?’

He turned in surprise, the colander full of pasta dripping on to the kitchen floor. ‘We don’t have a suspect. Why should I think Ruth killed her friend?’

‘I don’t know. But Ruth seems to think she’s your number one suspect – because she was the last person we know saw Hester alive.’

‘So far. Someone else may yet come forward who saw Hester later. Ruth’s not our number one suspect. We don’t have such a person.’

‘But she’s on your list of possibles?’

Alan had set the colander on the draining board and was mopping up the spillages. She could only see the top of his head and a mop of fair hair. From beneath it came his voice, ‘Everyone’s on my list of possibles.’ He straightened up. ‘Put it this way. You found her. I might suspect you. Don’t look at me like that! She’d been dead about an hour and a half when you walked into that church, or so Fuller reckons.’

Meredith stared at him. ‘She was all that time in the church, dead, and no one else had found her?’

‘Ah,’ said Markby. ‘Isn’t that the sixty-four thousand dollar question!’

‘It does bring us back to Old Billy Twelvetrees, doesn’t it? I saw him, Alan. I’d swear it was him.’

‘He denies it and he’s sticking to it. But I believe,’ Markby scowled at the colander of pasta as if it might put up some argument, ‘that Old Billy is an untruthful person. I mean, his distinction between what’s correct and what isn’t is formed entirely by what suits him. He wouldn’t call it lying, that’s the awkward thing about dealing with such people.’

‘But you and I would call it lying?’

‘Upright citizens that we are, we probably would. I have no doubt he’s lying, but what about? About not being in the church? Or about something else altogether?’ He sighed. ‘The trouble with such people is that often, they simply can’t tell you the facts. They lie for no reason.

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