Dead Man's Time by Peter James

Author:Peter James
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction
ISBN: 9781250030184
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2013-10-15T05:00:00+00:00

57

PC Susi Holiday took the call on her radio as they were driving west along Portland Road in Hove, approaching the spot where they had attended a fatal accident earlier this year, where a cyclist had gone under a lorry. Her colleague Dave Roberts, who was driving the response car this morning, could hear the conversation on his, too. ‘Old Rectory, Ovingdean. Know that?’ she asked.

He frowned. ‘No.’

‘Sounds like another potential G5.’ She punched the address into the satnav. ‘Spin her round.’

‘Thought we’d had our quota for this year,’ Roberts replied.

‘Dead people can’t count,’ she retorted, cynically.

As he indicated left, then turned down towards the seafront, her radio crackled again with the voice of the Controller. She inclined her head, listening, then said to Roberts, ‘Been called in by a lady called Carol Morgan. She has a tenant in a cottage and is worried about him.’

Ovingdean, a village to the east of Brighton’s Kemp Town, just a mile north of the sea, behind Roedean Girls’ School, surrounded by stunning rolling farmland, was a place that Dave Roberts had often thought he would like to retire to, if he could afford it. ‘Do we have his name?’

‘Lester Stork.’ She grinned. ‘Funny name.’

‘Lester Stork? He’s a shitbag.’

‘Oh?’

‘Small-time fence. He was one of the first people I ever nicked when I first started on the force. Must be as old as God, I’m surprised he’s still alive.’

‘Sounds like he might not be.’

They turned left on the seafront and headed east, passing the marina, Roedean, and made another left just before St Dunstan’s, the famous home for blind ex-servicemen, and threaded round uphill, into the village. A short distance on, the satnav told them they had arrived.

Almost immediately on their left was an imposing Sussex flint farmhouse, with a large paddock behind it. ‘This is it!’ Susi said, reading the name, the old rectory, smartly sign-written.

He turned the car into the circular drive and pulled up in front of the porch. As they got out, into a strong wind, an extremely attractive woman in her mid-forties, with long, wavy blonde hair, dressed in jodhpurs, riding boots and a sleeveless puffa, appeared from around the side of the house, leading a horse, which was pulling reluctantly against its reins.

‘Henry!’ she remonstrated, in one of those naturally posh voices that Susi secretly envied. Then she saw the police car and the two uniformed officers climbing out of it, pulling on their hats, raised a hand, turned to the horse again, spoke sternly to it, then waited for the officers. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘He’s in a bit of a strop this morning, that’s all.’

‘Mrs Carol Morgan?’ Susi Holiday asked.

‘Yes, that’s me. Thank you for coming. Gosh, you’re jolly prompt. I had visions of you taking a couple of days!’

‘We’d hope not,’ Dave Roberts said. ‘We had a report that you are concerned about a tenant.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ She pointed at the side of the house. ‘We have a little cottage at the rear that we’ve rented out for the past five years.

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