DEADLY NIGHT a gripping British murder mystery by CHRISTINE GREEN

Author:CHRISTINE GREEN [GREEN, CHRISTINE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Ostara Classics
Published: 2024-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Graham Burrows arrived to the minute. A dapper little man wearing a fawn trench coat and cap, he reminded me of an elderly jockey. His thin face and small features had not been reproduced in the photos I’d seen of Zoe. He held out his small hand to shake mine, and its warmth and softness reminded me of a child’s. It felt strangely repulsive.

Even before we’d sat down in my office, he was trying to take charge. ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘Where do we start?’

‘I start by asking you to tell me why the police suspect you. And before you answer, I’m undecided about taking on your case.’

‘Just tell me how much you want,’ he said nastily. ‘I’ll pay anything.’

‘It’s not a question of money, Mr Burrows, so let us both stay calm, shall we?’

His expression showed he didn’t appreciate my patronizing tone, but he mumbled, ‘I’ve been under a lot of strain.’

‘Yes, of course you have.’

I opened my notebook and raised my pen in a businesslike fashion. ‘Have the police given you a reason for their suspicions?’

He shrugged. ‘They kept asking about men in her life. But she was only a girl. I know she had one or two crushes on boys at school, but we kept a close eye on her.’

‘Did you lose your temper?’

‘When?’

‘With the police,’ I said innocently.

‘I got a bit rattled. Anyone would. I’m being used as a . . .’ He struggled for the word.

‘Fall guy?’ I suggested.

‘Precisely.’

‘Tell me about Zoe,’ I said quietly.

He swallowed hard. ‘She was as good as gold until she was fifteen. She went to church on Sunday and to the church youth club on a Wednesday evening. Then suddenly she changed.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘Oh yes. She got mixed up with a rough crowd at school, and that was when she became . . . difficult.’

‘In what way?’

His head dropped a little to one side, making him look sly, but his answer was straightforward enough, ‘She’d always been fastidiously tidy about everything. Then she stopped tidying her room. She was rude, aggressive and demanding to both me and her mother.’

‘Drugs? Staying out late? Trouble with the police?’

‘Certainly not!’

‘So far, Mr Burrows, your daughter’s behaviour sounds perfectly normal for an adolescent girl. Did she tell you what time she’d be in at night?’

‘I told her. I wanted her home no later than ten p.m.’

‘A bit unrealistic for an eighteen-year-old.’

He thought about that for a moment and twisted his wedding band around. ‘We cared about her. I wanted to keep her safe. Children of that age need protecting from themselves.’

‘Zoe wasn’t a child any more — that’s the point. She was a woman.’

I supposed that intellectually he knew that, but emotionally he hadn’t come to terms with her being an adult. And sadly now he never could.

His shoulders slumped and his eyes glistened. I still didn’t like him, but I did feel sorry for him. He was the sort of man who wouldn’t cry openly but inside his heart was breaking.

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