Death on the Downs by Simon Brett

Author:Simon Brett [Simon Brett]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780330465489
Publisher: Pan Books

Chapter Twenty-three

When they emerged from the Hare and Hounds, the weather was brighter than it had any right to be in the middle of March. A cloudless sky and sunlight gave a false promise of summer. Moving into the shadows, however, they still felt as if they had stepped into a vault.

Carole and Jude didn’t say any more about the case as they walked down to Conyers. There was a kind of tacit agreement between them that they’d discuss it later. Even though Tamsin’s retreat to Sandalls Manor now seemed to be an irrelevance, Gillie had sounded urgent on the phone. What she had to impart to Jude might be important.

Carole had briefly contemplated another dutiful trip to Sainsbury’s, but her kitchen shelves were adequately stocked. There was nothing she couldn’t get at Allinstore in Fethering. And, as she said to Jude, it was wicked not to take advantage of such an afternoon for a walk on the Downs. So they parted at the Lutteridges’ gate, agreeing to meet back at the car in an hour.

Carole felt a guilty excitement as she watched her friend cross the immaculate gravel up to the front door. Her talk of a walk, though not entirely inaccurate, had been incomplete. A little plan had been hatching in Carole’s mind, an investigation opportunity right there in Weldisham. If her conjecture proved correct, when they next came to discuss the case she’d certainly have something that’d make Jude sit up.

From in front of the Lutteridges’ house she could once again just see the sagging rooftop of the old barn behind. From lack of alternative candidates, it must be the one that Harry Grant had bought and for which he had finally received planning permission. From that position, in a few months’ time he would be able to celebrate his return to Weldisham, one of the few local boys who’d made good enough to afford to live in his own village.

The decaying barn was set behind the row of houses that lined Weldisham’s only street and there was no way through to it. That was one of the reasons that the Village Committee produced with such regularity to block the development of the old shell. The barn had no access. A new road would have to be built, with all the attendant disruption.

So Carole knew she’d have to walk down to the end of the village and double back, hoping there was a route to the site through the fields. Belting her Burberry tighter around her, she set out to do just that.

As she walked past the house next door to the Lutter-idges’, Warren Lodge, she wondered what was happening inside. Detective Sergeant Baylis had said he was going to talk to Graham Forbes, but on what subject? Were the official enquiries moving in the same direction as her conjectures? How much did the police know?

Whatever the detailed answer to the last question, Carole knew one thing for certain. The police knew more than she and Jude did.

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