Murder at Primrose Cottage: An utterly addictive English cozy mystery (A Flora Steele Mystery Book 3) by Merryn Allingham

Author:Merryn Allingham [Allingham, Merryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803140711
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2022-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

17

Jack stood motionless, staring at the figure in the doorway. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said at last, his voice edged with annoyance.

‘Not much of a welcome, Jack. Do you think I could come in? Getting a bit parky out here.’ A pair of amused blue eyes looked directly into his.

He stood back to allow his father to squeeze past into the small hall. Ralph shrugged off his navy wool blazer and launched it at the coat stand, then smoothed down an already immaculate head of silver hair.

‘You better come into the sitting room,’ Jack said reluctantly, and gestured to the open doorway. Flora looked up as they came into the room.

‘Who—’ she began.

‘This is my father, Flora.’ Jack’s introduction was terse. ‘Dad, this is Flora Steele. She’s helping me with research.’

‘Really?’ There was a gleam in Ralph’s eyes and doubt in his voice.

Flora held out her hand. ‘How nice to meet you, Mr Carrington.’

‘At least someone’s pleased to see me!’ He lowered himself into one of the high-backed chairs.

‘Tea?’ she asked.

His father beamed. ‘Wonderful!’

Jack sat, his gaze doggedly fixed on what had once been the jewelled colours of a Persian rug, while from the kitchen the sound of running water, the flare of gas, the clink of cups, only emphasised the silence that stretched between them. He had no idea what Ralph Carrington was doing in Treleggan, but his father had been right when he’d said his arrival was unwelcome. It was the last complication Jack needed, just when he’d cleared his head sufficiently to make a new start on this wretched novel.

Once Flora returned with a tray of tea, Jack weighed in. ‘Well? Why are you here?’ he asked abruptly.

His father looked uncomfortable for the first time since he’d arrived. ‘Your phone call, old chap. It sounded urgent and I didn’t give you much to go on, so I asked that agent of yours where you were and thought I’d look you up.’

‘You gave me nothing.’

‘My war was over long ago, but I did remember more than I said,’ Ralph confessed. ‘The thing is, what happened at Mullion was a painful business and you caught me on the hop rather. It’s not always a good idea to go raking up stuff that’s best forgotten. Why is Mullion so important to you anyway?’

‘The man who rented us this cottage was murdered the day after we arrived,’ Flora put in.

‘Good grief!’

‘We think – I think,’ she corrected herself, ‘that the murder might be connected to the research he was doing on the war. In particular, on the signals centres in this area. We discovered that Mullion was the largest of them and the most secret and Jack remembered that you’d been here at the time.’

‘I see.’ Ralph paused. ‘But surely, if there’s been a murder, the police will be dealing with it?’

‘They should be, but they don’t appear to be getting very far. Mr Gifford’s watch is missing and the police are keen to pursue the theory that it

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