Rotten by David R. Ewens

Author:David R. Ewens
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781484357
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
Published: 2016-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Technically, he could get out of it. There was a strong chance that he’d find Hannah. But the really pertinent question, given the goings-on at the college and the stakes, getting higher all the time, was whether it would be dead or alive. In these circumstances, urgency was less important than thinking things through and making the right decisions. Hannah Williamson’s mother had no more beans to spill. He was going back through Marchurch. There were people there who almost certainly knew something useful.

As the train pulled into the station, he got out the next set of Adele’s directions. Marchurch had changed from when he was on the beat there. Although at the bottom of Station Approach Road the man in the sou’wester, metal weathered to a coppery green, still stared resolutely out to sea, with his hand shading his eyes, a new budget hotel had appeared, and beyond it towards the town and the beach an unfinished building programme of shops and apartments in the continental style – all curves, whitewashed walls and solid glass-metal doors. Sterling turned right and right again into All Saints Avenue, past the multi-storey car park and the block of flats it serviced and under the railway bridge with the line that would take him over to Southwood and Ramston and beyond them to Sandley. A left turn soon after took him into the road he wanted, Tivoli Park Avenue, with its semis on the seaward side and a large, leafy park on the other. On the short journey, Sterling had gone through a small segment of the class system – from the bed and breakfasts around the station and the flats of the middle-class aspirers to the established middle classes away from the town.

Mrs Jenkinson had done well for herself. Her semi gleamed in the October sunshine. The front area was paved over in an expensive and tasteful scheme of pale brown slabs and in front of the garage was a new model SUV. As he approached the front door, Sterling noted that although it was only two o’clock in the afternoon, all the curtains were drawn, both in the upstairs and downstairs windows. He could hear the bell tinkle within the house when he pressed the button by the front door. The notes were familiar. When he pressed again, the tune came to him: Amazing Grace. But there was no reply.

Sterling stood back and looked around. The old intuition again: something didn’t feel right. He glanced to the houses on either side, and then back to the road. It was the dead time in the afternoon – after retired people had gone in for lunch and before it was time for the afternoon school run. He edged towards the side gate beside the garage and rattled the handle. The gate was locked but not so high that he couldn’t get over in a well-practised combination of clamber and vault. The garden at the back was immaculate, even in one of the year’s

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