The Lost Boys: A Victorian police procedural, full of suspense (Esther & Jack Enright Mystery Book 8) by David Field

Author:David Field [Field, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2019-01-31T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘I’m sorry you caught me like this,’ Margery Bestwood apologised with a slightly red face as she led Esther through the Treatment Room and into her parlour kitchen, ‘but I was having a lie-in. There are no boys here during the summer vacation, so I get a bit lazy, I’m afraid. Anyway, the lavatory’s through there — the second door,’ she added as she pointed down a short corridor with two doors, the other of which presumably led to her bedroom.

When Esther returned to the kitchen the pan was boiling on the stove and Margery was loading leaves into a pot from a ceramic container that proclaimed its contents to be tea. ‘I take it fairly strong,’ she said, ‘but I can thin yours down a bit if you prefer. And do you take milk and sugar?’

‘Milk and one sugar, please,’ Esther replied, ‘and I don’t care how strong it is.’

‘I suppose you get it made all ways for you, if it’s left to the men in your police station,’ Margery speculated.

‘I don’t really have a “home” station,’ Esther replied evasively. ‘They just call me in when there’s a special job that requires a woman.’

‘How much did your boss tell you about this one?’ Margery asked with a slightly overdone casual air as she laid the milk and sugar out on the table at which Esher had taken a seat uninvited.

‘That two of your boys had gone missing at the end of the previous term, and that you might be able to explain why. Not “how”, you understand — you’re under no suspicion yourself, please understand that. It’s just that you told the Detective Chief Inspector that there were things you could only reveal to a woman that might explain why the boys had chosen to disappear — possibly together.’

‘Are you married, Miss ... or is it Mrs?’

‘Jacobs, but please call me Esther. And yes, I’m married, with four children, so obviously I know a good deal about … “that”, if that’s what you need to tell me.’

‘It’s my conscience that’s troubling me, to tell you the truth,’ Margery explained as she poured the tea with a still trembling hand. ‘I hope you won’t think any the worse of me, but I did what I did with the best of motives, at least to begin with.’

‘In which case you’ll have nothing to reproach yourself for,’ Esther replied encouragingly, fascinated by the prospect of what she might be about to hear, ‘so feel free to tell me, because it may assist in finding your missing boys.’

‘I don’t think they’ll ever be found,’ Margery replied sadly, ‘and in some ways that might be for the best — for the boys themselves, anyway.’

Esther was about to make some comment regarding the grief that their mothers might suffer but checked herself as she saw Margery’s mouth open in the search for the right words.

‘It was like this. We had a bad measles outbreak at the school last spring and I was kept pretty busy giving the boys a daily dose of orange juice to ward it off.

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