A Hint of Death (A Bob Skinner Short Story) (Kindle Single) by Quintin Jardine Page A

mother?’ he asked, casually.
    Something flashed in Christie’s eyes as he replied. ‘Tilda died of a brain tumour, three years ago. It came out of the blue. She was putting some winter clothes away in a high cupboard in our bedroom; she took a dizzy spell and fell off the steps. The same thing happened a few days later in the kitchen. She broke her ankle; when she told the story in A&E some bright young doctor sent her for an MRI scan and they found it. She was gone inside eight weeks,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘just like that.’
    ‘I’m very sorry.’
    ‘Thanks, Harold; in the midst of life, and all that. I hope it never happens to you.’
    ‘Me too,’ the detective replied sincerely. ‘How have you been since?’
    ‘I really have no idea. That might sound like a daft answer, but it’s all I can offer. I function; I get on with my job, and that’s it.’
    ‘I take it you’re still in teaching?’
    ‘Oh yes, I’m there for the duration now. I’m doing okay career-wise; I’m deputy head of Drumdonald Academy; that’s the biggest independent school in Edinburgh, as you probably know. Outside of that, though, I have nothing; just this big empty space where Tilda used to be. I’m still mourning I suppose; for how long, only God knows.’
    ‘Is Josey your only child?’
    ‘Yeah. She’s a brick. She’s very bright; straightforward and a woman of forthright opinions, just like her mother.’ He glanced at a family photograph that stood framed on the sideboard. Haddock had looked at it earlier; Tilda Christie had been a big woman, with strong features and a smile that struck him as being a little forced. Her daughter, who might have been around twelve when the picture was taken, resembled her, closely.
    ‘So what’s the real story about the jewellery?’ he asked. ‘Why did you let her report it as stolen?’
    ‘I didn’t think she would. I should have known better; she’s a volatile girl, just like her mother was. You’re right, Harold, she only repeated to your colleague what I’d told her. And I did that because I didn’t want her to know that I’d sold it. End of story.’
    Haddock almost took him at his word and let the matter lie, but there was something in the teacher’s expression, or perhaps it was the way he had looked away from him as he spoke, that made him press on.
    ‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t add up.’ He looked around the well-furnished room. ‘For openers, sir, you don’t appear to need the money.’
    ‘Who says?’ Christie challenged, looking more animated in that instant than his former pupil had ever seen him. ‘Josey’s going to university in the autumn. Do you think that comes cheap?’
    ‘So why didn’t you tell her that you’d flogged the jewels for her benefit, rather than coming up with an unsupportable cover story?’
    ‘I didn’t want to burden her with the knowledge, I suppose, make her feel beholden to me. What I said, it was on the spur of the moment. I never thought it through.’
    ‘How much did you raise from the sale? You don’t have to tell me, mind. It’s none of my business.’
    ‘No, that’s all right. I got nine thousand. Some of it was old and quite valuable, stuff that Tilda had inherited. It was insured for twenty.’
    ‘Did it go to auction?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Which one? Which auction house?’
    The man frowned, his eyes shifting as he tried to come up with a name, any name, of a city auctioneer. A faint smile signalled his admission of failure, and then, a sigh. ‘Okay, I sold it privately, to a jeweller in Fountainbridge.’
    Haddock whistled. ‘Then it’s as well we haven’t started treating this as a theft yet, or our people would have gone round all the dealers, you’d have been identified and it would have all gone very pear-shaped, beyond my reach.’
    ‘I realise that. I’m sorry.’
    ‘It’s okay. It hasn’t got that far so no harm done. You know you must tell Josey the truth now, don’t