An Air That Kills by Andrew Taylor

the constabulary.’ The major’s surliness had vanished. He rubbed his hands together. ‘I find it helps the digestion. Gives one an appetite.’
    With sudden urgency, he opened the flap of the bureau, revealing a mass of old newspapers, files and letters. He reached behind the pile and brought out a bottle and a glass. The glass already contained half an inch of whisky. Thornhill turned away and pretended to study the photograph on the mantelpiece. He heard the chink of glass against glass and the gurgle of liquid spurting from the bottle.
    â€˜Ah, that’s better.’ Harcutt came to stand by the fire. ‘Do sit down, my dear fellow. I’d keep your coat on if I were you.’
    Thornhill sat on the sofa, in the place where Jill Francis had been sitting. Harcutt turned up the gas and the fire hissed as the flames rose higher. That was one advantage of being so near the road, Thornhill thought: the gas company must have extended the gas main to Edge Hill when the semidetached houses had crept along the fields from Lydmouth.
    â€˜We’ve got a problem with the central heating,’ Harcutt went on. ‘Something to do with the boiler, I understand. The engineers seem to take an age to sort it out. Costs an arm and a leg too. It’s all the same these days. They don’t care what sort of a job they do, they just want your money. And the more the better.’
    He swallowed another mouthful of whisky and wiped his moustache with the back of his hand.
    â€˜It’s not like the army, you know. In the old days, I’d just get on the phone and someone would have been round in a jiffy. When I was in Egypt, I remember old . . .’
    With the skill born of long practice, Thornhill gently slipped an interruption into the flow of words: ‘I understand you know a lot about Victorian Lydmouth, sir.’
    â€˜Yes.’ The major blinked, needing a few seconds to adjust to the change of subject. He took another sip of whisky. ‘Yes, Charlotte told me you want to pick my brains about those bones.’ His pale, red-rimmed eyes glanced down at Thornhill and back to the glass in his hand; the action was natural enough, but the speed with which it was accomplished gave it a furtive air. ‘I asked her where they’d been found, and when she said the Rose in Hand I said to myself, “Ah, I know what that means.”’
    â€˜Indeed? What does it mean?’
    â€˜Sounds remarkably like the apprentice work of Amelia Rushwick.’
    Thornhill took out his notebook. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to make allowances for my ignorance, sir.’
    â€˜Eh? Not a local man, are you? Where do you come from?’
    â€˜Cambridgeshire. But my wife has local connections.’
    â€˜Very glad to hear it. I’m all for people staying where they belong. Roots, you know, whatever people say, they’re important. Yes, well – be that as it may. Where was I?’
    â€˜Amelia Rushwick, sir.’
    â€˜Let me see. Give me a moment to get my thoughts straight.’
    The major swallowed some more neat whisky. He shook a cigarette out of the packet on the mantelpiece and lit it with a spill. He sat down in the armchair closest to the fire.
    Thornhill wondered how soon he could decently get away. It was unlikely that this old soak was going to be able to tell him anything useful. But the signs were that Harcutt would spin out the interview as long as possible, just for the company. No wonder Mrs Wemyss-Brown hadn’t invited him to Troy House recently.
    â€˜Did you know that the Rose in Hand was quite a prosperous place once upon a time?’
    Thornhill nodded.
    â€˜Went downhill in the nineteenth century. By the 1880s it had a very bad reputation indeed, and that’s when the Rushwicks leased it. Can’t tell you the dates offhand – I’ll check them if you want – but I think their tenancy began in about 1884 and lasted until