Blood Ties by Jane A. Adams Page B

than that. Eddy liked his bed. I’d not have kept him up past midnight anyway.’
    â€˜You’re sure of that?’
    â€˜Certain. I heard the kitchen clock strike eleven, but I’d left before it struck twelve. Certain.’
    â€˜That’s the clock on the mantelpiece,’ Susan chipped in. ‘Eddy was fanatical about keeping that one wound.’
    â€˜And you saw no one. Heard nothing?’
    Kevin shook his head. ‘On that road at that time of night there’s no traffic. I’d have noticed anything. I drove home, got in about half past twelve, I suppose. Stopped for petrol at the all night place at the supermarket.’
    â€˜Supermarket?’
    â€˜In Glastonbury.’
    â€˜Do you have the receipt?’
    Kevin shrugged. ‘Maybe. It’ll be in the car.’
    â€˜He should be on their CCTV,’ Naomi suggested.
    â€˜And when do they think Eddy died?’ Susan asked.
    All eyes turned on Alec and he could feel the pressure, their keenness that he let Kevin off the hook. ‘Because the body wasn’t found until the day after, probably a full day after, and because there were no suspicious circumstances at that point, no liver temperature was taken. And because the post-mortem wasn’t carried out for several days it’s all a bit approximate,’ Alec said. ‘Best estimate, and it is only an estimate, is anything between midnight and five in the morning. They may be able to narrow that.’
    â€˜So they’ll still think it might be me.’ Kevin was disconsolate.
    Alec thought about it, wondering what words of comfort he could offer. Wondering, too, if this young man was a better actor than he appeared to be.
    â€˜The teapot and mugs, were they still on the table when you left?’ Naomi asked.
    â€˜Yeah. I offered to wash up but Eddy said it would only take a minute. Then he was off to bed.’
    â€˜So you left and Eddy didn’t get to tidy up. For some reason, he went upstairs and, if we’re logical about it, that has to have been pretty much straight after Kevin left, but we know he wasn’t going to bed because he’d not washed the mugs. So, did he hear something?’
    â€˜Maybe he just wanted to use the bathroom,’ Susan suggested. ‘There’s a downstairs toilet, but it’s outside, next to the old coal hole. He’d not have used the outdoor one, that time of night.’
    â€˜Whatever the reason, he went upstairs and someone killed him. It could have been accidental, of course. The indications are someone gave him a shove, he hit his head, and then he fell. It was smashing his head on the tiles in the hall that actually killed him, but . . .’
    â€˜But whoever they are, they were responsible.’ Susan was adamant.
    â€˜But it wasn’t Kevin,’ his mother said.
    â€˜Of course not. We’ve just got to make sure the police know that.’
    â€˜Do we have to go to them?’
    Alec could hear that Kevin was scared, out of his depth.
    â€˜I’ll go with you,’ he said. ‘Better to get it over with. But, in the meantime, Susan, do you have a photocopier here?’
    â€˜Well, there’s one of those all-in-one printer copier things in the office. Why?’
    â€˜I’d like to copy the diary and the exercise books before we hand them over to the police, that’s all. I know it’s not strictly my business but . . .’
    â€˜No, but it’s certainly ours,’ Mrs Hargreaves stated flatly. ‘Eddy gave those things to Kevin for a reason. If you can help us work out why, then that’s what Eddy would have wanted us to do.’
    They spent the next hour copying the diary and the closely written text of the books. Naomi took the copies back to the farmhouse while Alec left with Kevin and his mother, having called ahead to make sure they would be met by Sergeant Dean. Susan had phoned the solicitor that handled