Bring Forth Your Dead by J. M. Gregson Page A

shall make it our business to find out if we possibly can.’ Lambert waited, but there was as he expected no further reaction from the American. ‘Can you tell us any more about old Mr Craven’s relationships with his daughter?’
    Walter Miller grimaced wryly. ‘I was born in the year before “old Mr Craven”, Superintendent.’ Then he smiled more openly, in the relief of moving to a subject on which he could enthuse more happily. ‘He liked Angela, and she liked him, right up to the end. She made arrangements for someone to look after her children on quite a few days during the summer holidays, so that she could be with her father in that last summer.’ Hook looked up sharply at his chief, more sharply than he had meant to do: this was the key period in the poisoning, some two months before Craven’s death.
    Perhaps Miller caught the look and divined their thinking, for his face filled with horror and he hastened on. ‘They’d always been close, as father and daughter often are. I think David was closer to his mother—he certainly seemed to lose his way rather after Joan died. Anyway, Angela loved her father. She almost made herself ill by her concern for him and her determination to be near him as he weakened—’
    He broke off, aghast again at the implications of what he had intended as words to reinforce her innocence.
    Lambert said gently, ‘Until this business is cleared up, the best feelings and actions in all those around the deceased will be subject to this wretchedly warped interpretation. Murder has that effect, I’m afraid. Now, what can you tell me about Mr Craven’s relationship with his grandchildren?’
    Miller looked startled by the sudden shift of subject, which was quite deliberate on the part of his interlocutor. But he gave due thought to his reply; perhaps it was a relief to switch away from the children he had known for so many years to the next generation, with whom he was less involved. ‘Ed was delighted when they were born, and very fond of them as toddlers. As he got older, he spoke of them to me less and less. He withdrew into himself in the last year or two, I’m afraid. He didn’t mention them much.’
    ‘Have you any idea why? Was there any family disagreement?’
    ‘Not that I’m aware of. He just talked about them less, and I’m afraid I didn’t press him.’ Miller looked uncomfortable, but it seemed rather at his own social omissions that at anything he was concealing. Lambert thought that like most men he would be interested in his own grandchildren, but find those of his friends a bore. He had probably never thought to ask about the Craven grandchildren, never noticed their gradual disappearance from his friend’s conversation. Now he felt guilty about this neglect of his stricken companion. ‘They were at Ed’s funeral. I remember them being quite upset. I suppose Angela thought Ed would have liked them to be there; she made all the funeral arrangements. I think David was too embarrassed—frightened of looking a hypocrite. His plans for the house were becoming more public, and there were those of us at the funeral who thought he had hastened his father’s death.’ Miller stopped aghast. ‘I guess I didn’t mean—’
    ‘I know just what you meant, Mr Miller,’ said Lambert with a grim smile. It was interesting to see how Walter Miller’s transatlantic origins surfaced under stress among idioms which had for the most part become very English.
    ‘What about Angela’s husband. Did Mr Craven like his son-in-law?’
    ‘No.’ The response was surprisingly prompt and certain. ‘I don’t know exactly why. Ed tended to get annoyed if Michael was even mentioned, and he never raised him himself. I kept off the subject.’
    ‘How long did this hostility between them go back?’
    This time Miller did have to think. ‘I don’t think Ed was keen on him even before the marriage, but they were polite enough then. Michael Harrison is a Roman Catholic, of