that, too. By the way, I was interested enough to do some checking this afternoon. She is his wife. I did wonder. She’s got her marriage lines, all right. Nineteen when she married him. I reckon that makes a sort of sense. Barbara Cranmer. Father died in ’fifty-seven of long-delayed illness arising from war injuries. Mother ran a flower shop, not very prosperous, not very efficient, and Barbara helped in it. I bet he was buying flowers for Miss Lavery when he clapped eyes on Barbara.’
‘I marvel,’ said George mildly, ‘how you manage to extract life stories in an afternoon. Where is mother now?’
‘Died, two years ago. Barbara’s on her own. Since the marriage mother’s been living in a very nice residential hotel on the south coast. She died of leukemia in a very expensive nursing home. Oh, yes, I’ve been busy. Still, here we still are, stuck with money and sex. And a set of circumstances, of course.’
‘Quite remarkable circumstances, when you come to think about it. Somebody – potentially Rainbow himself – had certainly been poking around privately among the junk up there in the tower. Very recently, possibly the night he was killed. And Rainbow was a knowledgeable chap in his own line, with a nose for buried treasure. So one of his colleagues and rivals assured me, the night he had his house-warming party. Where he goes, this lad said, it’s worthwhile following, and taking a good sniff around. So had he sniffed out something profitable here in Abbot’s Bale? More precisely, up in the church tower? He took precautions, apparently, to have the place on his own that night. Something really sensational? Worth following him for? Worth killing him for, perhaps? If so, what was it? What is it?’
‘I’ll tell you this,’ said Moon promptly, ‘if he thought he was on to something good there, he never said a word to the vicar or to anyone else. He was keeping it strictly to himself, all right. Looks as though somebody else had got a whiff of what was going on, and was keeping an eye on him accordingly. Two of ’em met up there in the tower.’
Two of them had indeed met in the tower, to deadly effect. The forensic boys had isolated three sets of prints, two of which had definitely reached the leads, one of them Rainbow’s. The second was a long, narrow foot, with an even, springy tread that argued a younger man, with unmangled feet, probably accustomed always to well-made, expensive shoes, certainly wearing new and good leather soles when these prints were salvaged from the leads. A third set of prints could be traced as far as that model impression on the lowest stair of the bell-chamber staircase, but was not distinguishable any higher. Cracked old shoes, trodden askew to favour a probable bunion; an older man’s foot. Not Joe Llewelyn’s, either, nowhere near so big and a good many years older.
‘He’s only been dead approximately forty-five hours,’ said Sergeant Moon, sensibly reducing everything to its true proportion.
‘And we have at least moved, and we have a Chief who’ll stay with us, even when he gets nervous. So come on, let’s get this paper-work into shape for Monday, and trust the Coroner to have a pulse, too.’ The coroner’s officer was a second cousin of Sergeant Moon, shared his kinsman’s sensitivity to local feeling, and exercised a powerful influence over his elderly and irascible but timorous chief. ‘Hand me that file,’ sighed George, clearing the table before him, ‘and get Barnes in here. I’m going for an adjournment.’
Bossie Jarvis had a music lesson on Saturday evenings, and his piano teacher lived in Comerford, down the valley. Comerford was a sometime idyllic village, now beset with invading population from the Midland conurbation, with supermarkets and car-parks, and all the ills of modern living, though it retained a superb setting rimmed with rising hills growing grim and purple towards the west. Bossie took a bus from home about seven
‘I marvel,’ said George mildly, ‘how you manage to extract life stories in an afternoon. Where is mother now?’
‘Died, two years ago. Barbara’s on her own. Since the marriage mother’s been living in a very nice residential hotel on the south coast. She died of leukemia in a very expensive nursing home. Oh, yes, I’ve been busy. Still, here we still are, stuck with money and sex. And a set of circumstances, of course.’
‘Quite remarkable circumstances, when you come to think about it. Somebody – potentially Rainbow himself – had certainly been poking around privately among the junk up there in the tower. Very recently, possibly the night he was killed. And Rainbow was a knowledgeable chap in his own line, with a nose for buried treasure. So one of his colleagues and rivals assured me, the night he had his house-warming party. Where he goes, this lad said, it’s worthwhile following, and taking a good sniff around. So had he sniffed out something profitable here in Abbot’s Bale? More precisely, up in the church tower? He took precautions, apparently, to have the place on his own that night. Something really sensational? Worth following him for? Worth killing him for, perhaps? If so, what was it? What is it?’
‘I’ll tell you this,’ said Moon promptly, ‘if he thought he was on to something good there, he never said a word to the vicar or to anyone else. He was keeping it strictly to himself, all right. Looks as though somebody else had got a whiff of what was going on, and was keeping an eye on him accordingly. Two of ’em met up there in the tower.’
Two of them had indeed met in the tower, to deadly effect. The forensic boys had isolated three sets of prints, two of which had definitely reached the leads, one of them Rainbow’s. The second was a long, narrow foot, with an even, springy tread that argued a younger man, with unmangled feet, probably accustomed always to well-made, expensive shoes, certainly wearing new and good leather soles when these prints were salvaged from the leads. A third set of prints could be traced as far as that model impression on the lowest stair of the bell-chamber staircase, but was not distinguishable any higher. Cracked old shoes, trodden askew to favour a probable bunion; an older man’s foot. Not Joe Llewelyn’s, either, nowhere near so big and a good many years older.
‘He’s only been dead approximately forty-five hours,’ said Sergeant Moon, sensibly reducing everything to its true proportion.
‘And we have at least moved, and we have a Chief who’ll stay with us, even when he gets nervous. So come on, let’s get this paper-work into shape for Monday, and trust the Coroner to have a pulse, too.’ The coroner’s officer was a second cousin of Sergeant Moon, shared his kinsman’s sensitivity to local feeling, and exercised a powerful influence over his elderly and irascible but timorous chief. ‘Hand me that file,’ sighed George, clearing the table before him, ‘and get Barnes in here. I’m going for an adjournment.’
Bossie Jarvis had a music lesson on Saturday evenings, and his piano teacher lived in Comerford, down the valley. Comerford was a sometime idyllic village, now beset with invading population from the Midland conurbation, with supermarkets and car-parks, and all the ills of modern living, though it retained a superb setting rimmed with rising hills growing grim and purple towards the west. Bossie took a bus from home about seven
Similar Books
