The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery by Andrew Hixson Page A

would be yes!  But he is not that sort of man.   I would put him down as selfish and ambitious.  I think that if Helena was anxious to achieve her goal she would have been extremely desperate that her past was not revealed to her future husband.”
                  “I see, you think it’s her do you?”
                  “I don’t know. I’m examining only the possibilities.  Helena Brooks-Nunn was on her guard against me, watchful, alarmed.”
                  “That looks bad.”
                  “Yes. But it is all very difficult. Once I stayed with some friends and one day we all went out shooting.  You know the way it goes?  You walk with the dogs and the guns; the beaters beat and the birds fly out of the woods, up into the air and then bang!  That is like us. There isn’t only one bird up in the air there are quite a few and we’ve got to make sure we bag the right one. During Helena’s widowhood, there may have been affairs, no worse than that, but still something that might be a little bit embarrassing.  Certainly there must be some reason why she told me that Faith Roberts was a liar!”
                  “What do you really think, John?”
                  “What I think doesn’t matter.  I am only interested in finding out the facts.”
                  “If we could get anything definite,” DII Silver murmured.  “One really suspicious circumstance, then that will turn the whole case on its head.  At the moment all we’ve got is theory and do people really murder for the reasons you’re considering?”
                  “That depends on a lot of family circumstances I don’t know yet.  But the passion for respectability in Oxmarket Aspal is strong.  The postmistress said so.  Nice people like to preserve their niceness.  The village is like something out of an Agatha Christie novel. People pretending to be happily married where their pasts are kept secret from each other.  Someone might say ‘ I would rather die than my husband or wife find out !’  Or “ I would rather die than have my children discover who I really am !”  And then you could go on and say ‘ that maybe it was better if Faith Roberts was shut up permanently !’”
                  “So you think its Lord and Lady Osborne?”
                  “No.”  I said firmly.  “Lorraine Terret fits the bill more than Lady Osborne. She has determination and willpower and she fairly dotes on her son.  I think she would do anything to prevent Oliver Terret from finding out her past before she married his father.”
                  “Would he mind finding out?”
                  “Probably not,” I shrugged.  “He is extremely self-centred and is certainly less devoted to his mother than she to him.”
                  “What if his mother was really Kristen Braun?  Would he have killed Faith Roberts to prevent that from coming out?”
                  “He would probably capitalise on it and use the publicity for his plays.  Oliver Terret would only commit murder if he could gain out of it.”
                  “It’s a wide playing field, John.”  DI Silver said, sighing.
                  “I know,” I said.  “That’s what makes this case so complicated.”
                  I left the small café in the centre of Oxupland and walked to the small railway station to wait for the single-carriage train to Oxmarket Aspal.  There had been a farmers’ market and the platform was crowded and as I waited there more people joining him on the platform.
                  I leaned forward to look.  Yes, the train was coming at last.  Before I could right myself I felt a sudden hard purposeful shove in the small of my back.  It was so violent and so unexpected that I was taken completely unawares.