Witch Is When Things Fell Apart by Adele Abbott Page B

would have known—IF I’D BEEN THERE. But I was at the TV studios for an interview—THAT NO ONE KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT!”
    “Oh dear. I wonder how that could have happened. There must have been some kind of mix up.”
    “Your mother was just the same.” Grandma snorted. “Thought she knew it all. Thought she was clever. Looks like the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
    “I wonder who she got it from.”
    I really should learn when to keep my mouth shut. For instance, when Grandma’s wart began to glow red would have been a good time to stay quiet.
    “You’d better win the Levels, or you’ll be sorry.” With that she stomped out of my office, slamming the door closed behind her.
    Winky came out from under my desk where he’d been hiding while Grandma went off on one. “I wouldn’t like to see her when she’s angry. Sounds to me like you are in her bad books.”
    “When aren’t I?”
    It was at times like this that I was pleased Mrs V was a little on the deaf side. I wouldn’t have wanted her to find out that I’d used a little magic to ‘assist’ her win.
     
    The Tregar case was getting under my skin—nothing made sense. How and when had Alan Dennis been stabbed? There was no sign of the attack taking place during that last, fateful lift ride. He’d been standing at the very front, which meant that only his head and shoulders were visible on CCTV, so it was possible he’d already been stabbed before he entered the lift. But surely the other people in the lift would have noticed if he’d been bleeding. Or would they? No one in that apartment block seemed very interested in their neighbours. By their own admission, they all kept themselves to themselves. Was it possible that they had all been so involved with their own thoughts that they hadn’t noticed the man was bleeding? In the absence of any other bright ideas, that was the theory I was working on.
    I intended to do more digging around into the backgrounds of Jason Allan and Darcy James—I wanted to know why they’d denied knowing one another when all the evidence suggested otherwise. More importantly, I wanted to know how they could afford to live at Tregar Court.
    It wasn’t difficult to trace previous addresses for them. Darcy James didn’t stay in one place for long—I had a list of five previous addresses for her. By contrast, there was only one previous address for Jason Allan. My curiosity was piqued because that address was in one of the most run-down areas of Washbridge. It was hard to imagine how anyone could have gone straight from there to Tregar Court—maybe he’d won the lottery?
    The Sunnyside estate had the highest crime rate in Washbridge. If newspaper reports were to be believed (were they ever?), it had become a virtual no-go area for the police. Fortunately, the address I needed was close to the edge of the estate. I didn’t want to risk getting back to the car to find it minus its wheels, so I parked half a mile away and made my way on foot. When the estate had first been built, over half a century before, it had been considered state of the art. Those days were now long gone. Most of the houses were in dire need of repair, and many were empty—boarded up to deter squatters. I soon found the address I was looking for. The ground floor windows and door had been boarded up—the upstairs windows were all broken. No one had lived there for some considerable time. From the gate, I saw movement in the ground floor window of the adjoining property. I waved to catch their attention.
    “Sorry to trouble you,” I said when the neighbour came out into the garden.
    “It’s no trouble, dear.” The old woman’s slippers looked two sizes too big for her. “Are you looking for someone?”
    “The Allan family.”
    “They’re long gone. I was just about to make a cuppa. Care to join me?”
    “Thanks. That would be nice.”
    Mrs Deirdre Downs made a remarkably good cup of tea, but the real bonus came when she offered