by Ann Granger
‘Only not the Royal Oak, please!’ Tom requested. ‘As soon as I get in there I seem destined to meet up with people who know me.’
‘Preferably nowhere in Weston St Ambrose,’ agreed Sally. ‘Too many people know me there, too. Only, later on, if there’s time, I’d like to look in the library and see what’s become of the display of our paintings.’
‘I went to see it. It looks pretty good. Your tree paintings have pride of place.’
‘Great! Gordon must have a guilt complex.’ She looked out at the passing countryside. ‘It’s a lovely day,’ she said.
‘Yes!’ agreed Tom happily.
‘I don’t come into the centre of Oxford often,’ remarked Edgar Alcott. ‘Too many people, from all over the world, and my health suffers in crowds. Shall I be mother, hmm?’ He put a proprietary hand on the teapot.
Natalie bit back a sharp retort. ‘Go ahead, Edgar!’
They were seated in the comfort of the lounge of the Randolph Hotel. Outside, the sky was overcast and even the graceful classical frontage of the Ashmolean Museum across the road, clearly visible through the long windows, seemed grey and forbidding. A school visit was underway. A harassed teacher was herding a small group of schoolchildren up the flight of steps. Natalie leaned back in her chair and let her eyes travel round the walls and the series of paintings showing scenes of Edwardian mayhem. Anything rather than watch old Edgar fuss about as if presiding over a Japanese tea ceremony.
‘I’m obliged to you for coming,’ Edgar said, tea dispensed, ‘and for telling me all about it in person. There is nothing like an eyewitness account.’
‘I told you I’d let you know what happened when I got down there, if you were interested.’
‘As indeed I was! You have been my eyes and ears, my dear, my eyes and ears. Most valuable, and I am deeply appreciative.’
Natalie brought her gaze down from the pictures to his face. ‘I’d have gone, anyway, for my own reasons!’
‘Of course you would, dear girl. But I am so glad you got in touch with me.’
‘After I found those coppers in his flat I knew they’d find their way to you, once they started checking out his business deals. So I took a short cut, if you like, and gave Superintendent Carter your name. I knew you’d bought some books from Carl and he must have filched them from that house. Not but he wasn’t entitled to take something, after the way they’d treated him, cheated him . . .’
Natalie put her hand briefly to her mouth and paused to sip tea while Edgar nodded understandingly.
She went on, ‘When they told me the awful news about what had happened to Carl, I can’t tell you . . . I knew I had to do something myself. I couldn’t leave it to the local police. They were very much against Carl down there in Gloucestershire, you know. He told me all about it. They’d stand together; they clammed up in front of the police. I wanted to stir things up. The police would tell the sister and her grasping husband about the books, and that would give them a nasty moment, thinking how, under their noses, Carl had slipped in and out of the Old Nunnery . . . what a name for a house! He had a key, you know. He said to me once, “Only a key, Nat, and I should have half-ownership of the whole place!”’ Her voice trembled.
‘Well done, Natalie, well done,’ Edgar soothed. ‘You flushed out the quarry, eh?’
In command of herself again, she went on, ‘I wanted the police to get a flavour of what went on in that family.’
Edgar turned his gaze across the room towards the view of the portico of the museum. ‘Carl, poor boy, such a loss. Foolish in business, of course, and needing to be taught a lesson. But murdered? No, no, never! He could have inspired any of the world’s great sculptors.’
Natalie suppressed a wry smile. Putting down the teacup, she said briskly, ‘Nevertheless, you must have hated the police coming to your house.’
‘It was inevitable,’ murmured Alcott. ‘It doesn’t matter now, anyway. The important thing is that justice has been done by your brother. Don’t worry about those detectives coming to my house. One gets used to the police, you know.’ He sighed. ‘They are so very predictable.’
If you enjoyed ROOTED IN EVIL, look out for the other
Campbell and Carter mysteries in the series . . .
For more information visit Ann’s website www.anngranger.net or www.headline.co.uk
Discover Ann Granger’s thrilling Victorian mystery featuring Inspector Ben Ross and his wife Lizzie . . .
On a cold November night in a Deptford yard, dock worker Harry Parker stumbles upon the body of a dead woman. Inspector Ben Ross is summoned from Scotland Yard to this insalubrious part of town, but no witness to the murder of this well-dressed, middle-aged woman can be found. Even Jeb Fisher, the local rag-and-bone man, swears he’s seen nothing.
Meanwhile, Ben’s wife Lizzie is trying to suppress a scandal: family friend Edgar Wellings has a gambling addiction and no means of repaying his debts. Reluctantly, Lizzie agrees to visit his debt collector’s house in Deptford, but when she arrives she finds her husband is investigating the murder of the woman in question. Edgar was the last man to see Mrs Clifford alive and he has good reason to want her dead, but Ben and Lizzie both know that a case like this is rarely as simple as it appears . . .
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www.anngranger.net