A Going Concern by Catherine Aird Read Free Book Online Page B

histopathology.’
    â€˜Nice work, if you can get it, I suppose,’ grumbled Leeyes. ‘All the pathologist can tell us, then, is that it isn’t all that obvious what knocked the old party off?’
    â€˜He doesn’t usually say he doesn’t know,’ pointed out Sloan.
    â€˜Makes a nice change, does that,’ said Leeyes. ‘And what are you going to do now? Got an appointment with a rose, have you, Sloan?’
    â€˜No, sir. I was hoping for a quiet weekend, though …’
    In which hope he could not have been more disappointed.
    â€˜Just wanted a quick word, miss,’ said Tod Morton over the telephone. ‘I thought I might catch you before you went out to Great Primer. I wanted to let you know that I’ve had the rector on the blo – line.’
    Amelia frowned. ‘A Mr Fournier, wasn’t it?’
    â€˜That’s right, miss. Seems as if he went round to the Grange yesterday afternoon to leave you a note asking whether you would want an organist and the church choir and so forth at the funeral …’
    â€˜Probably,’ said Amelia.
    â€˜And he met a young woman walking away from the Grange as he arrived. She had some flowers and said she’d come to try to see Mrs Garamond.’
    Amelia murmured under her breath, ‘“Too Late the Phalarope”, I’m afraid.’
    â€˜I didn’t quite catch that, miss,’ said Tod. ‘Anyway, the rector told her to get in touch with me seeing as he didn’t know anything about you, does he?’
    â€˜No …’ said Amelia, catching his drift.
    â€˜Anyway, this woman asked when the funeral was going to be, and I told her. Very upset she was, too, miss. She asked about any other relatives being alive and I could only tell her about you.’
    â€˜I’m not a blood relative,’ said Amelia.
    â€˜That’s just what the woman said, but I took the name down just in case. It’s Baskerville, miss, Jane Baskerville. That name ring a bell at all with you, miss?’
    â€˜Never heard of her,’ said Amelia cheerfully, ‘but I dare say I shall. Mr Morton, I’m going over to Great Primer presently with my stepmother and I’ll be in touch with you later …’
    â€˜Right you are, miss. Keep left by the church and you’re practically there but I don’t think you and Dr Phoebe will have any difficulty finding the Grange.’
    They didn’t.
    Amelia was aware of a strange sensation of unease, though, as they walked up to the old house. Dismissing it as a compound of curiosity and sudden responsibility she set the key of the Grange into the big old-fashioned lock of the front door.
    That barely identified feeling was swiftly succeeded by a very much more definite and devastating one as the two women stepped over the threshold.
    The house had been ransacked.

SIX
    Bird, beast, and goldfish are sepulchred there .
    â€˜Looks to me, sir,’ said Detective Constable Crosby profoundly, after he had set eyes on the interior of the Grange, ‘like a game of Hunt the Thimble turned nasty. Very nasty.’
    He had just delivered his superior officer to the village of Great Primer at a speed that in any other circumstances would have rightly been deemed deplorable.
    Detective Inspector Sloan was still getting his breath back and listening to Amelia Kennerley at the same time.
    â€˜I don’t know who did it or what they were looking for, Inspector,’ she said steadily, ‘but they certainly made a good job of it.’
    â€˜Seems that they could have had all the time in the world anyway,’ murmured Dr Phoebe Plantin, ‘if Mortons’ removed the body yesterday morning.’
    Amelia immediately protested: ‘But Phoebe, that would mean that whoever did all this knew straightaway that Great-Aunt Octavia had died when she did …’ Her voice fell away and she looked uncertainly at Sloan. ‘Doesn’t