A Killing Kindness by Reginald Hill Read Free Book Online

he  has yet been willing to volunteer.'
    Ellie smiled warily. There weren't many people  left in the world who could embarrass her, but Thelma was certainly one of them. Which was  probably why, as Peter had theorized, she allowed  her the moral ascendancy.
    Greenall had emerged from the kitchen with  two more baskets which he placed before the  two men at the bar, saying blithely, 'Here you  are. Piping hot.'
    Thelma turned back to her friends, completely  unruffled. That's what I envy too, thought Ellie. I get all pink and abusive.
    'Is your husband really on the case?' asked  Lorraine Wildgoose.
    Ellie nodded.
    'Are they getting anywhere?' pursued the woman rather intensely.
    'I'm not sure. I expect so,' said Ellie cautiously.
    Lorraine Wildgoose looked as if she might be  going to say something more and Ellie's heart  sank at the prospect of having to listen to an  attack on the police, no matter which of the  many possible forms it took. But Thelma, as if  spotting the danger, said lightly, 'What about all  this clairvoyant help?'
    'You read about that?' said Ellie, relieved. 'Listen, I've got a theory. I pinched a transcript of  what this woman actually said from Peter. It might  interest you in your archaeological hat.'
    She produced the transcript and was holding forth when Greenall returned with the tartare  sauce.
    'Sorry to interrupt,' he said, putting the sauce  on the sheet of paper in front of Thelma.
    'Don't do that, Austin!' she said. 'You may offend  the spirits.'
    'You're doing a bit of table rapping, are you?'  he said. 'Be careful. It's Mr Middlefield you don't  want to offend!'
    'It's OK. This is police business,' said Thelma.
    'My friend is a Mrs Detective-Inspector. These are  official documents.'
    Greenall picked up the transcript and pretended to rub it with his sleeve, murmuring at  the same time, 'By the by, Middlefield's threatening to drop in at the disco on Friday on a  fact-finding tour.'
    'Is he? I may join him. Thanks, Austin. Join us  for a drink later?'
    'I'd love to, but another time. I've got things to do and his lordship's got to be launched after  lunch. Per ardua ad astra, as they say.'
    He left and Ellie fluttered her eyebrows at Thelma.
    'Now he seems nice, Thelma.'
    'He's bearable,' she said noncommittally. 'When  he came six months ago I thought Christ, another ex-RAF wizard-show chauvinist pig. But he was a nice  surprise. I think he's got genuine sympathy with  the feminist position.'
    'I bet,' grinned Ellie.
    'That, if I may say so, is the kind of crack that  comes from too close an association with the racist,  sexist constabulary.'
    'Is that so? And perhaps you'll now explain  how you come to be rolling around with evident pleasure in this male chauvinist sty,' said  Ellie.
    'Why, to overcome my fear of flying, of course,' said Thelma, wide eyes wider with surprise. 'Now  let's eat. Ellie, you've nearly finished your drink. Would you like something else? A quart of warm  milk, perhaps.'
    Ellie giggled girlishly.
    'You'll think I'm silly,' she said coyly. 'But being like this and all, I get these funny urges, you know how we mothers-to-be are, and whenever I eat  scampi and get put down at the same time, I've  just got to have a couple of glasses of Dom Perignon. It brings up the wind so nicely!'
     

 
    Chapter 5
     
    Andy Dalziel, according to much of his acquaintance, had a very simplistic approach to life. He saw  everything as either black or dark blue. In this they  were mistaken. Life was richly coloured for the  fat man; full of villainy and vice, it was true, but  with shifting shades and burning pigments, like  Hogarthian scenes painted by Renoir.
    Pascoe understood this. 'He detects with his  balls,' he had once told Ellie gloomily.
    To Pascoe's rational mind, there was still some  doubt whether Brenda Sorby's murder was truly  in sequence with the other two strangulations.
    'She wasn't laid out like the other two,' he