A Late Phoenix by Catherine Aird Read Free Book Online Page A

to come along and disinter her bones and her history.
    â€œI reckon she took shelter under the stairs.” Crosby pointed to the remains of the wall. “Look, sir, you can see where the staircase would have been.”
    â€œYes.” Sloan stirred unwillingly. She had been found a hundred years too soon. That was her trouble. Better by far if she had been undisturbed until she was more definitely history.
    â€œSo she comes down and gets under the stairs,” said Crosby, serenely untroubled by thoughts of the past, ending lamely, “only it didn’t do her a lot of good, did it, sir?”
    â€œNo.” The site looked bleak enough in all conscience now. What it must have looked like just after the bombing was beyond Sloan’s imagining. “No, it didn’t do her a lot of good. The first question, Crosby, is whether it did anyone else any harm at the same time.”
    â€œBeg pardon, sir?”
    Sloan spelled it out for him. “Was she alone, man, or was anyone else buried at the same time?”
    Crosby scratched his head. “I hadn’t thought of that, sir.”
    â€œWe shall have to make sure.” Sloan dropped to his knees, noting, just as Dr. Latimer had done, the other set of peg marks the archeologists had left behind. “I wonder what made them change their minds?”
    If there really were archeological remains about he would have to check with the curator of the Berebury Museum, Mr. Esmond Fowkes, before any more digging was done. Sloan knew him by repute: a man to whom the past was more important than the present.
    He paced out the small cellar and was glad neither Crosby nor Cresswell had asked him why it was important to find anyone else. If any other bodies were here they were buried in earth and if they were found they would later be reburied in earth …
    Earth to earth, dust to …
    â€œBlast,” said Sloan enigmatically.
    â€œSir?”
    â€œI expect that’s what killed her without breaking any bones.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    They spent the next half hour in going over the remains of the cellar, gleaning only the knowledge that the floor was compounded of an indeterminate mixture of broken brick and mortar churned with Calleshire clay. Where the rubble ended and the earth began, it was impossible to say.
    Garton, the harassed-looking builder, and the more contained developer, Reddley, were still in the road talking.
    â€œThere is something you two could tell me, gentlemen,” said Sloan, “that might save a bit of time.…”
    â€œWhat’s that, Inspector?” Reddley turned quickly. “Anything that will save time.…”
    â€œThis site—who does it belong to?”
    â€œGilbert Hodge,” said Garton immediately. “Gilbert Hodge of Glebe Street.”
    Sloan wrote that down. “And what sort of building is to be put here?”
    â€œThe development”—Reddley waved the plans which he still carried in his hand—“is for shops on the ground floor and office space above.”
    â€œOffices out here?” Sloan looked around. “This far out?”
    The developer smiled. “It can’t stay that way, you know, forever. It won’t be far out soon.”
    Garton tugged at his ear. “I know what you mean, Inspector, and I must say I think it’s a pity all the same. There are some nice old houses in this part of the town.”
    â€œIf you had to pay rent for some of those offices and shops in the High Street,” declared Reddley, “you’d want something less expensive pretty quickly. Farsighted chap, old Gilbert Hodge.”
    â€œIs he?” enquired Sloan.
    â€œHe bought up a lot of this sort of derelict bomb site immediately after the war. Reckoned he was going to make on it in the long run.” Reddley tapped his plans again. “I should say he hasn’t lost on this one.”
    â€œâ€™Tisn’t built yet,” pointed