Cradle to Grave by Aline Templeton Read Free Book Online

round her. ‘It’s all right. Everything’s all right now.’ He looked at the boy. ‘Any casualties?’
    ‘Just Jan – she’s the lady who was next door to us – but we took her in with us last night. I think she’s broken her leg.’
    Crozier turned to look at the two most damaged cottages. ‘No one in there?’
    ‘That one’s empty.’ He pointed to the buried house and shuddered. ‘Just as well. There’s a couple has the other one, and I went over last night after it happened. Couldn’t get in and it was too dark to see much, but I shouted and there was no reply. Jan said she thought they’d gone out.’
    Crozier jerked his head at Buchan. ‘Better make sure.’
    The man plodded off through the mud as Crozier said, ‘I’ll come and speak to the lady. We’ve sent someone to alert the emergency services, so they’ll be here before long to get you out. Did you have a car?’
    The lad pointed to the heap of earth. ‘That was the parking area. The cars are under all that.’ Whatever was there wasn’t going to be recognisable as a car when they got it out.
    ‘Hope everyone was insured,’ Crozier was saying when he realised that Buchan had come back and was standing looking at him meaningfully. Oh God! Since Ballymena, even the thought of a dead body turned him queasy.
    ‘You go back in,’ he urged the young pair. ‘Look out what you need to take with you. I’ll see you in a minute.’
    As they walked across to their cottage, the other men, quick to pick up the significance, stood as if frozen in a live tableau. Once the couple were safely inside, Crozier walked towards number 2.
    Through the damaged door he could see the stairs, and daylight above, where a huge stone had come through the roof. But Buchan was mutely indicating the left-hand window, surprisingly still intact, and with a gesture Crozier indicated that he should check out whatever was in there.
    The inner door was wedged by mud. Buchan had to fetch a hatchet, and with a few blows broke through it and disappeared inside. Probably they didn’t all hold their breath until he came out again, but it felt as if they did.
    Buchan reappeared and limped over to him. ‘There’s a body. Man lying under rubble in the sitting room, bad head injury.’
    ‘Definitely dead?’
    Buchan gave a sour grimace. ‘Oh, aye. Definitely dead.’

3
    Kim Kershaw arranged her face in an expression of intelligent interest as DI Fleming explained her general philosophy of policing in the community. There was nothing wrong with it: good, standard ethical stuff that she’d heard often enough before, but she’d had bosses who talked the talk quite eloquently while their gait in walking the walk was uneven to say the least. She didn’t have a trusting nature – not now – and what she’d seen of both the police and the criminal fraternity had only deepened her cynicism.
    Fleming’s hazel eyes were penetrating, though, and Kershaw was careful not to let these thoughts register on her face. She answered the questions Fleming posed about her professional life fully, about her personal life briefly: she was divorced; she had one child; she was renting a perfectly satisfactory ground-floor flat in Newton Stewart.
    Despite sex-discrimination rules, she had suffered interrogation in the past about her childcare arrangements, but this time, when she didn’t elaborate on her circumstances, Fleming didn’t probe. Kershaw did catch a look on the inspector’s face, though, which suggested that this reticence might have been filed away as interesting information.
    Fleming was winding up the meeting now. ‘Sorry I can’t give you longer, Kim, but as you can imagine, I’m up to my eyes this morning. Looking forward to working with you, though.’
    While you’d never describe Big Marge as good-looking, her smile lit up her face in a very engaging way and Kershaw found herself smiling back.
    ‘Thanks, boss. I’ll do my best.’
    ‘Good. That’s all from my point