Death of an Old Git (The Falconer Files - File 1) by Andrea Frazer Read Free Book Online Page B

but freshly painted in a vivid lime green. Falconer’s eyes darted back and forth in search of something he could not find, but had expected to be there. At last he gave in and asked, ‘Where’s your washing machine?’
    With a rueful smile the young woman replied, ‘Haven’t got one. Can’t afford it.’
    ‘But you’ve got kiddies.’ Carmichael was full of concern. His mum could not manage without hers. It was in use every day, sometimes two or three times. ‘And them covers on the suite, and the rugs and stuff. How do you manage?’
    ‘I manage all right, thank you, DS …’
    ‘Carmichael. Acting.’
    ‘DS Carmichael Acting it is, then. Most stuff I can manage myself. I’m used to hard work. Really heavy stuff my auntie takes into the launderette in Carsfold for me. That helps a lot.’
    Although Falconer was aware that he had veered the conversation in this direction, it was becoming a little too cosily domestic for his liking, and he cleared his throat in an effort to get everyone’s attention back to the matter in hand. ‘About Mr Morley?’ he prompted.
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Inspector. Go back through to the front room and take a seat, and I’ll see if I can be of any help.’
    Back in the front room, and back to the more serious business on which they had called, Falconer asked the inevitable question. ‘How well did you get on with Mr Morley, Ms Long?’ although the answer was fairly obvious from what they had already gleaned at the Post Office, and the young woman’s reaction when they had arrived.
    A cloud crossed her face, and the former hardness returned as she answered, ‘Not at all. We didn’t get on at all. Anyone’ll tell you, so I better had. We were at loggerheads, and have been since we moved in here.’
    ‘Can you tell me why?’
    ‘I wish I knew.’ Carmichael discreetly opened his notebook and began to scribble. ‘He’s had it in for me and the kids from the day we got here. He just doesn’t like kids. If they lark around and play indoors, he bangs – oh, that should be banged – the wall at them. If they played in the garden, he yelled for them to shut up. If I went out and left washing on the line, nine times out of ten, he’d have a bonfire. And if me and the kids were trying to get a bit of peace and quiet, or they were asleep, he’d let that blasted dog of his out and set it off yapping. He’d shut it out in the garden for hours in all weathers, even though the stupid thing adored him and that’s more than any other living creature did.
    ‘And he’d encourage it into our garden for a ‘dump’ when I was out. He was really foul to us, and we’d done nothing to him except exist and move in here.’
    ‘Your godparents mentioned an incident yesterday afternoon,’ he offered, deciding to hold fire on his hunch and gain her confidence, rather than alienate her. Relaxed, she was more likely to let something slip.
    ‘Oh, that. Yes. That filthy old man had been throwing dog shit at my clean sheets. It takes ages to wash them in the bath, and he’d scored a direct hit right in the middle of a white double. I could’ve killed him,’ she stated baldly, apparently unaware of the significance of what she had said. ‘I shouted like hell over the fence, but the old sod wouldn’t come out, so I had another shout out of the window when he took that shite-hound of his out for a walk. I mean, that stuff can blind kids, and I hate having to keep them out of the garden till I’ve been over it with a fine tooth comb. I got him later on, though, out the back, and really laid into him.’ She sighed deeply. ‘On the whole I’m rather glad he’s dead.’
    Falconer put a mental tick beside the Warren-Brownes’ pathetic attempt to deceive him, and was rather surprised that this young woman should be so open in her hostility to one so recently murdered. She was either very naïve or very cunning.
    The inspector felt he now had a fair idea of the state of open warfare that