Fethering 08 (2007) - Death under the Dryer by Simon Brett, Prefers to remain anonymous Read Free Book Online Page B

whereabouts, the police are giving us nothing in the way of information about what happened…which makes it very difficult for us to build up a defence for the poor boy…when he finally does turn up again.”
    “You are confident that he will turn up again?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    He sounded bewildered that the question should have been asked, so, without spelling out the other local rumour that the boy had topped himself, Carole moved quickly on. “I don’t quite understand, Mr Locke. What is it you want me to do for you?”
    “Just talk to us about what you saw in the hairdresser’s that morning. I realize that you may think this is a police matter and that you shouldn’t discuss it with anyone else…”
    The priorities of her Home Office past made Carole think exactly that, but on the other hand she was being offered the opportunity to garner more information about people involved in what she and Jude were increasingly thinking of as their next investigation…
    “I have telephoned the two hairdressers who were there that morning, and they have both taken the view that they shouldn’t talk to us…which, as I say, is entirely their prerogative…but I was just wondering, Mrs Seddon, whether you felt the same…?”
    “I can see their point of view completely,” Carole began. “On the other hand, I’m also feeling slightly frustrated by the lack of information I’m receiving from the police, so if we were to pool our knowledge, I think it might be mutually beneficial.”
    “I am so glad to hear you say that.”
    “So what do you want to ask me?”
    “Well, if it’s not inconvenient, I would rather the conversation were conducted face to face than on the phone.”
    “That’s fine by me.”
    “I don’t know how committed your time is…” His phrasing was again scrupulously polite.
    “I’m retired, so I’m…” Carole overstated the truth “…relatively free.”
    “Good. Because, seeing from the phone book where you live, I was wondering whether it might be possible for us to meet up at the house of my brother and sister-in-law…Nathan’s parents…?”
    Better and better, thought Carole.
    §
    As soon as she arrived at Marine Villas that same afternoon, it was clear that, though Arnold Locke owned the house, Rowley was the dominant brother. There was a strong family likeness between them. Both were tall and spare, with thinning straw-coloured hair and large surprised blue eyes, which made them look unworldly almost to the point of vulnerability.
    The front room into which Carole was ushered deliberately showed the Lockes to be an artistic family.
    At the end away from the window stood an upright piano, and beside it a Victorian wooden music stand, which suggested at least one other instrument was played in the house. Nearby shelves held neatly upright books of sheet music. The same tidiness had been brought to bear on the extensive collection of CDs in parallel racks. Carole felt pretty certain they’d all be of classical music. Some tasteful framed prints on the walls and rigidly marshalled bookshelves re-emphasized the Lockes’ rather intense interest in culture.
    Also present in the room were Arnold’s wife Eithne, and Rowley’s daughter Dorcas. The former was a dumpy woman whose ample figure strained against the buttons that ran all the way down her flower-printed cotton dress. She wore her dark grey hair in a generous bun low at the back of her neck. Carole couldn’t help being reminded of the figure from a childhood pack of ‘Happy Families’, Mrs Bun the Baker’s Wife.
    Dorcas, on the other hand, with honey-coloured eyes, long spun-gold corkscrew curls and a tall slender body, was the kind of girl who would have been earnestly pursued as a model by the Pre-Raphaelites. The clothes she affected, long eau-de-nil top over ankle-length pale green skirt, encouraged the impression. Her speech showed the same academic earnestness as the other Lockes’, but with a slight lisp. It