More Deaths Than One by Marjorie Eccles Read Free Book Online Page A

makeup warranted; her vivid lipstick stood out like a wound. Her skin looked tight over the bones of her face.
    All that was in the desk were one or two files containing copies of the articles and features he’d written and a book detailing what he had been paid for them. It was a meagre way to make a living, Mayo concluded, looking at the few items and totting up the total payments he’d received. No other source of income was apparent. His bank book tallied with his earnings. Only what had he lived on? He had dressed well, he ran an expensive car. He didn’t have a joint account with his wife.
    In one drawer, Kite found some handwritten notes for a feature Fleming was preparing, titled “Theatre in the Provinces.”
    â€œMay I take these?” They would do well enough for the graphology experts, though the handwriting appeared to compare positively enough with the distinctive squiggles on the “suicide” note and there was no doubt in Mayo’s mind that they’d been written by the same hand.
    â€œI’ve no use for them,” she said.
    It seemed a sad epitaph for a marriage.
    â€œWhat did you make of her, Martin?”
    â€œSeen some hard-bitten females in my time, but she takes the biscuit!” Kite answered, making headway into sausage and chips in the canteen.
    â€œYou think her capable of shooting Fleming, then?” Mayo asked.
    â€œWithout turning a hair!” Kite was never lukewarm in his convictions. “But what about the note? No question the writing wasn’t his, surely?”
    â€œNo, I should hardly think so. Difficult, if not impossible, to imitate, wouldn’t you say? But when was it written – and why? Think about it: ‘I’ve had enough. I’m packing it in. Sorry it didn’t work out.’ That doesn’t necessarily mean he meant to kill himself. Could’ve been meaning to leave her, permanently, for instance. Or about anything, almost. About that job of his, maybe ...”
    â€œBut they were all right with each other on the Sunday – according to her, at least.”
    â€œA lot of things can happen between one day and the next.”
    â€œI suppose so.” Kite finished his chips and pushed his plate away. “I knew a bloke once took his wife out for their anniversary dinner and when they’d finished, he told her he was leaving her for another woman, there and then. Sent her home in a taxi, the rotten sod.”
    â€œAnd we wonder why women have such a low opinion of us.”
    â€œWomen can be bitches too.” Kite remained unshaken in his opinion. “And I reckon we’ve just interviewed one of ’em.”

FIVE
    â€œMine honour is in question,
    A thing till now free from suspicion. ”
    DOWN AT HER BUTTER LANE SHOP, Lois French was carefully examining the latest finished orders of lampshades and cushions with the woman who made them up for her. There were no flaws and she’d have been extremely surprised to find any. Myra Conway was matter-of-fact, spry, middle-aged and miraculously deft with her fingers, and the articles were perfectly crafted, as they always were, no matter how unsuitable or intractable the fabrics selected by Lois’s clients.
    â€œBeautiful, Myra.” Myra raised her eyes to heaven. “Well, beautifully made, anyway,” Lois amended with a wry smile.
    â€œNot everybody’s choice, colours like that,” Myra agreed.
    They began to stack the cushions and shades on a table in the corner of the back room. Lois, whose whole life was spent harmonising colours and furnishings and creating interesting and original environments for those who could afford her prices, could hardly bear to look at the garish things. Lavenstock United had been doing particularly well this season and, as a tribute, the wife of the chairman had commissioned French Interiors to re-do her sitting room in the team’s colours. Gold and a particularly virulent