River Deep by Priscilla Masters Read Free Book Online Page B

And her parents’ house in Cardiff.
    Her offices were in a large Victorian house, invisible from the road, up a secluded drive lined with rhododendrons and dark firs. She pulled up at the front and ran up the steps. Jericho was waiting for her with his catalogue of things to be dealt with: telephone calls to doctors and the police, correspondence, a sheaf of new guidelines for coroners she needed to browse through, appointments in the diary to speak with relatives. She worked her waythrough steadily until three, her lunch a sandwich and coffee on her desk taken between telephone calls. She always vowed she would emulate the Continentals, meet a friend, have a
proper
lunch, but somehow she never did. It always was a sandwich grabbed between phone calls, a quick swallow when the phone on the other end was picked up. Continental lunches were like the extravagant suppers she always
meant
to cook the children. The menu invariably had to be changed to something easy and quick at the last minute. She never had
enough
time. Not simply
quality
time.
Any
time. But the job was demanding, the responsibility enormous. She loved the work. She also loved her children. She chewed her ham salad sandwich thoughtfully. Relationships, she thought, making the same, tired old excuse. No time. But even forming the thought made her feel empty.
    She was halfway through an after dinner coffee when at three-fifteen a call was put through from Alex Randall.
    “Believe it or not the rain’s stopped, the river’s receding and the sun’s out,” he said, almost jauntily. “Marine Terrace is safe to visit. The water level in the cellar’s down. We’ve made some headway into the case. I wondered if you would like to revisit the scene, Martha. It might inspire you.” The briefest of pauses. “I know what a hands-on coroner you are.” He was reading her mind.
    For the first time that day she did look out of the window. Bayston Hill was, as the name implied, on an elevated site. Her window faced back towards Shrewsbury. She had a prime view of the spires of St Chad’s and St Mary’s, the green fields of the tennis club, the enveloping river, spilling across the fields. Alex Randall was right. The sun was beaming down, golden, on the world as though apologising for the few days’ foul weather which had caused so much mayhem. She needed no persuading.
    “Fine,” she said, hearing the lift in her own voice. “Lovely. I’ll see you in ten minutes? On the English Bridge?” She lifted her handbag from the hook on the back of the door, slipped her jacket on and made her excuses to Jericho.
     
    He arrived in a marked car which surprised her. She always imagined detectives preferred to work incognito. But the Panda car had the advantage of a driver who dropped him off right in the middle of the English Bridge whereas she had had to park in Gay Meadows, the Shrewsbury Town football ground, and walk. She crossed the English Bridge, now open to traffic and met him in the centre. They both looked down at the swirling waters, mud-stained but quieter. “It’s a relief to see the waters recede,” she said.
    “Even if it’s only so we can gain access to the crime scene.”
    “Quite. Did you find the knife?”
    “Not yet.”
    They walked. “So have you found the real Mr Humphreys?”
    He nodded. “I suppose that’s the main headway.”
    “How did you track him down?”
    “Surprisingly easy, really. We took Cressida round to the garage and there was a touching reunion.”
    “Where had he been?”
    “Says he’d caught the flu and was bedridden for a couple of days.”
    “Where? He certainly wasn’t at Marine Terrace.”
    Randall’s eyes sparkled. “Apparently staying with a friend.”
    “So why didn’t he ring his wife?”
    “Said he didn’t think she’d worry, that he’d felt too rotten and, besides, that she’d told him she was going away for the weekend and probably would have her mobileswitched off for most of the time.”
    “And