Souvenirs of Murder by Margaret Duffy Read Free Book Online Page B

gave a fine view over the Somerset countryside, while I brewed coffee.
    â€˜He seems very placid,’ Patrick commented when I went in.
    â€˜Heaven after Justin,’ I said. I had brought a shawl. ‘Lay him on the sofa in this while you have your coffee in case you spill it on him.’
    â€˜Can I let it get cold so he won’t be scalded if I do?’
    I had to smile. ‘If you want to.’
    â€˜He’s all right though? Not quiet because . . .’
    This time I laughed. ‘Of course he’s all right! You can bath him tonight if you like and hear him yelling for his feed.’ I sipped my coffee. ‘So you’re on a week’s leave.’ I had hoped that he would look better than he had in the clinic. He did not: still like something poisoned.
    â€˜In a way.’
    â€˜There had to be a catch.’
    â€˜Greenway’s working on the theory that the so-called insider who leaked the story is either the killer or someone with a big grudge against me. The call was made from a mobile phone.’
    â€˜Sorry to be so negative but how can everyone be really sure that you didn’t go right off your head with the mixture of drugs you’d been given and fire shots in all directions?’
    â€˜Overnight testing has proved that the shots were fired from the gun I was holding when I was found nearby. It was my Glock 18. But my prints are the only ones on it, just the one set, not lots of others of mine that would be the normal state of affairs. Which would suggest it had been wiped and then put in my hand.’ At this point Patrick changed his mind and rose to place Mark in the shawl on the sofa, watched for a few moments to make sure that all remained peaceful and then sat down again and picked up his coffee mug. ‘As you might know already they were all killed with a single shot to the head, except for Leanne who had been hit in the chest.’
    I respected the silence that followed, Patrick turning away from me, in the direction of the window.
    â€˜Apparently it was a mass execution,’ he continued, after clearing his throat. ‘In the living room, where they were found.’
    â€˜Greenway took me there.’
    â€˜Someone said that it would have been a medical impossibility for me to have fired such accurate shots in the condition I was in.’
    â€˜So what did the killer do, line them all up against the wall and shoot them?’ I said, aware of occasions when this man of mine had achieved things not reckoned at the time to be medically possible, like laughing when he was in intensive care, for example. ‘He would only have been able to kill one at a time. Did the others just line up waiting to die like sheep?’
    â€˜A scenes-of-crime team is still working there. No one knows – yet.’
    â€˜You went back to the house to try to get Leanne out. That means you must have been mobile, after a fashion.’
    â€˜Look, Ingrid, I didn’t kill those people!’
    â€˜I know, sorry, but I’m playing your hard-hearted consultant and trying to get to the bottom of this. Frankly though, I can’t understand why you’re not under some kind of arrest or suspension. After the party you went back to your digs, presumably in the early hours of the morning, and were still under the influence of whatever you thought had been slipped into your drink. Then someone broke in and doped you with truth drug. It was after that, after I’d spoken to you, that you went back to the house to rescue the girl and that’s when the shooting started. How did you get there?’
    â€˜I can’t remember,’ Patrick answered after another silence.
    â€˜ Why did you feel she needed rescuing?’
    â€˜I’m not sure now. It might have been because she was around during the party – or rather binge.’
    â€˜Around?’
    â€˜Saying she was hungry and why wasn’t there anything to eat. I got her out