Tainted Ground by Margaret Duffy Read Free Book Online Page B

have a little fun sometimes, mustn’t they? But William rants and raves. I’ve told him he’ll give himself ulcers but he never listens.’
    â€˜But you’ve heard no arguments and shouting in the flat above you recently?’
    â€˜No. Nothing like that. I think you ought to go and talk to the people who live on the top floor. They go out and about far more than we do and might have been friendly with the Manleys. I don’t know about the other man, though, as I’ve just said, he was off-putting.’
    â€˜Have you met the people who live in the top-floor flats?’
    â€˜No, not really. They’re a lot younger than us and all go out to work quite early. I think there’s a couple in number five and a girl living on her own at number six. A boyfriend stays sometimes. I have said hello to people in the hallway as I’ve been coming in with shopping sometimes at the weekends but whether they were the actual residents or not I don’t know.’
    â€˜So if any strangers were in or around the building you wouldn’t necessarily have noticed.’
    â€˜No, I suppose not. But the outside door is locked at night.’
    â€˜Is there anything at all that you thought odd about anyone’s movements here over the past few days?’
    â€˜No, nothing,’ said Mrs Brandon after due thought. ‘Sorry to be so useless.’
    â€˜Your husband told us he was left some money and was able to invest it to live on. So he’s never had an actual career?’
    â€˜Well, he never went out with a briefcase and bowler hat to catch a train to the City in the mornings, but until he retired and we came here he was always going here and there on business and there were never any problems with money – not so far as I know. I didn’t ask as I simply don’t understand finance. I left everything to him. Silly, I suppose, but that’s the way it was.’
    â€˜Is there anything else I can get for you?’ I asked, having thanked her but thinking it a bit strange for a woman not to know more about where their money came from.
    â€˜No, thank you, my dear. I’ll get up soon and make some lunch.’
    â€˜Can’t he even put a sandwich together for the pair of you?’ I was driven to say.
    â€˜Wouldn’t know where to start – hopelessly impractical,’ Mrs Brandon replied, laughing at my indignation.
    It did not seem that we had a red-hot suspect in our hunt for a knife-wielding killer.
    â€˜I
think
Janet’s husband had been a policeman at one time,’ Mrs Brandon said thoughtfully as I rose to leave. ‘I can’t quite remember how I know – perhaps something she said.’
    I thanked her again, wished her a speedy recovery and went back into the living room.
    â€˜He’s gone,’ Brandon said. ‘Asked me to tell you he’s having a look round outside.’
    I surveyed him slumped in his chair doing a fair impression of a couple of hundredweight of gone-off lard and said, ‘It’s lunchtime and your sick wife is hungry. There’s bread, ham, butter and salad in the fridge. Fix!’
    And walked out, slamming the door hard.
    Patrick was rooting around in the hedge. ‘I was wondering about the murder weapon,’ he said when he saw me. ‘You never know where things are going to end up but I expect Carrick’s lot did a full sweep along here this morning. Shall we talk to the people upstairs?’
    Both flats on the first floor had been sealed off by Carrick’s team. We carried on up the stairs to a wide landing with more plants and paused to look out of the large floor-to-ceiling window. There was a good view over the car park below and beyond, on rising ground, stretched the southern side of the village crowned by the church spire.
    There was no response to either doorbell being rung.
    â€˜These people are not yet suspects,’ Patrick said, partly to himself, stepping