The Rhyme of the Magpie by Marty Wingate Read Free Book Online

sickly white. Blood had formed a pool in his wide-open mouth and trickled out the corner. I saw a fat fly light on his cheek as a wave of nausea swept up from the pit of my stomach.
    “Dear God,” Michael said and took my arm as I swayed.
    I swallowed hard. “We should do something,” I said, unable to move.
    “Stay here,” he said, pushing in front. I was relieved to be told what to do.
    He got as close as he could without touching anything, and peered at the man’s face. He straightened up and took a couple of deep breaths. When he came back, he was wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
    “Is he dead?” I asked in a whisper.
    “He is most certainly dead,” Michael said, taking my elbow. “Let’s go, you shouldn’t faint here.”
    I yanked my elbow away. “I’m not going to faint. I’ve had no lunch, that’s all.” Although lunch didn’t sound like a good idea at the moment. “We’ll need to contact the police.”
    “No,” Michael said. “First we’ll need to—”
    “Phone the police,” I shouted in his face.
    “They’ve been phoned.” I whipped round to see a tall form blocking the low afternoon sun. “Sergeant Flint,” he said, and held out a warrant card. I blinked at it, but Michael looked closely as if trying to memorize the details. I glanced up at the man himself. Young, with thick sandy-brown brows that made up for his receding hairline. He wore a dark suit and an overcoat that hung loose on his thin frame. “Stay here, please,” he said, and moved past us to the body.
    He was followed close on by two uniformed officers, a man and a woman, their smart copper hats decorated with black-and-white checkered bands. They had come up the footpath from the road, I thought—certainly not on the trail from Marshy End. I heard more footsteps, and like a parade, three, no, four more people came along single file and joined the group that buzzed round the body.
    We stood apart, Michael and I, not speaking. The temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees, and I could feel the cold seeping through my coat. I crossed my arms and looked over to him. He responded with a small shrug. We waited.
    Flint assigned tasks to his crew, who were suiting up in gloves and paper coveralls, and then knelt over the body, leaning in without touching the branches. One was taking pictures, and a woman with a blond ponytail began poking about in the mouth of the man. I turned away, squinting into the sunlight that had broken through the clouds.
    “You didn’t ring the police?” Flint had returned to us, brushing duff off his overcoat.
    We both shook our heads.
    The sergeant continued. “We received an anonymous call at the Mildenhall station to report a death—perhaps a suspicious death, even telling us where to take the footpath.” His gaze shifted back and forth between us. “Where’ve you come from?”
    “I live in Smeaton-under-Lyme,” I said, digging in my bag and pulling out a card. “I manage the tourist information center, and I was working there this morning.”
    Michael flipped a business card out of the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to Flint with two fingers. “I live in Haverhill, Sergeant.”
    “We’ve just this moment come upon him,” I said, my eyes flicking to the body and back.
    Flint passed the cards to the woman PC. “Who are you, then?”
    Michael took a deep breath, and I could see his face smooth out as if it turned to plastic.
    “Michael Sedgwick, sir,” he said, sticking out his hand. What was it with him and shaking hands? “This is Julia Lanchester,” he added as if I couldn’t speak for myself.
    Flint spoke to us as his gaze combed the scene, starting with the tops of the shrubby trees across the river and ending with the flattened catkins on the muddy path under our feet. “What are you doing here?”
    “We came up to Marshy End,” I said, realizing that wasn’t much of an explanation.
    “I am Rupert Lanchester’s assistant,