The Saint Valentine's Day Murders by Ruth Dudley Edwards Read Free Book Online

pretty Rita looked in that blue jumper that matched her eyes. He’d buy her a whole new wardrobe as soon as Shipton retired. It couldn’t be long now.
    Bill Thomas had finished the ironing before nine o’clock and sat for a moment in a glow of achievement. The house was spotless and tomorrow was now clear for digging the left-hand flower bed and switching the position of the bird-table. They’d prefer it in the centre of the garden, now that next door was infested by cats. What a delight it was to be free to live his life the way he wanted, and no mother to contend with.
    He went up to his room, took some seedsmen’s lists from the bedside locker, and carried them downstairs to his favourite chair. He read for a couple of hours, occasionally writing notes on the appropriate reference cards in his indexed box. When he had replaced the card that listed varieties of brussels sprouts, he riffled absently through half a dozen other sections. His eye caught the section on leeks and he remembered something odd Melissa had said about phallic symbols. Frowning, he pushed the box away and reached for another catalogue.
    Most of Henry Crump’s evening had been peaceful. Having refused to accompany his wife on a visit to their married daughter, he had been able to eat his tea alone in the kitchen. When he pushed away his sweet-plate he rose, searched in a leisurely manner for a pencil and paper, wrote a note – ‘CUSTARD LUMPY’ – and dropped it on one of the dirty plates.
    He found a can of beer and settled himself comfortably in front of the gas fire. He lit his pipe noisily, picked up his paperback and sighed with contentment. Two hours later, leaving Jackie Collins’s heroine in another post-coital trauma, he turned on the television. He was hoping for something rewarding from the French film. The paper had said that this one had been considered very shocking in 1969.
    By eleven o’clock he was feeling disappointed. There were more sub-titles than action. It wasn’t a patch on last week’s, all about a housewife who worked in a brothel in the afternoons. You could never predict what you’d get in a frog film. They had funny ideas about art. He was meditating on whether to give up and return to his book when the door opened and his wife came in. He looked up at her with his usual sense of revulsion. Tonight she was wearing a dingy old red raincoat and a bright blue woollen headscarf to depressing effect. Her feet were encased in sensible short fur boots, out of which rose thick legs, gnarled with varicose veins. She glanced over at the television as she began to peel off her outer garments. ‘You’re watching that filthy foreign muck again,’ she observed. ‘I don’t know why you can’t be your age.’ Henry turned sharply and saw a closing shot of two naked bodies entwined. Bloody hell! The high-spot of the film and he had missed it looking at her. He turned off the set grumpily and steeled himself to listen to fifteen minutes of complaints about buses, weather and the uselessness of the doctor who was treating his grandson’s cough.
    By midnight Edna was in bed. Henry was sitting on the side of the bath gazing at a treasured picture which usually resided in his wallet. It showed two young women lying on a tiger-skin caressing each other. One of them had curly hair like Melissa’s. From above looked on a lissom youth eager to join in. Henry was lost in a little world of his own. He was playing with himself.
    Henry might have been surprised had he known that as he was working up towards his orgasm Melissa Taylor was living out at least a part of his fantasy. She was stretched beside her lover stroking her breasts. But in this room there was no man looking on.
    Donald Shipton was asleep.

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    9
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    26 November
    Dearest Rachel,
    Many thanks for the marvellous long letter. Loved the story about Jeremy and the Rastas. He seems to have the same grasp of what’s going on as your average high court judge. I