'Til Death (DI Steven Marr Book 1) - UK Crime Fiction Whodunnit Thriller by SP Edwards Read Free Book Online

up and down.’
    ‘She was always polite’ added Michelle ‘but some weekends it was a bit like getting blood from a stone.’
    ‘Could Caroline have killed Anna?’ Marr asked.
    They both shook their heads.
    ‘No,’ Michelle said. ‘No, I don’t think Caroline would have been capable of hurting anyone, let alone Anna. It was tough to see her so down sometimes. I always got the impression she was a really caring person, but that she just found life a bit difficult.’
    Marr nodded, not quite sure that caring had much to do with anything. Being caring didn’t mean you weren’t capable of violence. Caring could be a mask. Thousands of domestic violence cases started off with a ‘caring’ partner, a partner who only wanted their boy or girlfriend to be ‘safe’. And then ‘safe’ became ‘indoors’, and so on…
    ‘Anna’s friend, Thomas Coulthard. Did you have much to do with him?’
    Michelle looked at her husband for a moment. Marr could tell that she was struggling to place the name. After a moment, though, her face relaxed and the smile returned.
    ‘Oh, of course, Tom’ she said, nudging John in the arm as if to pass on the memory. ‘Don’t you remember him, John? The overweight lad, he used to come round sometimes after school.’
    John closed his eyes and nodded.
    ‘Oh of course, yes. No, I didn’t know Anna still saw him. She never mentioned him, not to me anyway.’
    Michelle nodded her agreement.
    ‘That’s true, Inspector, Tom never came up in conversation. I suppose he might have been planning to come to the wedding. In fact, I think I remember seeing his name on the invitations, now you’ve reminded me.’
    ‘Caroline had mentioned him. She seemed to think he and Anna were still quite close.’
    Michelle looked surprised.
    ‘Well, I suppose it’s not impossible. Most of the time Anna would be by herself if she came to see us – unless Greg was with her, of course - so we never really saw much of her friends. They all had their own lives to live. I’ve always thought that was one of the sadder things about getting older: you still have friends, of course, but you’re never as tight-knight as when you were younger.’
    Marr thought about when he’d last seen James, the best man at his wedding. Two years, at least. They still exchanged texts here and there, of course. But actually organising spending time together was tough. Work, love, travel: life was full of things happy to get in the way.
    ‘Do you remember much about Thomas, even from when he was younger?’
    Michelle shook her head.
    ‘No, not really. I thought he probably had a bit of a crush on Anna. A schoolboy crush, that is: he was probably about ten at the time. He was very polite, quite shy but always well-mannered. I’m not sure what his home life was like. In a way, I wondered why he and Anna were friends: she was so headstrong, even then. Maybe he just liked being around someone who could be in charge.’
    ‘What was Anna’s romantic life like before she met Greg?’
    This time, it was John’s turn to smile.
    ‘It was what she wanted it to be’ he said. ‘I’ll say this much: being a father to a pretty girl can be scary. Especially when she started to get older, and you saw the boys drooling after her. Anna…well, there never seemed to be any problems. She went out with boys, I’m sure, but she never seemed that bothered by them. Understandable: Anna was always clever, even at that age, and we both know that teenage boys are idiots.’
    Marr smiled.
    ‘Very true’ he said..
    ‘I’m not naïve enough to assume nothing happened in the twenty-one years before she officially moved out, and I don’t doubt university was what university is, but until she met Greg we never got the sense of anything serious.’
    Michelle nodded along as her husband talked. Her eyes were shining, but Marr didn’t get the impression she was about to burst into tears. It was sorrow, and it would continue to come and go, probably