With a Narrow Blade by Faith Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

sure I asked her first if there was something she needed.’
    Hillary nodded. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Can you tell me if Mrs Jenkins picked up her pension yesterday? She’d have to get it in town somewhere, yes?’
    ‘Yes, the post office on Sheep Street. It’s situated at the back of that big newsagents just up from the Penny Black pub. And yes, she did get it. I drove her down that morning, then back again in my lunch hour. She liked to wander around the charity shops and have a cup of tea and a bun in Nash’s.’
    ‘Do you know what she did with it? Her pension money, I mean?’ Hillary asked, and the other woman looked at her blankly.
    ‘Good Lord, no. I suppose she kept it in her handbag. Or she might have hidden it somewhere I suppose. I don’t really know. We didn’t discuss money much. Sometimes, if I’d take her to somewhere like Oxford or Banbury, she’d try to insist on paying me some petrol money, but I’d always turn her down. Say I had to go into town anyway, something like that.’
    Hillary nodded. ‘And this morning. You walked to her door and knocked, same as usual?’
    ‘Yes. But nobody answered, and the curtains were all drawn. The woman across the street … oh I do wish I could remember her name, it’s been on the tip of my tongue all morning. I can’t think why … Well, she was just collecting her milk. We talked for a bit, but she hadn’t seen Flo that morning, and I was getting a bit worried, so I used my key to go in.’
    ‘You have a key then? May I have it, Mrs Weekes? I need to log it into evidence.’
    ‘Oh, yes of course. My bag …’ She looked around, and Hillary pointed to the bag on the floor beside the sofa. ‘Oh thanks. Right. It’s this one.’ She fiddled with a fairly bulky set of keys, hanging from a black cat key ring. ‘Here.’ Finally she handed over a silver-coloured Yale. Hillary carefully retrieved an evidence bag from her pocket, slipped the key inside and sealed it, then peeled off a label from a roll kept in her handbag, noted the time and details, and slipped the whole lot back.
    ‘Can you remember when Mrs Jenkins first gave you her key?’
    ‘Oh, nearly a year ago now. It made sense, I suppose. Sometimes she’d be out and I’d have shopping for her that I couldn’t leave on the doorstep. Sometimes she’d phone from bingo and ask me to let her cat in, or she’d go off on one of those old folks weekends to Paignton and ask me to feed it. It was just easier to have a key.’
    ‘Right.’ Hillary made a note in her book to see to the cat. If a neighbour or friend didn’t want it, she’d have to get the new boy to take it to an animal shelter. There’d been no sign of it that morning, though. Probably all the people and activity had kept it away. ‘And this morning…?’ she prompted, and Caroline’s face tightened.
    ‘Yes. Right, this morning.’ She rubbed her palms nervously against the tops of her knees.
    She didn’t really want to go there, Hillary realized, but it had to be done.
    ‘Like I said, there was no answer, so I used the key. I went into the hall, but I couldn’t hear her moving about upstairs. I thought she might have overslept see. I went into the lounge. I was surprised to see the telly on. And the lights were on, but the curtains were drawn. And then I saw her, or rather, the top of her head, showing over the chair. And I walked forward a little, thinking she’d nodded off and saw … well, that thing sticking out of her chest. And she was so still and pale. I just knew she was dead.’ She was taking deep, quick breaths now, fighting back tears and rising hysteria.
    ‘Did you touch anything, Mrs Weekes?’ Hillary asked gently, calmly, trying to slow her down.
    Caroline Weekes shuddered in another breath, and wiped her palms frantically against her knees. ‘No. No, I don’t think so. I remember walking outside, and thinking how nice and cool it was. And phoning. And waiting.’
    Hillary nodded. ‘Did you notice