Free Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths Page B

bastard who did it.’
    So do I, thought Edgar. This despite being against the death penalty. ‘The children disappeared on their way to your shop,’ he said again. ‘We’re going over every second of that day.’
    ‘They never came here,’ said Sam. ‘I told you, I knew them by sight and they never came here. I closed up the shop at five-thirty, had my tea and stayed in with the missus all evening, listening to the wireless. She can vouch for me.’
    ‘We’ll certainly be speaking to Mrs Gee,’ said Edgar. ‘What about Tuesday the twenty-seventh?’
    ‘I opened the shop at seven and worked here until five-thirty. There’s precious little time to be committing crimes in my line of work, I can tell you.’
    ‘And you didn’t have a break all day?’
    ‘I had a lunch break at one. The missus covered for me.’
    ‘And you’ve got no other help in the shop? It’s just you and your wife?’
    ‘There’s a boy who helps on Saturdays. Hinders more than he helps, most days.’
    ‘What about your children? Do they ever help in the shop?’
    ‘No, they’re too young. The oldest is only eight.’
    ‘Do your children go to the local school, Bristol Road Juniors?’
    ‘No. They go to St Alban’s in Rottingdean. I want better for them. That’s why I work all hours.’
    From what Edgar had seen of prep schools, he doubted that the education was better, though it would certainly be different. He had won a scholarship to the local grammar school (the product of his mother’s relentless drive for self-improvement) and his schooling had been excellent, if cheerless, but Max had left his public school without a single qualification (albeit with an impressive collection of card tricks).
    ‘Thank you, Mr Gee,’ he said. ‘That’ll be all for now.’ He nodded at Bob to gather up the sweets. He half expected Sam Gee to complain about the ‘for now’ but the shopkeeper seemed lost in thought. As they reached the door, he called after them, ‘Make sure you find the bastard.’
    ‘We will,’ Edgar promised him. ‘We will.’
    Edgar used the police box at the end of the road to telephone the station. He heard that Emma was on her way to Bristol Street Juniors, the school considered not good enough for the young Gees.
    ‘What’s she doing there?’ he asked Bob. ‘I thought she was seeing the grammar schools.’
    ‘She must have had an idea,’ said Bob, who was red-faced from the cold. ‘A Holmes special.’
    Edgar considered this. Initiative was all well and good but now was not the time to be chasing false trails. ‘We’ll meet her there,’ he said. ‘It’s only round the corner.’
    Bob grunted his assent and they set off through the dirty snow, sometimes in single file, like a modern-day King Wenceslas and his page.
    *
    Bristol Road Juniors didn’t have a flag to fly at half mast but there was, nevertheless, a palpable sense of sadness about the school. It was an ugly Victorian building, opening straight onto the street, with doors marked ‘Boys’ and ‘Girls’. Emma was surprised, and not entirely pleased, to see Bob and DI Stephens loitering by the gate.
    ‘We’re going in that way.’ She pointed at the word ‘Girls’.
    ‘Perhaps we should go in by the front door,’ said DI Stephens mildly. He rarely rose to her challenges. Now he was asking, again without heat, what she was doing at the school.
    Emma explained her hunch about the exchange between Annie and Mark. ‘I mean, we never knew what the context was. Perhaps Annie was suggesting that they went to see someone at the school.’
    ‘The witness said they quarrelled,’ said Bob. Emma could see that he was not in the mood to accept any ideas that didn’t appear on his to-do list.
    ‘The witness was a ten-year-old boy.’
    ‘He saw Annie push Mark.’ That was the trouble with Bob, he had a memory like an elephant. Unfortunately he had an elephant’s power of reasoning to go with it.
    ‘Well, maybe they did argue. Maybe Mark