Free Murder of a Dead Man by Katherine John Page A

was supposed to quicken the process. The door to the apartment opened seconds after he rang the bell.
    ‘Sergeant Joseph?’
    ‘Trevor. It’s good of you to see me at this hour, Inspector Edwards.’
    ‘Plain Mr will do now, Sergeant. But please, call me Ted. Come in.’
    The ex-Inspector was a tall, spare, upright man.
    His living room was expensively furnished in a minimalist, masculine style. Deep grey carpeting, navy-blue drapes framing picture windows with sea and marina views, and four blue leather recliner chairs grouped around a glass coffee table. A television and DVD recorder were housed in a cabinet large enough to hold discs. There was nothing else. Not a single picture or photograph, nothing to give a hint as to the character of the owner.
    Typical retired policeman, Trevor decided.
    Casualty of the force in the relationship stakes.
    Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no partner to love, just television to watch, and public-spirited telephone calls to make in the hope that he could be of use to his ex-colleagues. This man had lived for his work and now had a great hole in his life.
    ‘I remember only too well what it’s like, starting a new investigation. Would you like something to eat or drink?’ Ted offered. ‘Coffee?
    Tea? Or, if it’s the end of a long day, something stronger?’
    ‘Coffee would be fine, thank you.’
    ‘I made some sandwiches,’ Ted called back as he disappeared into the kitchen. ‘We don’t often use this place and when we do we tend to eat out, so I can’t offer you anything substantial.’
    “We!” Trevor looked around again for evidence of a woman’s touch.
    Ted reappeared with a tray of plates, knives, mustard, milk, sugar and two porcelain cups and saucers. He set it on the table, returned to the kitchen and brought in a cafetiere of coffee and the sandwiches.
    ‘This isn’t your home?’ Knowing what apartments on the marina cost, and what inspectors on the force earned, Trevor was surprised at the mention of another place.
    ‘My wife calls it our summer place, but after living on a farm all her life she can’t stand it here.
    To be truthful I think she prefers animals to people.
    We rent it out, and use it for house exchanges abroad. Now that I’ve retired we do a fair amount of travelling. My wife has handed over the management of her farm to her son, but she still breeds dogs and horses, so when we’re in the UK
    we tend to live in the country.’
    “Her son” – a late second marriage?
    ‘But it’s useful during the sailing season.’
    ‘You have a yacht?’ Trevor was interested in Ted. He represented a rare glimpse of life after the force.
    ‘Racing dinghy. My interest, not my wife’s. But when she inherited this place from her father the two seemed to go together. He bought the apartment as an investment three months before he died and never set foot in the place. He would have hated it.
    Like my wife he was more a country than a water and concrete person.’
    ‘That’s one way of describing the marina.’
    Trevor revised his initial impressions.
    ‘I’ve just had the boat overhauled in dry dock ready for the first race of the season and I wanted to see it put in the water myself. Stupid really. Chap who looks after it for me is more than capable. It was a long, cold day so I thought I’d have a few drinks,’ he opened the cabinet and pulled out a brandy bottle, ‘watch some TV and have an early night. Then I saw the news flash.’
    ‘You headed the team on the Anthony George case?’
    ‘Yes, not that we gave it all the manpower or attention it deserved. The George case came when we were already working on half-a-dozen top priorities. Like everyone else, I assumed whoever did it was a nut. One of the tabloids mentioned black magic and rumours started flying thick and fast.
    Then, about a year after it happened I saw a newspaper article.’
    ‘Inspector Evans had a faxed copy.’
    ‘Says something for the station I worked out of that it’s