Free Lambs to the Slaughter by Sally Spencer Page A

said.
    Crane sighed, philosophically. ‘I’ll do my best to get the inspector to drop the idea,’ he promised.
    â€˜I would appreciate it,’ the vicar told him.
    â€˜I mean to say, when all’s said and done, sir, you’re a simple country priest, and it would be most unfair to foist all that unwelcome publicity on you,’ Crane continued.
    If the vicar had objected to the phrase ‘simple country priest’, Crane would have immediately apologized and tried another tack. But, in fact, those were not the words that the other man chose to pick up on.
    â€˜Unwelcome publicity?’ the vicar said.
    â€˜If you allowed this hall to become our incident centre, it would be one of the focuses of attention for the media,’ Crane explained. ‘That’s not too bad in a way, but that attention would also spill out into other areas connected with you. Since it
is
your church hall, the television people would constantly be pestering you for your views on what’s happening to the village.’
    â€˜I see,’ the vicar said thoughtfully.
    â€˜And it wouldn’t stop there,’ Crane continued. ‘Once we’d packed up and gone, the sightseers would arrive – taking pictures of the hall and tramping through your lovely church. You’d find yourself treated like some sort of celebrity – and you wouldn’t want that, would you?’
    â€˜No,’ the vicar said, unconvincingly. ‘No, I wouldn’t. But perhaps we need to look beyond our own selfish needs, and consider the general good.’
    â€˜How do you mean?’ Crane asked, suppressing a grin.
    â€˜It is true that the dead man was not an active member of the church – I believe he belonged to some kind of wild Methodist sect in the next valley,’ the vicar continued, in the voice he probably normally reserved for sermons, ‘but he was, when all is said and done, as much one of God’s children as any of us, and we should all do all we can to help see his killer brought to justice.’
    â€˜So we can use the hall?’ Crane asked.
    â€˜I think it would be only right and proper,’ the vicar said solemnly.
    When Louisa Paniatowski saw Ellie Sutton walking across the playground towards her, she thought she would just burst with happiness.
    There was no one else in the whole world quite like Ellie, she decided. Ellie was intelligent. Ellie was sophisticated. And now Ellie was coming to talk to
her
– and all her other friends would see it happening.
    â€˜Robert says he’ll hire DJ Dee for the party, Louie,’ Ellie gushed.
    Louisa didn’t really like being called ‘Louie’, but if that was the name that Ellie would be using, she supposed she could get used to it. She wasn’t sure, either, that she’d like to call her mum ‘Monika’, as Ellie called her dad ‘Robert’, but maybe if Ellie insisted – and Mum would allow it – she could get used to that, too.
    â€˜Did you hear what I said! DJ Dee!’ Ellie repeated, as if expecting more of a response.
    â€˜I don’t know . . .’ Louisa confessed.
    â€˜The disc jockey on “Radio Whitebridge Late Night”,’ Ellie said. ‘You
must
listen to him! Everybody does!’
    â€˜Oh yes, course I do,’ Louisa said weakly, though she was sure that by the time ‘Radio Whitebridge Late Night’ came on the air, she was already safely tucked up in bed.
    â€˜He’s the best DJ in Lancashire,’ Ellie bubbled, ‘and he’ll be playing at
my
party.’
    â€˜Great!’ Louisa said, because if Ellie thought he was so good, then he simply had to be.
    â€˜The only problem is, we’ve had to change the date,’ Ellie said. ‘It’s tonight, instead of Friday.’
    â€˜Tonight,’ Louisa repeated. ‘But we have school tomorrow.’
    â€˜To hell with school,’ Ellie said. ‘If I