Free The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) by Harriet Smart Page B

you saw or heard anything that seemed out of the ordinary around the Minster Precincts over the last few days, I want you to talk to a member of the constabulary about it.”
    ***
    “You have a fine house here, Mr Watkins,” said Giles, following him into the spacious hallway of a pretty double-fronted house in the Minster Precincts, that was tucked into a little yard behind the Minster school.
    “It needs furniture and a wife,” said Mr Watkins, going into a large room containing only a grand piano made with glowing yellow satinwood, and a dilapidated bureau bookcase. There were no curtains at the window, no rugs on the bare boards, and no pictures on the wall, only patches of darker paintwork where the previous occupant’s pictures had once hung.
    “And I am unlikely to get the one without the other,” Watkins went on, dumping his pile of music on the piano. “Now, the names of all the Vicars Choral? I have them in a ledger. Canon Fforde gave it to me and he was insistent about proper record-keeping – he is right; such efficiency does not come naturally to me, but I am trying. I don’t like to disappoint him. He has been good to me. I think it is only because of him that I have this position. The Dean does not much like me.” He spoke as he searched through the various pigeon-holes on his desk. “He wanted a man in orders for the job. That was the important thing with him. Not musical ability. Here we are.” He brought a battered ledger to the piano and flipped through it. “Most current list – well, it isn’t now, if you take my meaning.” His finger was resting on the entry labelled “Barnes, Charles.” He shook his head, and walked away down the room, wrapping his arms around himself, leaving Giles to study the ledger.
    Giles looked down the list of names.
    “May I borrow this?”
    “Yes, of course, take it away.”
    “Which of these men would you say Mr Barnes was particularly friendly with? His drinking companions?”
    “As I said yesterday, Jos Harrison. And Fred Taylor, I suppose. He was at the Minster school with Charlie, I think. I know they sometimes go drinking together at the Vine in Saddler Street.”
    “And did you know of any animosities among them? Any quarrels?”
    “Not that I know about. But I don’t always notice that sort of thing. I don’t know them that well. I don’t go drinking with them, well not often. I have to try to maintain a little distance – it makes things clearer, and there is of course the question of my professional standing. The Dean, you see, thinks little enough of me as it is, and wouldn’t care to hear of my going out drinking with the Vicars Choral. What I am supposed to do for amusement I do not know, for I am not invited there. Your sister and brother-in-law have been kindness itself, sir, but Dean Pritchard –”
    “They entertain very little,” Giles pointed out.
    “They entertained last night,” said Watkins. “And your surgeon Carswell was not too low for them.”
    “I am never asked,” Giles said. “And Mr Carswell was somewhat surprised to be asked. You should not make anything of it, Mr Watkins.”
    “Of course I should not,” said Watkins, sitting down at the piano. “But I cannot help being offended. Not for myself, but for my people. The Dean seems to think that my people are no-one. He is offended by the notion of my mother having performed in public, that is at the root of it, and that I will not –” He broke off and played a rapid succession of loud, dissonant chords, than stopped and went on, “She never appeared on the stage, sir, perhaps you might tell him that. He would listen to you, I am sure. Only ever in oratorio. She has never acted. My grandparents would not have dreamt of allowing such a thing.”
    “Yes,” said Giles, returning to his study of the names in Watkin’s ledger. “Whose name is this crossed out? I cannot make it out.” He brought the book over to Watkins who was still sitting at the