Free A Dead Liberty by Catherine Aird Page A

until he telephoned.”
    â€œKenneth?” interposed Sloan alertly. “You knew him, then?”
    â€œI’d met him here and I’d heard her talk about him. Her father always had the new young men in the firm out to dinner and Lucy had got to know him quite well. He was a bit lonely, I think. This was his first big job away from home.”
    â€œHe came from the North of England,” supplied Sloan.
    â€œAnd from somewhere where they played Rugby,” said Cecelia. “Lucy said that that was his big thing.”
    Sloan came back to the day Kenneth Carline died.
    â€œWe’d finished our coffee,” she said, “and I was talking about getting back and feeding Timothy and Michael when the phone rang.” Celia pointed to a wall-mounted instrument. “Lucy answered it here. I heard her.”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œShe said ‘Hullo, Kenneth’ and then ‘Of course you can. Everything you want will be in the study. As long as you know what you want you can come along and help yourself.’ Then there was a bit of silence while he said something—I couldn’t hear what—and then …”
    â€œAnd then?”
    Cecelia swallowed visibly. “And then Lucy said ‘If you’re coming all this way why don’t you stay for a bite of lunch?’ He said something else and then she said ‘Of course, I’m sure. It’s no trouble at all. I’ll expect you about one o’clock, then.’”
    A little silence fell in the kitchen at this point.
    â€œThat’s all,” finished Cecelia lamely. “And look where it’s led to.”
    â€œShe didn’t press him particularly?”
    â€œShe didn’t have to.”
    â€œWhat time would this have been?”
    â€œWhen he rang, you mean? It was just before twelve o’clock. I remember exactly because Lucy said to me ‘That’s a tall order, isn’t it? A hot lunch on a cold day for a hungry man and only an hour to cook it in.’”
    Sloan nodded. Policemen’s wives had to get used to the opposite. A hot meal for a hungry man who, irrespective of the weather, didn’t come in in an hour or two or three.
    Cecelia went on. “I said something silly like ‘Look on it as a challenge.’”
    â€œIt sounds as if she might have done,” commented Detective Constable Crosby mordantly. He was examining a spice rack on the wall.
    â€œI remember her saying,” said Cecelia, ignoring this, “‘The meat’ll have to come out of a tin, that’s for sure. There’s no time for any shopping.’”
    Sloan looked round the well-appointed kitchen. Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was bare, but he doubted if Lucy Durmast’s had been.
    â€œInspector …” Cecelia Allsworthy had suddenly become quite tentative.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThe police searched this house afterwards …”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid they find … anything?”
    â€œNo.” Sloan cleared his throat and hoped he wasn’t breaking the Official Secrets Acts.
    â€œBut it doesn’t signify, I suppose?” Cecelia’s shoulders drooped.
    â€œKenneth Carline didn’t die straightaway,” said Sloan.
    â€œSo she would have had time …”
    â€œAll the time in the world.”

SIX
    Pigmenta — Paints
    Ronald and Phyllis Bolsover made no bones about seeing the police yet again.
    â€œWe quite understand the difficulties, Inspector,” said the deputy chairman of William Durmast Ltd., Civil Engineers. “We—my wife and I, that is—are also naturally very concerned about Lucy’s position and would want to help in any way we could.”
    The Bolsovers lived in a smallish detached house on the outskirts of Calleford. A large Victorian-style conservatory had been added to the sunny side of the house. As they had approached the front door, Sloan had caught sight of a