Free No Human Enemy (Suzie Mountford Mysteries) by John Gardner Page B

Not so many uniforms.’ Touch of a vulpine grin that was not very attractive. ‘Now we know, don’t we? They’d all gone south, ready for t’invasion. Bloody marvellous.’
    ‘And you saw Doris Butler at the dance?’
    ‘She’s there most Saturdays.’
    Ten minutes on Doris and the dancing, then Tommy slewed onto another subject:
    ‘Why aren’t you in uniform, Pete?’
    ‘Me?’
    Tommy nodded. ‘I’m not talking to anyone else.’
    ‘On account o’ me leg.’
    ‘What about your leg?’
    ‘Broke it. A fracture t’doctor said. Fractured me leg in 1937 and it wasn’t set proper. Mum said stay in bed and it’ll be all right: I mean, we wasn’t paid up on panel then. But it never set proper.’
    And on to hammer in on Pete’s present employment.
    ‘Where do you work? What profession?’ This last a bit of a stretch. Tommy was half convinced that Pete Hill was involved in something dodgy. Wrong, Tommy.
    ‘I’m a qualified electrician wi’ me own business. Hill and Ashworth. Electrical maintenance. No job too small.’
    ‘And you go out and about?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘You climb ladders; you wriggle through attics; you adapt to difficult and different exigencies?’
    ‘Aye, I do, if that means what I think it means.’
    ‘And you manage to dance?’
    ‘After a fashion, aye. Can’t run, though. Can’t run and can’t march. Have difficulty climbing. Have to do a lot of marching in t’armed forces.’
    ‘So I’ve been told, yes.’
    ‘Very keen on marching they are. Never understood t’reason mesen’. I mean you’re there to fight, en’t you? Not to march, unless you’re on ceremonial stuff, like in front of Buckingham Palace.’
    ‘When you’re out on a job, wiring say, don’t you have to climb?’
    ‘I’m gaffer. I get others to climb if I can’t.’
    ‘You danced with Doris on that Saturday night, Pete? A week before the invasion?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Had your own girlfriend, did you?’
    ‘Danced wi’ a girl called Eileen Shanty. We been seeing each other regular. Fat Eileen they call her, but she pleases me. I favour girls you can get hold of.’
    Tommy Livermore muttered, ‘Let me have girls about me that are fat,’ then appeared to be lost in thought, trying to make up his mind about some profound problem.
    Finally Ron Worrall leant forward and spoke for the first time, ‘Pete, would you be willing to have an X-ray?’
    ‘X-ray? X-ray where?’
    ‘See if you’ve got a bone in your leg, Petey.’ Tommy’s face in a hideous grin.
    Pete Hill looked as though his nose had been poked into a skunk’s tail. ‘Look, now. Wha’…?’
    ‘We want to make sure you’ve got a bone in your leg, Pete.’ Laura almost giggled.
    ‘Now wait a minute. I came along to help. Tha’s what the’ wanted, and … You can’t think I … Oh no.’
    ‘Oh no what, Pete?’ Tommy’s face wasn’t even creased.
    ‘Wha’s this about? Tell me that.’
    ‘What d’you think it’s about, Pete?’
    ‘Well, obviously, Doris. I mean you said so.’
    ‘Yes. And…?’
    ‘And she’s been done in. Murdered. Some bugger stopped her clock.’
    ‘Yes, and we know you were a regular visitor to her house, Pete. You went to see her at least every third night when her husband was away. That’s what we wanted to talk to you about.’
    ‘By heck. You think I—’
    ‘Want to eliminate you as they say, Petey,’ Ron explained. ‘Eliminate you from our inquiries.’
    ‘But I was looking out for her. You must know that. I’m poor Roger’s cousin after all. He bloody asked me to look after her. If he was still alive I couldn’t bloody face him.’
    ‘His cousin,’ Tommy stated flatly. Not that it made any real difference of course, but it would have been nice if someone had said something. Some ninety-five per cent of murders were committed by a member of the family.
    ‘Aye. Roger’s mother and my mother. Sisters. So we’re first cousins.’
    ‘You didn’t think to mention this