Free Bring Forth Your Dead by J. M. Gregson Page B

August with an ultimatum from head office. He wasn’t even meeting the interest on his loans.’
    He pushed across a copy of the letter he had signed himself to summon Craven to a meeting. It was no more than three sentences of terse, impersonal prose. Lambert took note only of the date: August 27th, six weeks before Edmund Craven’s death. ‘What happened at that meeting, George?’
    Taylor took a deep breath in an unsuccessful attempt to steady his voice. ‘I put the situation clearly before him. Things were out of my hands now. Unless he could reduce his overdraft substantially in the next two weeks, he would be facing bankruptcy proceedings. He told me, as he had told me before, that he had substantial expectations from his father’s will. I was a little impatient, I think, because I had heard the story before and he did not seem to appreciate the urgency of the situation. I told him it might be true, but it was an uncertain, long-term situation which was no solution to his present problems.’
    ‘And what did he say to that?’ Lambert would not have spoken if Taylor had not dried up again. He felt his question toll like a bell; felt that he knew what must be coming as the conclusion of this tale.
    Taylor said, ‘He told me that there would not be long to wait. That his father was dying. That he would be dead within weeks.’

 
    7
     
    It is a myth beloved of the public that a murderer feels a compulsion to return to the scene of the crime. Life would be much easier for policemen if the myth were true. Occasionally, of course, criminals revisit the scene of their offence, but it is usually for some real purpose rather than from a psychological compulsion.
    The killer of Edmund Craven saw such a reason to be present in Tall Timbers two days after the murder had finally been revealed for what it was. The killer moved about the house with lights on; there was no need to disguise a presence for which there was a ready explanation. Homicide had brought its own mistaken confidence, that peculiar feeling of superiority to the rest of humanity, which is often one of its bizarre concomitants. Better to be bold here than to slink about like a guilty thing.
    There was no fear in going into the room where the old man had fought his last, doomed battle for breath. The murderer stood for a long moment contemplating the bed where the victim had died and been laid out, testing for the onset of remorse, feeling satisfaction when none came.
    An executioner, then, who had done no more than despatch an old man who had grossly offended irrefutable moral canons. The executioner moved with relish through the familiar rooms, opening drawers unhurriedly, searching only to confirm that no copy of the document existed.
    Having dwelt for a while in the room where David Craven had visited his father and Walter Miller had played his weekly game of chess with his old acquaintance, the killer passed unhurriedly through the rooms which had been used at the time of Craven’s mortal illness by Margaret Lewis and Angela Harrison. What had to be done was done efficiently and unhurriedly.
    That the crime had been identified as murder after all this time was a nuisance, no more. It necessitated certain precautions, for now that Edmund Craven’s death was known to be not from natural causes, a culprit must be found. The exhumation had seemed a nuisance, even a threat.
    Now it seemed no more than a new challenge, which would be overcome.

 
    8
     
    ‘Caroline should get the results of her tests today.’ Christine pushed the breakfast mug of tea determinedly between her husband and the cricket scores.
    ‘Tests?’ Lambert was aware that he was on dangerous ground, but unable to force his mind away from its professional preoccupations. If even Gower’s century had not registered there, there was small hope for his daughter’s affairs. But it did not do to point out such things to a wife.
    Christine regarded him with humorous irritation. Years ago,