Free The Cuckoo's Child by Marjorie Eccles Page B

even if the old man hadn’t been dead before he went in, it wouldn’t have been long before he was.
    â€˜Or to hide the body, like?’ the sergeant offered.
    Fred Binns was a wiry fellow with sharp eyes. Suspicious deaths on their patch were rare and he was eager to make the most of this one in the absence of his inspector. All the same, it was just as well they’d decided to send in what he thought of as the big guns – however little Inspector Womersley, middle-aged, slow moving, seemed to fit the description.
    â€˜Bodies have a habit of floating, sooner or later, Sergeant,’ Womersley pointed out.
    The doctor said, ‘He didn’t sink at all. The air in his lungs would have kept him buoyant for a while, at least until he became waterlogged, but he was found before that had the chance to happen . . . he drifted over there, to what they call the goit, where his body got caught.’
    The path they stood on was black, trodden earth, bounded on one side by the substantial wall that surrounded the dam. Along the base sprouted a fine colony of weeds: rough grass, ragwort, nettles, bracken, even a rogue clump of heather. The mill dam itself was an elongated shape, eight foot deep, with steep, straight sides and a bottom lined with stone setts. The goit was a conduit for the purpose of channelling the water from the dam into the mill. Not the clean, beautifully soft water that came down from the hills, essential for washing the wool; this was the polluted waste left behind after the clotted, greasy wool fleeces had been scoured, plus other detritus, waiting to be turned into steam to power the engine. An iron grating prevented the conduit from being blocked by rubbish, and that was where the body had lodged, along with a lot of scummy residue and a dead rat, left behind when the body had been taken away.
    This was beginning to give Womersley heartburn. He sighed, reached into his pocket for the mint imperials. ‘Not just a fight, tempers lost, then?’
    â€˜A fight, possibly, but . . . the autopsy will prove whether he hit his head as he fell, or if something hit him. There’s a difference. If he fell, the damage to the brain will show at the opposite side to the wound, if not, it’ll be on the same side. Medically known as coup and contre-coup injuries, if it’s of any interest.’
    â€˜If he was deliberately attacked, it wasn’t for robbery.’ Womersley brought to mind the details he had familiarized himself with. The dead man’s handsome, silver-knobbed walking stick had been left lying on the path. ‘And he still had his gold watch chain and sovereign case – with sovereigns still in it, if I’m not mistaken, Sergeant Binns?’
    â€˜Aye. His wallet was stuffed with notes as well.’
    But it looked as though somebody had made the attempt. The inside breast pocket in the lining of his jacket, where he had kept his pocketbook, had been torn – a long rip from the corner – though oddly, the pocketbook had been left there, apparently intact. It must have been a recent tear – his clothes had been good, and though not new, had been well taken care of. A hole in one trouser pocket had been neatly patched. His boots had metal heel protectors hammered in, to save wear. His socks were hand-knitted, and someone had thriftily and carefully darned over the places in the heels where the wool had worn thin. It was the sort of thing Womersley’s wife, Kate, did for him. For all his money, Ainsley Beaumont, like all sensible folks, obviously hadn’t believed in discarding his clothes before they’d outlived their useful life.
    Womersley looked down at the bloated corpse of the dead rat and suppressed another sigh. It was Saturday morning, the beginning of the weekend and a half day at the mill, which would shut down at twelve thirty. The town market was already in full swing, and later the trams would be packed