Free Death at the Cafe by Alison Golden Page B

on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
     

 
     
    CHAPTER 5

     
     
    ANNABELLE STARED IN disbelief as one of the officers stepped forward, gently pulled Mary’s hands away from her face, and placed her in handcuffs. The other officer placed his hand around Annabelle’s wrist, but instead of complying absently as her friend had done, Annabelle furiously shook away his grip.
    “This is utterly, astoundingly, unbelievably preposterous!” she shouted incredulously. “What on earth are you thinking, Inspector?!”
    DI Cutcliffe snorted derisively.
    “I don’t know what I was thinking earlier, allowing both of you to walk away from two separate crime scenes. My instincts were wrong on this one.”
    Once again, Annabelle shook away the young officer’s attempt to place her in cuffs and shot him a glare so defiant that he looked to the detective for advice. Cutcliffe merely scowled and nodded for him to try again with more force.
    “And what, may I ask, has caused this sudden turnabout? This incredible bout of folly, Inspector?”
    Cutcliffe didn’t balk from the indignation in Annabelle’s tone.
    “The right information, at the right time, from the right person,” he said, cryptically.
    Annabelle stared back in disbelief. The young officer moved forward, hoping to catch Annabelle in this stunned moment. Instead, Annabelle’s eyes squinted, and her almost perpetually gentle, caring face stiffened into a look of determination.
    And then she ran.
    The Inspector had seen many strange things in his decades of service, from an elderly lady who suffered from dementia eventually turning out to be the head of a crime syndicate, to a man who stole shop mannequins by carrying them outside as if they were his girlfriend. The sight of a five foot eleven, sturdily-built, and typically bashful vicar, sprinting out into the street, cassock flying behind her, was an entirely new occurrence, however. She had all the ferocious acceleration and natural grace of a gazelle. He watched for a few seconds, frozen by the complete strangeness of seeing Annabelle weave between moving traffic, before setting off himself.
    “Take her to the station!” he commanded the officer next to Mary, before turning to the other. “You come with me!”
    By the time DI Cutcliffe and his fellow officer had set off, Annabelle had already made it to the other side of the street. She bombed forward with long, powerful strides and a stiff back, screaming polite requests as she ducked and dived through the dumbfounded crowds.
    “Excuse me!”
    “Sorry!”
    “Move, please!”
    “Vicar coming through!”
    Cutcliffe and his companion did their best to keep up with Annabelle, but after a minute of full-on sprinting, Cutcliffe doubled over to catch his breath.
    “You okay, Chief?” his officer asked.
    “Has she been drinking holy water or something?! How the hell is she so fast? Get after her!”
    The officer immediately broke into a sprint, with Cutcliffe huffing and puffing behind him.
    “Stop that woman in the dog collar!” he screamed.
    Annabelle reached a corner that led into a marketplace, swung her head from side to side with all the perspicacity of a guard dog, then burst forward once more between the market stalls of fruit and vegetables. Shoppers and stall owners, their heads snapping from side to side as if watching race cars at a race track, looked on in awe as the galloping vicar, followed by the policemen, raced past them.
    Though the detective, and indeed, the onlookers themselves were surprised by the Reverend’s extraordinary pace, Annabelle herself was not. As the tallest girl in her year for most of her school life, Annabelle had developed a slight self-consciousness about standing out. She stood with a slight hunch or a bended knee to lower herself and always preferred sitting rather than standing when around her group of friends. When it came time to do sports, however, Annabelle relished her large physique. Field