Free A Market for Murder by Rebecca Tope

even. Chatting, and so forth.’ She found it tremendously difficult to avoid mentioning Sally Dabb, and wondered why she was bothering, anyway.
    ‘Who was he chatting to?’ came the next inevitable question. So much for discretion, Karen thought.
    ‘Well, mainly to Sally, I suppose. Her stall was next to his.’
    ‘Sally?’
    ‘Mrs Dabb. She sells pickles.’
    ‘Ah, yes. The lady who was so upset, according to most of our witnesses.’
    ‘Anybody would be upset,’ Karen affirmed. ‘Blood everywhere and the whole thing so completely unexpected.’
    ‘Did you notice anybody watching him, earlier in the day?’
    Karen shook her head. ‘I was too busy for anything like that. And it was crowded. I wouldn’t have been able to see anybody beyond the row of customers at his stall.’
    ‘He sold apple juice, is that right?’ The burly officer seemed to have a clear logic in his own head, directing the course of his questions, but Karen wasn’t following it very well.
    ‘Apple, peach, raspberry, blackcurrant,’ she ticked them off on her fingers. ‘And combinations, of course. Whatever he could find, really. I mean, he made it all himself, from local fruits. It must have been hard work …’ she tailed off.
    ‘Yes, we’ve seen his premises,’ interrupted the slighter man. ‘Very impressive.’
    ‘Is it?’ Karen spoke without thinking.
    ‘You’ve never been there?’
    She shook her head again. ‘No. I’ve never had reason to. I suppose it must be interesting.’
    ‘We thought it was quite hi-tech,’ the same man confided. ‘Considering everything’s supposed to be so natural and small scale and so forth. He doesn’t exactly squeeze the juice out by hand.’
    ‘Didn’t, Ricky – didn’t,’ the larger man corrected him.
    ‘Didn’t,’ his colleague nodded. ‘There’s even a machine for putting the foil tops on the bottles.’
    Karen shrugged. Peter Grafton’s juicing arrangements hadn’t concerned her when he was alive, and were even less relevant now he was dead.
    ‘Anyway,’ pressed the big man, more urgently, ‘we’d like you to have a think about what we’vebeen asking you. And then we’d like you to drop into the Incident Room in Bradbourne tomorrow and let us have anything you’ve remembered.’
    ‘Incident Room?’ Karen frowned.
    ‘It’s in the Town Hall. The old Town Hall. Because the police station’s been moved to Garnstone, and it isn’t convenient for our purposes.’
    ‘Ah,’ Karen nodded, as if she understood. The old Town Hall in Bradbourne was a strange square building, used for jumble sales and one-off sales of oriental carpets or remaindered books. It was indeed convenient, however, for the scene of Peter Grafton’s murder, being about twenty yards away.
    ‘So you’ll be there? Tomorrow morning?’
    ‘Well, it’ll be difficult. I’ve got four small children here tomorrow.’
    ‘Oh dear,’ came the unsympathetic response. ‘Well, I’m afraid this is important.’
    ‘So I’ll bring them all with me, shall I? And you’ll find a friendly police officer to take charge of them while I answer questions?’
    ‘If necessary,’ he said stiffly.
    ‘Well, I’ll try,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think I’ll remember anything. I’m sure I’ve told you everything I saw.’
    ‘We can take you outside and get you to run through the angles and things, as well,’ thepoliceman added, with a certain vagueness. ‘It would be helpful.’
    The smaller man spoke suddenly. ‘Is there any connection, do you think, with the supermarket bomb?’ he said, as if the idea had dropped into his head from the sky. ‘Last time we were here, we were asking about that.’
    ‘Connection?’ Karen echoed. ‘Like what?’
    ‘Well, Mrs Slocombe,’ said the heavier man, ‘for a start, you seem to have been at the scene of both incidents. Don’t you?’
     
    No sooner had she shut the door on the policemen than Drew appeared from the living room, with Stephanie close