Free Who Saw Him Die? by Sheila Radley

take his death seriously either.’
    The Chief Inspector started to protest. She cut him short. Her face still showed no emotion but her throat, quilted by the accumulating lines of middle age, flushed crimson with controlled indignation.
    â€˜Oh yes, there’s been a police investigation. Yes, an inquest has been held. But all of you pre-judged the verdict. From the moment you heard of his death, every single one of you assumed that it was my brother’s own fault – that it was the driver of the vehicle who didn’t have a chance, rather than Cuthbert. I know, because at first I thought the same thing.
    â€˜I expected my brother to die like that, and I make no pretence of mourning for him. All I’ve felt, quite frankly, has been relief. But when Cub – when Cuthbert was a boy, I loved him … And ever since I read the report of the inquest, I’ve had a deep sense of injustice. I am absolutely convinced that my brother’s death has not been fully investigated. Can’t you see , Chief Inspector, how significant it is that Goodrum concealed his boyhood association with Cuthbert? Surely, now you know that the man responsible had a lifetime grudge against him, you can’t continue to dismiss my brother’s death as a mere accident!’
    The woman was a tiger when she got going, thought Quantrill with respect. No wonder Molly was in awe of her – there’d be no excuses for slacking by Red Cross volunteers when Eunice Bell was anywhere about.
    â€˜I take your point, Miss Bell,’ he said gravely. ‘But there are several other factors we have to consider. For a start, Goodrum is a common enough name in Suffolk. Can you be sure you’re talking about one and the same person?’
    â€˜Yes. I have local contacts, and I checked my facts. It’s the same Jack Goodrum – now a self-made man, retired, with new money and a new wife.’
    â€˜All the more reason, then,’ suggested Hilary, ‘for him not to go jeopardising his new lifestyle simply to settle a very old score.’
    â€˜But you forget,’ said Eunice Bell. ‘Goodrum is self-made. I know about self-made men – my great-grandfather was one, and my grandfather carried on the tradition. Self-made men are ruthless. They have to be, or they wouldn’t get to the top of the heap and stay there. And a ruthless man who bears a lifelong grudge against a mere town drunk is hardly likely to let either morality or sentiment stand in his way.’
    â€˜You may be right,’ acknowledged Quantrill. ‘But I’m afraid, Miss Bell, that all you’re offering us is speculation. You can’t be sure that Mr Goodrum ever had a grudge against your brother. For all you know, young Jack Goodrum came from a violent home and got regular thrashings from his own father. What you imagine to be a significant event in his life might really have meant very little to him at all.’
    â€˜And even if the boy did resent the punishment, and left Breckham Market feeling that he had a score to settle with your brother,’ said Hilary, ‘it all happened such a long while ago … What – thirty-five years?’
    That was before the detective sergeant had been born; and in her view, life was too short to be wasted by dwelling on the past. She gave the older woman a friendly, coaxing smile. ‘Don’t you think it’s more likely that Jack Goodrum will have forgotten all about it by now? People don’t really harbour resentment for that length of time, Miss Bell, do they?’
    But Eunice Bell, head stiff and high, throat flushed with the vivid memory of the hurts and humiliations of her own unhappy youth, knew otherwise. ‘Yes, Miss Lloyd,’ she said. ‘Oh yes, they do.’

Chapter Eight
    â€˜So much,’ said Sergeant Lloyd, ‘for talking Eunice Bell out of her allegation of murder.’
    â€˜She knows her own mind too well for