Free Killings on Jubilee Terrace by Robert Barnard Page B

promises about using his influence which he couldn’t keep because he had none. He was a shabby, comic figure.’
    ‘But physically he was doddery – no longer firm on his feet, unsure where he was going, what he was doing?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Melvin. ‘He was old , and like all but a few old people. What are you trying to say?’
    ‘I’m not sure,’ said Charlie. ‘The physical decline works two ways: he could be projected forward into the path of a car without any difficulty, or any bruise; on the other hand, he could have just wimbley-wambled himself into the road.’
    The two men thought this over.
    ‘He wasn’t mad,’ said Melvin, ‘or even a bit soft in the head. He had all his marbles, and you could hear that in any of the rows he had.’
    ‘Nobody has suggested he was mad,’ said Reggie.
    ‘No, that’s right,’ said Charlie, getting up. ‘I think we’ve gone as far as we can go. I didn’t expect to get any great distance, but we have put a marker down. If something turns up that makes us think there was anything in this letter-writer’s allegations then at least we can say we didn’t bin them without giving them a go. It’s the most they can expect.’
    ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Reggie. ‘Nobody here thought it was anything but natural causes.’
    ‘Not quite true, Reggie,’ said Melvin. ‘Garry Kopps says that the first thing he thought when he heard the news was that Vernon had been done in.’
    ‘He’s got an overactive imagination,’ said Reggie.
    ‘And who is Garry Kopps?’ asked Charlie.
    ‘Our resident gay – in real life. Also our resident intellectual. In the soap as Arthur Bradley, the keeper of the corner shop.’
    Charlie nodded, said he’d got everything he needed and didn’t imagine there would be any need for him to come back. So much for policeman’s instinct.

C HAPTER S IX
Aflame
    ‘Good evening Peter. And how are you this fine evening?’ Bob Worseley’s arm had gone automatically to the draught Guinness, Philip Marston’s regular tipple. ‘And is the gorgeous Mrs Kerridge in her usual fine fettle?’
    ‘Cut the crap, Bill. They’ve not even finalised the camera angles yet. And anyway your pub landlord is fatally dated. All you get these days is a horrible little man with a short-term contract and about as much warmth and bonhomie as the Pope receiving an official visit from the Reverend Ian Paisley.’
    ‘Everything about Jubilee Terrace is dated, right down to white people running the corner shop,’ said Bill Garrett, unperturbed. ‘Hadn’t you noticed?’
    ‘You’re right,’ said Marjorie Harcourt-Smith, sitting with her ‘sweet sherry’ (actually a neat cognac) at a table beside them with Winnie Hey. ‘How often do you see people in the Terrace talking into their mobile phones or listening to music on their iPods as they walk along. Only the teenagers, just occasionally. But go out into the real street and everybody is at it.’
    ‘She’s hit the nail on the head as usual,’ said Philip Marston, who loved double-meanings. ‘Go out on the street and everybody is at it.’
    ‘Don’t turn me into a smut-merchant,’ said Marjorie. ‘Smut’s not your line at all, and not mine either.’
    ‘Ah, now this brightens my day,’ said Bill, polishing a glass ‘A new customer at the Duke of York’s. What’s the betting he drinks orange juice?’
    Marjorie and Winnie looked around. All the characters for the pub scene that was shortly to be filmed were already there: Norma Kerridge, Arthur Bradley and his still-new wife Maureen, Dawn Kerridge, tonight without James, all supervised by Reggie Friedman, being everywhere at once.
    And there, over by the door, was the new curate.
    ‘What’s he doing here?’ asked Marjorie. ‘He’s not in this scene.’
    ‘Maybe he is,’ said Winnie. ‘Melvin could have done a little re-write. He was awfully good in those scenes with my Cyril.’
    ‘I know he was. I was there,’ said Marjorie