Free Cast For Death by Margaret Yorke

fingers – what about them?’
    ‘Perhaps for some time beforehand he is tying himself inside a sack?’
    If this was a case of some sort of perversion, it was possible. Inconsequentially, Patrick remembered the pile of sacks in the garage at the empty cottage near Stratford- upon-Avon.
    ‘I’m not at all happy about this,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and ask Liz what she thinks about it.’
    ‘Liz? Who is Liz?’
    ‘She’s a friend of mine – she knew Sam,’ he said. ‘And there’s a whole lot more, Dimitri,’ and he told him about Tina Willoughby.
    ‘But you have no proof that this lady knew Sam?’
    ‘Not yet.’
    Manolakis had heard from Colin about Patrick’s uncanny instinct for sensing trouble. His nose, Colin had called it, and the Greek had seen proof of it himself in the past. It was a faculty he too possessed, and he respected it in another; the owner of it would worry away at a problem until he solved it, even if it took years.
    ‘If it was so, you will find out,’ he said.
    They had hit the rush hour, and it took some time to get from Bedford Square to Bolton Gardens. Manolakis did not mind; the London crowds fascinated him. He had never seen so many people herded together. Athens was a great and bustling city, but the population of London equalled that of the whole of Greece; it was a sobering reflection. He looked benevolently at the convoys of large red buses and the hurrying citizens; he had no responsibility for any of them, he was merely an observer.
    Patrick, meanwhile, was wondering what had made him think of consulting Liz. After all, they had met only a few days before. She would be very surprised to see him again so soon.
    She was, and did not hide it; she also looked pleased. She had only just got back from the office when they arrived.
    She gave them drinks and asked Manolakis how he was enjoying his visit, listening with interest to his answers. She had never been to Greece.
    ‘Oh, but you must go!’ Manolakis exclaimed. ‘You must take her, Patrick,’ he cried. ‘All English people are loving Greece.’
    ‘Yes, well—’ Patrick looked uneasy. He and Liz had met by chance in Greutz; they had never started out on holiday together. He looked at her and was relieved to see her eyes were sparkling and she looked amused. Where had she been on holiday last year, he wondered, never having thought about it before; and more important, with whom?
    ‘About Sam,’ he said, to put his thoughts in order, and told her that Manolakis had propounded her own theory.
    ‘It must have been something like that, surely, Patrick,’ she said. ‘One finds it hard to accept this sort of thing when it happens to someone one knows. It’s so sad to think they were so unhappy.’
    ‘His lack of success seemed to be mostly his own fault,’ Patrick said, and related what Leila Waters had told him.
    ‘Dimitris and I might call on Tina Willoughby’s neighbour on our way home,’ he said.
    ‘What excuse will you offer?’ Liz asked.
    ‘None. I shall tell the truth – that I was passing and was curious to know how the inquest went. It’s always better to stick to the truth. Damn it, I did kill her wretched dog,’ said Patrick. ‘We’ll be going to Stratford anyway, so I can have another look around Pear Tree Cottage then. You do want to go to Stratford-on-Avon, Dimitri, don’t you?’
    ‘Ah—that is the home of William Shakespeare. Yes, I like it very much. What is it to be seen? The Merchant of Venice ? I have studied him.’
    “They’re not doing that just now,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s Othello again this year.’
    Perhaps, for a Greek, a play with a less controversial background than the troubled island of Cyprus might be a better choice, but Manolakis appeared unconcerned.
    ‘I would like to see that,’ he said.
    He did not mind what he saw or where he went; these English friends were warm and kind; where was the well- known British aloofness? He had yet to meet it.
    ‘You will come