Free Cast For Death by Margaret Yorke Page B

tower blocks and industrial complexes. He must not let this business about Sam obsess him so much that he failed to take Manolakis around the country; he had planned to show him Devon and Cornwall, and offer Wales or Scotland – even both.
    He slowed down and took a left turn along a rough, unsurfaced lane. They passed several houses, then reached the approach to Strangeways. Patrick stopped the car and opened the door.
    ‘Let’s walk up the road a little,’ he said.
    The track petered out past Strangeways and became a footpath over the common. They followed it through some trees and into a clearing on the other side. Standing there, they could see a light on in the house where Tina Willoughby had died.
    ‘I wonder who’s in there,’ said Patrick.
    ‘The dead lady’s family,’ said Manolakis.
    ‘There was no one here when I called before,’ said Patrick. ‘And the neighbour didn’t mention a family.’
    ‘She must have someone.’ It seemed obvious to Manolakis.
    It did not follow. Sam had not.
    ‘Well, we can’t ring and ask,’ said Patrick. There were limits to what he could bring himself to do in the interests of research.
    ‘There is no need.’ Manolakis put a hand on Patrick’s arm.
    A gate in the hedge surrounding Strangeways had opened, and a girl in jeans and an anorak came out. She walked off across the common, head down, unaware of them.
    Was she a daughter of the dead woman?
    ‘Let’s chat up the neighbour,’ he said, and had to explain the idiom.

 
2
     
    Lettie Barry was drinking a large gin when the doorbell rang. She set it down to open the door, and when she saw Patrick and Manolakis outside, she at once invited them in. Her husband was at home now, and he hospitably offered them drinks.
    ‘I hope we haven’t interrupted your dinner,’ said Patrick, who in fact did not mind at all.
    ‘We’re just going out – we always go out to dinner on Mondays,’ said Lettie Barry. ‘I get so exhausted doing the washing.’
    Was there so much? Surely she was mechanised? It was the sort of house that must have machines for everything. Perhaps she had six children; but there were no signs of any.
    ‘We saw a light on next door. We wondered who was there,’ said Patrick, coming straight to the point.
    ‘It’s Tessa Frayne – you know, the niece,’ said Lettie, still assuming Patrick to be a friend of Tina’s.
    ‘Ah yes,’ said Patrick, and waited to learn more.
    ‘She inherits everything,’ Lettie went on. ‘Well – it’s really only the house, since Tina’s alimony stops with her death. And not this one, either – the new people move in any day now, and Tessa has to give possession. It was all signed and sealed, so it must go ahead. Tessa’s decided to throw up her job and live at the Stratford house. She’s going to take in lodgers – folk from the theatre, she says.’
    ‘Well!’ exclaimed Patrick, since he must make some sort of comment. ‘What was she doing?’
    ‘Some secretarial thing. I don’t remember what. She’s given it up without a qualm, it seems.’
    ‘I suppose she’s pretty upset, though.’
    ‘A bit, of course – it was a shock, and it’s tragic – but she wasn’t close to Tina. Just saw her from time to time in a casual way.’
    ‘The inquest,’ Patrick murmured.
    ‘Suicide while the balance of the mind was disturbed,’ said Lettie promptly. ‘Tessa didn’t know of any reason, unless it was the move, but I thought Tina was looking forward to that. The doctor said he’d been treating her for nerves – she was having tranquillisers – and in the past he’d prescribed sleeping pills, though not recently. There were some empty bottles in the bathroom.’
    ‘She was highly strung,’ said Hugo Barry, making his first contribution to the discussion. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’
    Patrick knew that now he must confess.
    ‘In fact, I never met her. I ran over her dog – that poodle – she was already dead at the time, it seems,’ he