Free The Wages of Desire by Stephen Kelly Page B

turned for the car, Marlene, clearly speaking to Vera, said, “I didn’t know they let girls join the police.”
    Vera turned to Marlene and smiled. She didn’t like Marlene and had concluded that Marlene sought to control and bully Nora and that Ruth Aisquith probably was nowhere near as bad as Marlene portrayed her. Class envy emanated from Marlene like heat from a fire, Vera thought.
    â€œThey don’t,” Vera said. “I’m only a driver.”
    â€œMeaning you know somebody in high places, then?” Marlene said.
    The words stung Vera because they were true. But she retained her smile. “Something like that,” she said.

    They found Lamb waiting for them by the Wolseley, smoking a cigarette. Wallace secretly was cheered by Lamb’s unbreakable addiction to tobacco; it humanized Lamb, who seemed otherwise to be free of vice and weakness. Even so, Wallace felt a bit concerned that Lamb had returned to the car before he and Vera had, given that Lamb obviously now could see that Vera had gone with him to interview Marlene and Nora.
    Vera spoke up first, hoping to blunt any inquiry into the matter her father might feel it necessary to launch. “I tagged along, Dad,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind. It was my idea.” She smiled at her father warmly. “I was a little bored and decided I might get a little on-the-job training.”
    Wallace thought that Vera’s sudden chattiness made her sound guilty, as if she were confessing to a crime before anyone could accuse her of one.
    Lamb smiled. He also thought that Vera’s explanation contained a hint of confession. He cast a brief, wary eye Wallace’s way, which Wallace did not fail to notice.
    â€œDid you learn anything?” Lamb asked.
    â€œAt least one of them—a Miss Suggs—disliked and envied Ruth Aisquith,” Wallace said. “Otherwise, Aisquith mostly kept to herself—at least according to Suggs.”
    Lamb raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment of this information.
    â€œSuggs said that Aisquith didn’t get on well with most of the other women in the camp; called her haughty. The other one, a Miss Bancroft, seemed genuinely broken up at the news of Aisquith’s death, though. If Aisquith had any family or close contacts in the village, she didn’t speak to either of these women of them.”
    â€œAll right, then,” Lamb said to Wallace. “I want you to stick here for the moment. Search Aisquith’s file and billet and talk to as many people as you can.”
    Lamb added that he and Vera would return to Winstead to check on the progress of the inquiry there and would pick Wallace up later in the day before heading back to Winchester.
    Lamb thought for a moment on what seemed to be blossoming between his daughter and his detective sergeant. If Vera and Wallace were sending romantic signals to one another, he would have to keep an eye on that. He didn’t want Wallace distracted or Vera hurt. He believed he had the right—even the duty—to step between them if their flirting compromised the inquiry. Otherwise, he would have to let Vera follow her path.

    Late that afternoon, one of the men who were digging in the foundation of the farmhouse shoved the point of his spade into the moist ground and felt it strike something solid. The man’s name was Charlie Kinkaid; he was thirty-seven years old and had lived all of his life in Winstead and had been glad to land one of the civilian jobs helping to build the prison camp. The job kept him close to his wife and three children, though since taking it he saw them on weekends only. The rest of the time he lived in the camp, with the other conscripts.
    Believing he’d hit a stone, Charlie pulled back on the spade, worked its tip beneath the obstruction, and leveraged it into the daylight. A slender gray bone about two inches long came up in the loosened earth. It looked aged.
    Likely