Free Shades of Evil by Shirley Wells Page B

any other bookmaker’s she’d ever been inside. For one thing, it was clean. Bert and his wife Stella had recently sold a thriving business in Cornwall and moved to the village to retire. It was Bert who couldn’t idle away his days and Stella who was responsible for the two vases of fresh scented flowers and the tasteful Christmas decorations, something Jill had never seen in a bookie’s before.
    Over the years, she’d been in some disreputable book-maker’s, the worst in Manchester where the owner hadn’t seemed to care that his dog, a Rottweiler, kept its teeth permanently bared. Here the ‘bookie’s dog’ was a Yorkshire terrier called Minty who had a yellow ribbon in her hair and a welcome for everyone.
    Three large television screens above the counter were loud enough to be heard, but not too intrusive and half a dozen people were watching them. Jill exchanged pleasantries with them, but she knew they were humouring her. As far as they were concerned, a female couldn’t be expected to know one end of a horse from another.
    To take her mind off crank callers last night, she’d studied form, chosen six promising horses and called in on her way to headquarters this morning to place her bets. She had an account with William Hill, but phoning bets through wasn’t so much fun. This way, she could collect her winnings in person.
    From the age of about five, when she’d hung about outside the bookie’s in Liverpool, waiting for her dad to place his bets or watch an important race, she’d been fascinated by the places. People coming out of the door, letting clouds of smoke out with them, had either been in high spirits, sometimes happy enough to give her a coin for sweets, or in foul moods and inventing stories for their wives as to where that week’s wages had gone.
    Her mother had been horrified to learn that Jill had been within a hundred yards of a bookmaker’s.
    ‘She hasn’t been inside,’ her dad had protested.
    ‘She’s been close enough. What sort of example is that to set the girl? Don’t you dare take her anywhere near those places again!’
    In future, when Jill had been hanging around waiting for her dad, peering in through the smoke-grimed windows, they’d kept it as their own secret. Then, when she’d been a few years older, probably about eleven, her dad had given her a couple of pounds and she’d known the thrill of choosing a horse and willing it to romp to the finishing post.
    ‘I’m surprised you’re not snowed in along the lane,’ Bert greeted her.
    ‘Some of us have sensible vehicles for the job,’ she replied with a smug smile.
    ‘Roll on summer, I say,’ he muttered. ‘You know where you are then. You know it’ll be raining from morning till night.’
    ‘Well, yes.’ She laughed at that.
    ‘You’ll be here to collect your winnings then,’ Bert guessed, shaking his head. ‘I keep telling you, you’re not from these shores. You’ve got the luck of the Irish.’
    ‘It’s not luck, Bert. It’s sheer skill.’
    As he counted out her money, over three hundred pounds, Jill wondered why cash from a bookie was so much more exciting than a salary.
    She was leaving at the same time as Tom Canter and they stood in the doorway for a few minutes chatting about the weather and the day’s racing.
    ‘I don’t suppose they’ve found the bloke who murdered that poor girl yet?’ Tom said as they walked beneath the streetlights towards Jill’s car.
    ‘Not yet, no.’
    ‘What a bloody terrible thing to happen. And her only twenty. There’s some wrong buggers in this world and that’s a fact.’
    ‘You’re right there, Tom.’
    ‘Her photo were in this evening’s paper,’ he went on, ‘and do you know, I’m sure I’ve seen her about. Can’t think where though.’
    ‘It’s possible. She used to walk her dog up the hill quite a lot. A small white dog she had. Perhaps you saw her there.’
    ‘I might have.’
    Tom had farmed in Kelton Bridge all his life. He was