Free Who Wants to Live Forever? by Steve Wilson Page A

frequent hostelries which paid, shall we say, scant respect to the licensing laws, especially where closing time was concerned.”
    “It seems to be well known that this went on,” said Trish. “Why didn’t the authorities put a stop to it?”
    “Probably because the local bobby was often one of the people who stayed behind after hours for a few drinks and a sing-song. In this case, though, Harold
hadn’t
been at an all-night drinking session, for the constable found him on blood-soaked sheets in his bunk. He died from a single bullet to the heart. Nothing appeared to have been stolen — as far as anybody could make out, all of the possessions of Harold and Rose were still there.”
    “So she did it, then,” I said. “Did they find her in this case?” I already knew what the answer would be.
    “It isn’t as simple as that. No, there was no sign of Rose, nor of the gun. But the witnesses distinctly heard two gunshots, and only one bullet was found in Harold. Neither was the second bullet lodged anywhere on the barge; they searched it rigorously during the investigation and that was one of the key elements during the trial.”
    “Whose trial? Rose’s?” asked Gail.
    “Let me finish. My, you’re an impatient bunch,” added Louise, though we could all see that she enjoyed the fact that, once again, she had captured our interest. “No, not Rose. She was never seen again. But there was a lot of blood leading towards the side of the barge, and the police eventually concluded that the second bullet had done for Rose, and the killer had removed her body. Perhaps he’d intended to come back and remove Harold’s as well later, but the barge slipping its moorings had put an end to that plan; had it remained tied up, nobody would have investigated, as it was common for barges to remain tied up for days at a time if they had no goods to transport. It isn’t like today where the canals are full of holidaymakers and novice barge-handlers.”
    “Don’t remind me,” I said. “I hired a barge on the Lancaster Canal a few years ago and it was a nightmare. It had a mind of its own — I’d steer to go one way, it would go the other, and once it ended up turning completely round in the water so we ended up facing the way we’d just come from.” I paused, as it brought back memories of happier times, before the rancorous split. “Never again,” I muttered.
    “Well, Harold was an accomplished canal traveller, so he’d have had no such problems. There was a pub a hundred yards or so from the mooring point, and Harold was well known there, as was Rose. A few nights before the murder, he’d been seen arguing vehemently with one of the newer customers, a drunkard called Vince Marsland. Nobody liked Marsland. When the police followed this up, they found Marsland living rough in a nearby wood. Amongst his possessions — and this was the clincher at the trial — they found a Webley Mark IV revolver, and a clip with two bullets missing. From the smell of gunsmoke, it was concluded that the revolver had been fired recently. This type of pistol was standard British issue during the First World War, and Marsland was a veteran of that conflict; he was one of the survivors at Ypres, as immortalised in McCrae’s poem
In Flanders Fields
.
    “As they dug deeper into Marsland’s past, they found that he hadn’t always been a homeless drunkard. In fact, after returning from the war he became a successful banker, until his wife left him. Then, he turned to drink, lost everything, and eventually became homeless. Only one goal kept him from using the pistol on himself: finding the man who had taken his wife — and his life — away. Of course, Harold Scott was that man — Marsland’s wife was one of the first of Scott’s companions. And when he saw him in that canal-path pub, well, that’s when the argument began.
    “Marsland never denied any of this, but he did deny doing anything afterwards. He claimed he left the pub in a