Free Death on the Eleventh Hole by J. M. Gregson Page A

probably been preceded by a struggle, since there were tiny skin samples and a single hair under the girl’s fingernails, which had been retained for DNA sampling in the event of an arrest.
    Hook, listening gravely with Rushton as Lambert took them through the report, said, ‘It wasn’t premeditated, then. Not if they had a fight beforehand.’
    ‘Maybe she just saw the wire and realized what he had in mind,’ said Lambert. ‘Or perhaps he didn’t originally intend to kill her, but found she wouldn’t agree to what he wanted. He had a wire or cord conveniently at hand to kill her with. Maybe that was his last resort.’
    ‘What he wanted probably wasn’t sex,’ said Hook. Looking further down his photocopy of the PM report, he found a few baldly stated facts which no doubt summarized years of emotional encounters. There was no evidence of recent sexual intercourse. The girl was not pregnant, and never had been. But the organs indicated that she had had considerable sexual experience.
    Rushton nodded at that point. ‘She was on the game, apparently,’ he said. He gave his account of what the peroxided prostitute had told him on the previous afternoon, as they dried dishes together in the kitchen of St Anne’s House.
    Lambert regarded him curiously for a moment, then commended his initiative in visiting the refuge run by Father Gillespie. He knew St Anne’s House himself, as did Hook, and wondered what the rather strait-laced, straight-thinking Rushton had made of the place and its occupants. He asked, ‘Have we confirmed the address for Kate Wharton?’
    ‘Yes. It’s the one Mrs Eastham gave us on Tuesday. Matthew Street, Gloucester. There’s a Scene of Crime team in there now.’
    Lambert nodded. ‘There’s something odd there. The girl old Ma Eastham said she shared the flat with hasn’t come forward.’
    Rushton pressed a couple of buttons on his computer. ‘Tracey Boyd. Yes, she should have been the first one to notice any absence. But she still hasn’t been in touch with us. And Kate Wharton’s name is carried in all the papers this morning. It was probably in the Gloucester Citizen and on the television news last night. We released it at noon yesterday, after her mother had made the official identification.’
    Lambert made a note of Tracey Boyd’s name and the number of the house in Matthew Street. ‘There may be some simple, innocent explanation for that: she might just have been away for a long weekend, or thought that Kate Wharton was away. But Bert and I will need to have a word with Miss Boyd.’
    Bert Hook said, ‘The mother needs investigating. I’ve seen her twice, though not for questioning: the first time was to inform her of the death, the second was to take her for the identification, so I couldn’t press her much. Either she masks her feelings exceptionally well, or she’s very little affected by this death. I can’t make up my mind which.’
    Lambert looked at him gravely. It was very unusual for the stolid but surprisingly perceptive Hook to be baffled like this. ‘Obviously you couldn’t probe much, in those circumstances. But we’ll need to get to the bottom of how she feels and how much she knows about this death.’
    Bert said diffidently, ‘There is one thing I noticed. There was no man around on either of the occasions I visited her house: that’s hardly surprising, since each time it was during the day. However, she gave me the impression she lived alone, and there was nothing in her living room to suggest a man. But when I went to collect her yesterday morning, there were men’s clothes drying on the washing line.’
    Lambert nodded slowly. ‘There’s no surprise that there should be a man around a youngish widow’s skirts, whether permanently or temporarily. But as you say, the fact that she seems to be trying to conceal it may have some interest for us. We’ll need to check he had no connection with the murder, whether Mrs Wharton likes it or