Free Late of This Parish by Marjorie Eccles Page B

take himself along for a brief look around the house where Willard had lived, taking Wainwright with him and leaving to Kite the logistics of setting the investigation in motion. Kite made it plain he’d rather have been with him than coping with all the mundane details, but hard cheese. All part of the pecking order, mate. It was Mayo’s prerogative to leave him to it, just as it was Cherry’s to keep him waiting all bloody night if necessary.
    She’d a bit of a nerve, Mrs Oliver, scooting off like that, knowing she was a key witness to the time Willard had last been seen, he thought as they walked round the corner. Probably another bossy, self-possessed woman, much the same type as Mrs Thorne, to whom he had spoken a few minutes before.
    He was a little intrigued by Mrs Thorne. A large woman whom he judged to be normally good-tempered and probably loquacious, in this instance she had become suddenly tight-lipped when questioned, insisting that Laura Willard should be left alone. She’d reluctantly allowed him a few minutes with Laura after warning him that she’d been given sleeping pills and would be drowsy, and had subsequently sent him packing before there was any chance of being able to conduct a proper interview, which he felt he couldn’t decently insist upon in view of that young woman’s evident exhaustion. While conceding that Mrs Thorne was showing concern for her charge, Mayo, who could recognize evasion at fifty yards, left her alone for the moment. Interviewing the lady would have to wait until a more convenient time presented itself.
    Two roads led off Parson’s Place. One was the narrow, overhung Dobbs Lane, the other St Kenelm’s Walk. Things had changed since Saint Kenelm had walked there. It now began with half a dozen Georgian houses on the left-hand side and led to a path, fenced with iron railings, which overlooked the broad sweep of the valley and the river below and came eventually to the castle. On the opposite side of the road to the houses was a high brick wall which had at some more affluent and leisurely period been constructed to hide the sight of offending washing lines and privies in the backyards of the houses which fronted Main Street.
    The Willard house was the third one on the Walk. As the two police officers rounded the corner an ambulance was preparing to draw away from No. 2. ‘Hello,’ Wainwright said, ‘that’s old Mrs Crawshaw’s.’ He quickened his steps and spoke to the uniformed woman driver for a moment as she closed the back doors and then watched her quickly reverse out of the street and drive off. ‘Seems she’s been taken bad, poor old soul. Lives alone but she managed to get to the telephone. Dr Hameed’s had a busy night.’
    As the noise of the engine receded it was very quiet. Not a soul was in sight. In a town a crowd would have materialized within seconds at the sight of an ambulance. ‘Not very curious round here, are they?’ Mayo remarked.
    â€˜Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that! But the young married couple that live at No. 1 are away on holiday. And Mr and Mrs Vigo at No. 4 wouldn’t hear the last trump. Here’s the Willards’ house. Shall we go in, sir?’
    Wainwright was a young family man, painfully slow to Mayo who was used to quicker reactions in his men, but eager to be helpful and endowed with plenty of common sense. He’d been the village plod for some years and was seemingly content to stay in a place where he didn’t often have to work unsocial hours, the place was to his liking and he knew everyone, at least by name. The Reverend Willard, he said as they went into the house, had been known to him personally, in a manner of speaking. That is, Wainwright had called to see him officially on the occasions when Mr Willard had had cause to make complaints.
    â€˜In the habit of making them then, was he?’
    Wainwright scratched the side of his nose.