Read Cherringham--Death on a Summer Night for Free Online Page A

looked up where previously they had been trained on the floor, up to Jack.
    “—impossible to deal with … to go on …”
    The man nodded.
    Then Jack added quietly, “Just a few questions …”
    And the man slowly opened the door.
    *
    The TV now muted, and with no offer of tea, Vincent Taylor gestured at an easy chair with open gashes that showed the white stuffing beneath.
    Newspapers scattered on the floor, as if placed there for some as yet unseen pet.
    The open windows of the flat only let in more of the humid, hot air. These hot nights … had to be impossible to sleep in this place.
    Even from across the small living room, Jack could see a tower of dirty plates and pans in the primitive sink.
    Must have been a rough twenty-five years, Jack thought.
    And now with Tim Bell back in town …
    The man reached over to a small table for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He peered into the box, then stuck an index finger in and worked out a single, nearly crumbled cigarette.
    He lit it with a wooden match; took a deep drag.
    “Go on then,” Taylor said. “Your questions …”
    Jack leaned forward, hoping to keep whatever empathy he had built up with Dinah’s father.
    “Your wife … Mary? … She passed away?”
    Sarah had found that information online in one of the old village obituaries.
    The man nodded. “She moved away, ran off with that bloke, didn’t she. What happened to Dinah changed us. And that was Mary’s way, I suppose, of dealing. Leaving me.”
    “You stayed in the village?”
    That made Taylor look up. “Damn right I did. My village. Why the hell would I leave? Made sure that Bell got convicted, sent away — not that it did any good. He never would tell anyone what he did to my poor sweet girl.”
    “And what is it that you think happened?”
    “Think? Are you daft? Think? I know what happened. He tried to have his way with her … she was a good girl, Brennan, a good girl. Smart. Talented. And when she turned that bastid down, he lost it.”
    Another deep drag. “He killed her.”
    Jack would have liked to hear the father’s theory on what Bell did with the body — if murder was what happened. But he felt that would just be pouring fuel on an already raging fire.
    One thing Jack knew: Bell wasn’t safe in this village, not with Vincent Taylor and his hatred.
    Jack made a mental note to stop by the police station later; alert Alan Rivers that Taylor could use a warning.
    Maybe Bell as well …
    “Tell me, Mr Taylor, is there anyone else who might know something about that night?”
    The man nodded. “Um. Sure. Her friends I suppose, that girl Jen, and her mate Michelle … Dinah and them, always together, little gang they were.”
    Jack already had their full names, both interviewed in the papers during those early, desperate days of the search for Dinah. Sarah had already set up a meeting with them.
    But then—
    “And that Ollie bloke. Was her boyfriend for a while. Didn’t much care for him either — but he was no bloody ‘Tim Bell.’”
    “They broke up?”
    Taylor nodded.
    “Do you think Ollie could have done anything bad to Dinah?”
    The man crushed out his burned-to-the filter cigarette, and leaned forward. “Are you listening to me, Brennan? Tim Bell did this. He’s the damn killer who won’t say a word about where she is. We just need—” his eyes moved away, lips working with the powerful, threatening words — “someone to pry open his murderous mouth. Make him bloody well talk.”
    Taylor nodded, the inevitability of it so clear to him.
    “Someone will, mark you. Now that he’s here. Someone will …”
    Or — Jack thought — they’ll end up killing Bell.
    Sounds like Vincent Taylor would be up for that.
    Jack nodded.
    “One last question. This boyfriend, Ollie. Know where I might find him?”
    “Works with Pete Bull. Least, sometimes. Not the brightest bulb. Probably find him there.”
    Jack had been to Bull’s plumbing supplies many times, fixing up the