Read Kissing the Gunner's Daughter for Free Online Page B

Wexford said. "There must be other people on the estate. Someone looked after Davina Flory and her husband and daughter. I'm sure I've heard there's a housekeeper and maybe a gardener live in houses up here, tied cottages on the estate."
    had done little to damage them, or else death had already shrunk the veins. The hands were unadorned but for a plain gold wedding ring on the left one. The other had half-closed in death as the fingers contracted to clutch a handful of bloody damask.
    His sense of awe increasing, Wexford had stepped back to take in more fully this scene of horror and destruction, when the door crashed open and in walked the pathologist. Some moments before Wexford had heard a car draw up outside but had assumed it was only the return of Gerry Hinde and Karen Malahyde. It had in fact brought Dr Basil Sumner-Quist, a man who was anathema to Wexford. He would have much preferred1 Sir Hilary Tremlett.
    "Dear, oh dear," said Sumner-Quist, "how are the mighty fallen!"
    Bad taste, no, worse than that, outrageous, revolting lack of any taste at all, characterised the pathologist. He had once referred to a garrotting as 'a tasty little titbit.'
    "I suppose that's her?" He prodded at the blood-stained red silk back. The prohibition on touching dead bodies applied to all but himself. "We think so," Wexford said, keeping the note of disapproval in his tone to a minimum. He had no doubt shown enough disapproval for one night. "This is most probably Davina Flory, the man on the stairs is her husband Harvey Copeland and we guess that's her daughter. I don't know what she's called."
    "You finished?" Sumner-Quist said to Archbold.
    "I can come back, sir.'
    J5
    44
    The photographer took one last shot and followed Archbold and the forensics men from the room. Sumner-Quist did not delay. He lifted up the head by grasping the mass of grey-threaded dark hair. The pathologist's body hid the ruined half of this face and a noble profile was revealed, majestically high forehead, straight nose, a wide curved mouth, the whole scored with a thousand fine lines and deeper indentations.
    "Cradle-snatching when she picked him, wasn't she? She must have been at least fifteen years older."
    Wexford dipped his head.
    "I've just been reading her book, Part One of the autobiography. A life packed with incident, you might say. Part Two must remain for ever unwritten. Still, there are too many books in the world, in my humble opinion." SumnerQuist let out his shrill braying laugh. "I've heard it said that all women when they get old turn into goats or monkeys. She was a monkey, I'd say, wouldn't you? Not a sagging muscle to be
    seen."
    Wexford walked out of the room. He was aware that Burden was following him but he didn't look round. The anger which had been brewing in the restaurant, fermenting now from another cause, threatened to explode.
    He said in a cold dull voice, "When I kill him, at least it'll be old Tremlett doing the postmortem."
    * "Jenny's a great admirer of her books," said Burden, "the anthropology ones or whatever you
    45
    call it. Well, I suppose they're political too. A remarkable woman, she was. I gave Jenny the autobiography for her birthday last week."
    Karen Malahyde came into the hall. She said, "I wasn't certain what to do, sir. I knew you'd want to talk to the Harrisons and Gabbitas before it got too late, so I told them the bare facts. It seems to have come as a complete shock."
    "You did quite right," said Wexford.
    "I said it was likely you'd be along within the half-hour, sir. The houses, they're a pair, semidetached, are about two minutes away, down the lane that runs from the back garden."
    "Show me."
    She led him to the side of the west wing, past the broken bow window, and pointed to where the road skirted the garden and disappeared into the dark.
    "Two minutes in a car two minutes on foot?"
    "I'd say ten minutes on foot, but I'll tell Donaldson where they are, shall I?"
    "You can tell me, I'll walk."
    * *