Read Nameless Kill for Free Online Page B

make out.
    The place smelled musty, too. Like that classic old person’s smell. What was it about old people that made them smell that way? Was it something they released? If so, what age would he start giving it off? Sixty? Seventy?
    Hopefully later rather than sooner.
    “Enjoying your tea?” Mrs. Delforth asked.
    Brian gulped down a sugary mouthful of hot tea and smiled at Mrs. Delforth. “Delicious, thanks. Anyway, we just thought we’d pop by to see‌—‌”
    “We have a few questions we wouldn’t mind you answering,” DS Carter cut in, glaring at Brian with those squinty brown eyes that said, “I’m the HtoH here. I’ll do the talking.”
    Mrs. Delforth kept on grinning at Brian with her few teeth as DS Carter placed a questionnaire on her lap.
    “Mrs. Delforth,” DS Carter said, impatience in her voice. “It’s our duty to inform you that there’s been a really terrible crime in your area.”
    Mrs. Delforth’s wrinkly old eyelids narrowed. She looked at the standard HtoH questionnaire printed from HOLMES and scanned down it with her spindly old finger. “But I…‌but I thought this was about‌—‌about the kids. About those bloody kids who always bash on my doorbell. What’s…‌what’s this about?”
    “Murder,” Brad cut in, staring into space.
    There was a moment’s silence around the room. Mrs. Delforth’s face warbled into all sorts of shapes and expressions, getting her head around Brad’s bloody stupid splurting of the crime. He’d said it without a care in the world for the thoughts or opinions of a poor old lady.
    “Murder? I…‌Oh good grief.” Mrs. Delforth rose to her feet with a struggle. Her bottom lip shook as she walked towards the pile of old hoarded items and started shuffling them around, metal clinking, papers crumpling against each other. “I…‌I thought it was just kids messing around. But murder. Murder. Oh, goodness. God save us all.”
    “Mrs. Delforth,” DS Carter intervened, glaring at Brad as he examined the room. “We don’t mean to alarm you. We just want to know if you’ve seen anything out of the ordinary over the last couple of days.”
    Mrs. Delforth shook her head as she returned to her chair. Her hands fumbled with the edge of her nighty. “No. Oh no. I‌—‌I don’t go outside unless I need to go to the shop. And‌—‌and even then my daughter helps me out. Lovely girl, she is. Not been in a few weeks, but gets the online shopping thingy for me. Lovely girl, my Claire.”
    DC Finch tutted. The feeling inside Brian matched Finch’s actions. They were wasting time here. The housebound old nutter didn’t have a clue what had happened to the mystery unidentified girl on Avenham Park. And surely now forensics and the pathologist would have some information. Clothing. Potential DNA or fingerprints. Shit‌—‌even just a confirmation of the cause of death would suffice at this stage.
    “Well we appreciate your hospitality,” Brian said, standing, placing his empty tea cup down on the dusty wooden coffee table. His mouth was awash with tea leaves, which had clearly sneaked out of the teabag as Mrs. Delforth squeezed them just too hard. “We should probably‌—‌”
    “The girl was found down in that stream at the edge of the park,” Brad cut in. He pulled open the brown curtains and pointed through the stained windows, out at the lengthy grass and towards the trees of the Avenham Park stream about two-hundred metres in that direction. “She was found with her hands bound together. Looks like her ankles were tied up too, but came loose at some point. From our preliminary studies, it looks like she was strangled.”
    Brian held his mouth closed, resisting intervention, his cheeks heating up. DS Carter’s mouth had opened. DC Finch looked like a rabbit in the headlights, standing there holding his cooling brew. What the hell was Brad thinking speaking to this old woman in this way?
    “Now we appreciate your cooperation,”