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LOUISE HARRIS
    CRUELLY TAKEN
    IN HER EIGHTEENTH YEAR
    ‘THE DAYS OF OUR YOUTH
    ARE THE DAYS OF OUR GLORY’ ‘Byron, Anna’s favourite poet, it’s taken from…’ ‘Stanzas written in the road between Florence and Pisa,’ Trevor interrupted.
    ‘ Wonders will never cease,’ Angela muttered. ‘I never thought I’d see the day when I’d meet a police officer who reads poetry.’
    ‘Some of us do, Mrs George.’ Like Angela, Trevor stroked the angel. Caught up in gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses, it was easy to lose sight of a victim in a murder case. He recalled the beautiful, vibrant girl in the photograph he had shown Peter. He looked down at the angel.
    He was disturbed by the thought that Anna’s corpse was lying beneath it. He owed it to her, her family and everything she might have been, to find out exactly who had planted David Morgan’s axe in her skull.
     

C H A P T E R S I X
     
    T REVOR LEFT THE CHURCHYARD and crossed the road to Church Row. The dozen cottages were detached, thick-walled, each set in its own large garden. They had been built in an age when landowners gave their tenant farm labourers enough land to grow their own food. The Morgans’ cottage was the first in the row. Trevor walked up the path and knocked at a wooden door badly in need of a coat of paint. He stepped back and saw that it wasn’t only the door that needed painting. The window frames were down to the bare wood in places and half of one of the downstairs frames was boarded up.
    The garden had been well planted. Among the weeds he saw mature rose bushes in need of pruning, clumps of lavender, carnations and peonies. It had obviously once been well tended, but like the churchyard it had been neglected. David Morgan’s services as gardener and handyman must have been missed by his mother.
    When Trevor raised his hand to knock on the door a second time, it was opened. Not by the elderly woman he had expected but a uniformed police sergeant.
    ‘Inspector Joseph,’ he introduced himself. ‘Is David Morgan at home?’
    ‘Yes, sir. I’m Sergeant Thomas – Mike, with the local force. We’re more informal in the country.’ He held the door open and Trevor walked directly into a sitting room.
    David and his mother were sitting side by side on a flower-patterned sofa. The wallpaper, curtains and upholstery were faded but spotlessly clean, and there were fresh flowers in a vase. The windows were small but they looked out over the back and side as well as the front garden. Given how small they were, the room was surprisingly light.
    David jumped up when Trevor entered. But his mother continued to sit, slumped on the sofa, clutching a handkerchief.
    ‘Hello, Mrs Morgan. David, I’m Inspector Trevor Joseph, and I’m here to re-examine the evidence in the murder of Anna Harris.’
    ‘See, Mam, I told you,’ David said proudly. ‘Mr Smith said the police would send a new officer to prove I didn’t kill Anna. He said…’
    ‘David,’ Mike broke in. ‘I think your mam would like a cup of tea.’
    ‘I’ll make one for all of us, shall I, Sergeant Thomas?’ David was as eager to please as a puppy in search of a tit-bit.
    ‘That would be nice, David, thank you.’ Mike waited until David was out of the room before handing Trevor a plastic evidence bag containing a sheet of paper. Scrawled in red crayon in childish capital letters were the words, KILLER GET OUT OR BE KILLED. YOU’RE NOT WANTED HERE.
    ‘Has David seen it?’ Trevor handed it back to Mike.
    ‘Yes. Not surprisingly it upset him. It was tied around one of these.’ Mike held up a second evidence bag containing four large stones.
    Trevor took them and examined them through the plastic.
    ‘You can pick up ones like them in any field around here but I thought it as well to ask forensics to check them out.’
    ‘You might strike lucky with DNA.’ Trevor handed them back. ‘Mrs Morgan, I am sorry. After everything you have been through you