An Accidental Shroud by Marjorie Eccles Page B

well-built with it.'
    So he'd been moved from the scene of the crime, but why leave him where he would so quickly be found? And identified without too much difficulty? It wasn't easy to conceal a body, not permanently, but here there'd been no attempt. It had been a stinking night, though. The sort of weather to thwart even carefully laid plans, with power lines down, roads blocked with fallen debris. A panic attempt to get rid of the body? Common sense was telling Abigail that was how it might have been.
    The clothes he'd been wearing, soaked with rain and in a polythene bag ready to be gently dried out in the lab, had been good. Charcoal-grey trousers with a faint blue pinstripe, a self-striped silk shirt in pale grey. The tie Timpson-Ludgate had admired was a designer one patterned in blues and greens on dark grey, now patched with blood. Classy shoes and silk socks. The body had well-shaped hands, large with manicured nails, and an ink stain near the tip of the right middle finger. He'd kept himself in good condition, but his face, without the animation of life, said nothing except that he'd been a handsome guy with a firm chin, smooth-skinned and no slackness, going slightly bald at the front.
    Attractive to women, she suspected. The sort of man she'd have found attractive herself, maybe, if looks were all that mattered, with the sort of face you remembered.

10
    After stopping off at the station to make several phone calls, to arrange for the Scenes of Crime team to be sent to Nigel Fontenoy's home, and to leave a brief note of the PM findings for Mayo as she consumed a hasty sandwich, Abigail drove across to Cedar House Antiques, drawing in behind Carmody's car. Other police vehicles were already there, and a uniformed PC stationed by the shop door.
    The shop itself was part of a large stuccoed house at the corner of two intersecting roads just off the town centre, one of a pair at each end of a still elegant terrace of smaller Georgian houses, all with their own gardens stretching out in front. Some of the houses had now been turned into offices for architects, solicitors and the like, and emulsioned in pale Georgian colours. Painted a standard white, the Cedar House looked naked and less impressive than it had appeared when partly screened by the spreading dark green branches of the old tree. The discreet sign fixed to the wall – 'Cedar House Antiques' – on the other hand, was far more visible.
    She stopped for a moment to join the crowd gaping at the stricken tree, its roots indecently exposed, like a drunken woman showing her underwear. The rain had stopped and the damp air was resinous, reminiscent of Christmas trees. A photographer from the Advertiser was taking pictures for the next edition, looking round for a photogenic victim to pose against the tree's exposed root ball and demonstrate its awesome size. His eye fell on Abigail. She moved quickly before he could make the suggestion and tried to dodge a reporter from the same paper hanging hopefully around the double gates at the side. True to form, having got wind of something more dramatic than a fallen tree, they were already starting to sniff hopefully around. Cedar House Antiques was going to feature prominently in the local news this week, one way or another.
    'Go home,' she said, waving her hand as he approached her, 'we shan't be giving any more statements yet.' A press release had been issued, but had merely named the victim of a suspected mugging as Nigel Fontenoy, coupled with the usual routine appeal for information.
    The reporter had recognized her. 'Don't be like that, Inspector Moon! Your gaffer's just gone and I must say he was a bit more accommodating.'
    'Then you won't want anything more from me.'
    Been and gone already, had he, while she was at the PM? This was Mayo's idea of leaving her to it, she thought, disgruntled, but in no position to throw her weight around. She was satisfied that she'd set most of the necessary procedures in