Corpse in Waiting by Margaret Duffy Page A

investigate further, officially that is, without getting permission. I probably would not get it, no crime having been committed and all that. To carry on privately sleuthing would also involve going behind Patrick’s back and that was not right either. All that apart, my cat’s whiskers told me that Mr Kilmartin did not come from the kind of background to make such a call – and was hardly a hoodie – and the voice, unless whoever it was had disguised it, had sounded distinctly rough. There was a part of me that wanted to do as Patrick had suggested, let the whole thing drop, the house, that is. Perhaps I should just trust him.
    I do trust him, I love him to bits, but I still wanted Alexandra’s flesh boiled off her bones and fed to hyenas.
    â€˜Bugger everything,’ I muttered.
    My phone rang and it was James Carrick.
    â€˜I thought you’d like to know that the soil sample we took in the back garden is heavily contaminated with human blood,’ he informed me. ‘It’s the same blood group as the murder victim’s but, as you know, DNA testing takes a bit longer so we don’t yet have a positive match.’
    â€˜It has to be almost a foregone conclusion surely,’ I commented.
    â€˜Looks like it. Are you busy with anything in particular?’
    â€˜No, not really.’ Only in trying to write a book.
    â€˜Are you interested in talking to the owner of the house, Miss Hilda Bennett?’
    â€˜If you think it’ll do any good.’
    â€˜She’s suffering from dementia so it’ll be hard work. But I know you’re good with people.’
    â€˜Lynn didn’t manage to communicate with her?’
    â€˜It didn’t go at all well. And I have to say Lynn’s brilliant at her job but she can have a rather brusque manner with people who can be described as vulnerable.’
    â€˜I’ll have a go,’ I said. ‘She might not get many visitors and enjoy talking to someone.’
    â€˜Lynn said she found herself talking to an Easter Island statue.’
    â€˜I assume she didn’t bring up the subject of the murder.’
    â€˜Of course not. I told her just to say she was with the police and checking up on empty properties. The last thing I wanted to do was distress her. What I could really do with is knowing whether her nephew was living there around the time we think the woman was killed.’
    â€˜I’ll have a go.’
    â€˜Shall I arrange it for you?’
    This he did and, at just before two thirty that afternoon I walked up the drive to a medium-sized house with a modern extension situated off the Wells Road. Frail and elderly people, some seemingly completely comatose, were being pushed around the garden in wheelchairs by relatives or uniformed carers and not for the first time I came to the conclusion that I would rather end up beneath the wheels of a large, red London bus than like this.
    â€˜Another police person?’ sniffed the woman on the reception desk.
    â€˜Miss Langley’ll do fine,’ I assured her. I write under my maiden name.
    Miss Bennett was one of those remaining indoors. She sat, apparently dozing, in a chair in a corner of a lounge. A few other residents were also in the room, but not sitting close to her, some asleep, others staring blankly at a television screen, the set switched on but with the sound turned almost right down.
    â€˜Miss Bennett?’ I said softly, pulling up a chair. ‘My name’s Ingrid Langley. May I speak to you for a few minutes?’
    There was a slight start so at least she was not hard of hearing.
    â€˜How are you?’ I asked.
    There was no response.
    â€˜You may or may not remember Sergeant Lynn Outhwaite coming to see you to ask you a few questions about your house.’
    I was slightly shocked for she was not an old woman, surely she could not be much more than fifty-five to sixty. Her dark-brown hair was lank and tied back with a