The Lily-White Boys by Anthea Fraser Page A

flat. ‘Monica was escorted home, I take it?’
    â€˜Most definitely. I watched the procession set off myself.’ Hannah walked to the window and stood looking down the hill towards the lights of Shillingham.
    â€˜Is she in danger, David?’
    â€˜It’s difficult to say. The man must realize she’s had ample opportunity to pass on his description. Short of fingering him in an ID parade, there’s little else she can do.’
    â€˜She’s pretty jumpy. Unusual for Monica, she’s normally such a cool customer.’
    â€˜She said you were old friends?’
    â€˜Dating back to school, though she’s older than I am. I only got to know her well a few years ago, through Gwen, who was her contemporary.’
    â€˜Who else was at your dinner-party?’ he asked, handing her a glass of brandy.
    â€˜Gwen, and Dilys Hayward.’
    â€˜Ah yes, you’ve mentioned her before. Didn’t they do one of her sagas on TV a couple of years back?’
    â€˜That’s right, Changing Times. It’s being made into a film now.’
    â€˜You make a formidable group, the four of you.’
    She smiled, but absently, looking into her glass. ‘Do you know anything about the boys who were killed?’
    â€˜They were football hooligans, for a start.
    She looked up. ‘You think that’s why they died?’
    â€˜Could be. Rivalry with another team – probably SB. I’ve asked Chris Ledbetter to rope in his lot and interview them.’ DI Ledbetter ran a tight ship at Steeple Bayliss and knew all the local trouble-makers.
    â€˜But you don’t really think that was the motive, do you?’
    â€˜Well, they were involved in other shady dealings – breaking and entering, shoplifting. Continually up before the magistrates – including Miss Tovey – but we could never make it stick. To hear them plead, you’d think they were pure as the driven snow. Lily-White Boys indeed.’
    â€˜Gang warfare, then, between small-time crooks?’
    â€˜A possibility if they’d been found in some back alley. But in North Park Drive?’
    â€˜Ah, but that was a mistake, wasn’t it? The van broke down.’
    â€˜True. But what was it doing there in the first place? We’ve had reports of it being seen out by the Mulberry Bush on the Chipping Claydon road and again in the Wood Green lay-by. From there, there’s a direct road back to Shillingham without looping round North Park.’
    â€˜You don’t think it was deliberately left at Monica’s house?’ Hannah’s eyes were troubled.
    â€˜It seems to have been a genuine breakdown. According to Miss Tovey, he tried several times to restart it, but it was out of petrol. All the same, it’s the devil of a coincidence that she knew the twins.’
    He looked at her grave face and the tawny hair that fell forward as she stared frowningly into her glass. Gently he removed it from her hand. ‘Still, it’s nearly midnight, and no time to be thinking of vans and bodies and football hooligans. I’ve something much more interesting in mind.’
    She smiled and moved into his arms. ‘Really?’
    He laid his cheek against her hair. ‘Have you turned off the lights downstairs?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜And put the leftovers in the fridge so the cat can’t get at them?’
    She smiled into his shoulder. ‘Yes.’
    â€˜Really, Miss James, anyone might be forgiven for thinking you came up here to seduce me!’
    And he effectively cut off any reply she might have made.
    Across the town, Harry and Claudia Marlow were lying side by side in the big canopied bed. When she heard her husband sigh and turn over for the third time in as many minutes, Claudia reached up and switched on the light.
    â€˜Can’t you sleep?’
    â€˜No, I keep going over the arrangements for the Private View.’ He owned a small but prestigious art