A Grave Death

by Wendy Cartmell

  Mrs Beadle grabbed her cup and saucer which rattled alarmingly as she tried to take a sip. Crane leaned over and took the saucer from her, so she only had the cup to contend with.

  Once she’d finished having a drink of tea and returned the cup to the tray, Derek asked, ‘Do you think you can continue, Mrs Beadle?’

  ‘Yes, sorry, it’s just that it upsets me to hear him like that.’

  ‘I’m sure it does, that’s perfectly natural, Mrs Beadle. How did the conversation go after you told him you had no money?

  ‘I asked him again to come home. Come back to England, get a job and find somewhere to live. Near me would be wonderful, of course, but I don’t want to presume or be a burden on anyone. But he said no, he couldn’t come back. When I pressed him, he got really upset again and said it was because Christine’s parents where dead and didn’t I see that? He started to cry. But I had to try and find out what on earth he was talking about, so I quizzed him some more.

  ‘Well that’s the first I’ve heard of it, I said, and he got really angry then. He screamed that Christine did it. Did them in, were his words. It was all her fault. He was stuck there because she’d murdered them. He hated her. He hated the heat, the Spanish, the English abroad, his dad for dying and me for having no money. At which point he put down the phone and I haven’t heard from him since.’ Mrs Beadle dashed away her tears and took a deep breath.

  ‘Are you worried about what might have happened to your son since the phone call?’ asked Crane. ‘Because we don’t have any jurisdiction in Spain, although we do work with our Spanish colleagues from time to time.’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’m not really worried about him. He won’t have done anything to himself, he’s too much of a coward and was obviously on one of his drinking binges, which to be honest from what I hear, are becoming more frequent. I’m actually more worried about Mr and Mrs Cleaver, Christine’s parents.’

  ‘You think he was serious then? About his wife’s parents having been murdered?’ asked Derek, putting his cup back on the tray. For once he’d really enjoyed the cup of tea, it being nice and strong without too much milk. Too often people were distracted by the visit from the police when making tea, which as a result was pretty much undrinkable.

  Mrs Beadle paused to think. ‘Well I haven’t actually seen them for years, probably not since the wedding if I’m honest. But just out of interest I rang the telephone number I had for them, but it was unobtainable.’

  ‘Well they’ve probably moved,’ Crane said. ‘People do.’

  ‘Yes, they do and there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for them no longer being at that number. But what if Ronald is right? What if Christine did kill her parents? Don’t you think we owe it to them, as human beings, to try and find out?’

  Derek could only agree with that sentiment. As far as he was concerned Mrs Beadle was a very credible witness. It looked to him like their first cold case had just begun.

  You can continue A Cold Death which is available to buy or borrow on Amazon.