by Gwen Moffat
‘I see why he was so frightened yesterday morning; Rumney thought he was worried because we’d turned up to accuse him of stealing sheep.’
‘He was right, in a sense. I’d given Mossop a hearing over the affair of his wife and I’d allowed him to assume that he’d convinced me he hadn’t killed her and that he hadn’t been responsible for all the police activity afterwards, just unlucky. I hadn’t let him off the hook though because he was more useful to me while I had a good hold on him, but he thought he might be in the clear if he behaved himself and did as he was told. Then you come in and accuse him of stealing sheep—and he was supposed to be working for us, not running his own little side-lines!’
‘Are you associated with the people employing him, Mr Cole?’
‘Oh no, dear!’ He was shocked. ‘Heaven forbid! They’re East End boys!’
‘What do you deal in?’
‘We’re going to get into hot water with that nice chief inspector if we don’t report the accident. Oh hell, think of all the questions they’re going to ask! Let’s go up to Storms and fortify ourselves and start telephoning. We’ve got a busy night ahead.’
*
When the level of the river went down, the Jensen was raised and inside it they found, beside the drowned body of Lucy Fell, a suitcase containing fifty thousand pounds in used banknotes. Harper said that the money had been lent to him by Daniel Cole, but Mr Cole was unable to confirm this because he was not available. However, Miss Pink corroborated the story but she was unable to say anything about Mr Cole’s activities other than that she understood him to be a journalist.
The inquest on Peta Mossop was resumed and the verdict on both her and Jackson Wren was murder by Lucy Fell; that on Caroline and Lucy Fell was misadventure, which had a peculiar appositeness.
Sarah was a casualty; she got two years but, as she wrote to Miss Pink, time was relative and those two years could not be as bad nor as long as the weeks since she’d killed the hiker.
No one chased Mossop, who put Storms up for sale and went to Newcastle.
Harper gave up the lease of Burblethwaite. Daniel S. Cole had disappeared as soon as the Throat was passable, leaving behind a fortune in hot money, a suitcase from Istanbul and a visiting card—which was genuine, but the David Ramet Institute of Environmental Studies and the Hampstead address never saw him again. He vanished in the Smoke.
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