A Late Phoenix (21 page)
Authors: Catherine Aird
Leeyes grunted. “And now you're going to tell me you knew it was him all along?”
“No, sir. But I did know roughly when and how and why the girl was killed and so when ⦔
“âI keep six honest serving men,'” quoted the superintendent jovially. “Do you know that one, Sloan?”
“Yes, sir.” Sloan sighed. He knew it all too well. Someone had onceâin a misguided momentâtaught Superintendent Leeyes what they had called the policemen's poem. Rudyard Kipling's
The Serving Men
. Sloan hoped they had lived to regret it.
“âThey taught me all I knew,'” sang on Leeyes.
“Yes, sir,” responded Sloan politely. It was not for him to say that the policeman's lot was not a happy one.
“âTheir names are What and Why and When â¦'”
“Quite so, sir.” Sloan himself preferred a more neutral police approach: like “And what appears to be the trouble, madam?” or evenâat a pinchâConstable Crosby's “Now then, now then, you can't do that there here.”
“âAnd How and Where and Who,'” finished the superintendent triumphantly.
“As far as the Who is concerned, sir ⦔ There was only ever one way to take the superintendent and that was literally.
“Well?”
“There was only one person who fitted in every particular and that was Mark Reddley. He married an architect's daughter for a start. That must have given his career a leg up. And he did all the different designs for the various development projects on the Lamb Lane site over the years. Garton and Hodge didn't do that. I checked. And their marriages weren't important to their careers either.”
“Marriage is always important to a career, Sloan. You should know that.”
“Reddley,” said Sloan, ignoring this cynical aphorism, “must have been able to tell in advance that his designs would be rejected when he wanted them to be and also accepted when he thought the danger was past.”
“Last June ⦔
“One danger was past, sir. Mrs. Cardington had died. But a fresh danger had arisen. That was that official planning had reached such a pitch that the council were going to develop if Reddley didn't.”
“So the old doctor had to die, too.”
“I'm afraid it looks like it.”
“Anything else?”
“It was Mark Reddley and Associates who should have given proper notification of intended digging for foundations to the council so that Mr. Fowkes at the museumâamong other peopleâshould know about it. And he didn't.”
“Didn't want the archaeologist grubbing about,” agreed Leeyes sagely.
“Certainly not, sir. And he didn't want the council doing the designs either. He wanted to do the layout himself.”
“I can quite see that. To reduce the chances of the skeleton being found in the first place.”
“Yes, sir.” Sloan frowned. “I should have guessed earlier about that. Gilbert Hodge kept saying he couldn't understand why Reddley designed the new building like he had done. He also told me Reddley wanted some symbolic statuary there ⦔
“Ha! Now at those psychology classes I went to, Sloan ⦔
“Reddley was too clever to buy the land himself,” went on Sloan hastily, “but he took steps to keep in with Hodge. If anything did happen to be found suspicion was bound to fall on the Waite brothers first and then Gilbert Hodge.”
“Only Harold Waite thought he was cleverer.”
“Or, perhaps, he just wanted to do a little checking on the quiet first.”
“He was unlucky,” said Leeyes.
“So was Reddley,” said Sloan. “I reckon he had two bits of bad luck actually. The man putting the marker in just happened to strike that spot. That was something he couldn't foresee.”
“And the other?”
“The bullet staying in the body, sir. Its lodging in the spine like that was pure chance. And without the bullet we'd never have known it was murder ⦔
The superintendent wasn't listening any more. He was staring out of his window as if mesmerized.
“Look, Sloan. At Dick's Dive. Over there. That hair. It's halfway down the chap's back. And waved ⦔
Sloan gathered up his notes and made for the door. Mark Reddley's hair had been cut to regulation length, his appearance routinely masculine and his clothing rigidly conventional. And he had killedâquite ruthlesslyâthe three people who stood between him and his personal ambition. Perhaps the hair didn't matter after all â¦
Detective Inspector Sloan hadn't been back in his own room very long before Detective Constable Crosby came in.
“Message just through from Mr. Esmond Fowkes, sir. The museum man.”
“Well?”
“He's been working on the Lamb Lane site, sir. Looking for those Saxon remains.”
“Has he indeed?”
“Seems as if he's found them, sir. Some bones. Late Saxon. Wants to know what to do with them ⦔
Sloan told him exactly what he could do with them.
About the Author
Catherine Aird is the author of more than twenty volumes of detective mysteries and three collections of short stories. Most of her fiction features Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan and Detective Constable W. E. Crosby. Aird holds an honorary master's degree from the University of Kent and was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to the Girl Guide Association. She lives in a village in East Kent, England.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1971 by Catherine Aird
Cover design by Tracey Dunham
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1068-9
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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