Bricks and Mortality: Campbell & Carter 3 Read Free

wants his son to realise that it needs to be earned. I’m not saying this was the case with Sebastian and Gervase.’
    ‘No, of course not,’ Jess assured him.
    ‘It’s natural for there to be an element of rivalry in the relationship between a maturing young male and his father. In animal terms, you’d call it a challenge to the established leader of the herd or pack, that sort of thing. You probably watch some of the nature programmes on television. The younger man feels he has to prove himself. Sometimes he relishes the challenge and, well, sometimes he resents it. You know, just drops out and refuses to try, a sort of proving himself in a different way – by
not
doing what’s expected of him. After he left school Gervase disappeared for about a year, backpacking as they do. I understand he got as far as Australia and discovered surfing. When he reappeared round here, well, he’d got used to doing as he pleased, I suppose. He started getting into trouble, but it’s not my business to tell you about that. It wasn’t a good situation. Sebastian stopped mentioning him.’ Layton frowned.
    ‘What about Mrs Crown?’ Jess prompted, anxious this unexpected source of information should not dry up.
    ‘Mrs Crown? Oh, you mean Sebastian’s wife. She left them – husband and child – when the boy was very young, about ten or eleven years old. Ran off with another fellow, some people said.’ Perhaps to change the subject he added, ‘I’ll be retiring next year. Times flies.’
    Jess thought this over. ‘How old would Gervase Crown be now?’
    The doctor considered. ‘Mid-thirties? He lives abroad somewhere. I don’t know why he didn’t just sell this place if he didn’t want to live in it. Open invitation to dropouts of all kinds to move in.’
    ‘Was it furnished? It’s hard to tell at the moment.’ Jess smiled encouragingly.
    Layton was fidgeting again. The general drift of the conversation worried him. He hadn’t meant to linger and chat, certainly not about even an ex-patient, Sebastian Crown. He’d been keen to stress that Gervase Crown had not been a patient, but he was treading very near the thin divide between professional discretion and ‘helping the police’. There was a dead body in the wreckage, that couldn’t be overlooked. How it got there would be the subject of an extensive inquiry. He’d come here to certify death, nothing more. He was being drawn in more deeply than suited him.
    ‘Oh, no idea! Shouldn’t have thought so. If any furniture were left in it, someone would have stolen it by now! I believe young Gervase moved the furniture out or sold it. He probably sold the antiques at auction. I dimly remember some kind of sale taking place. But I’ve never heard that he sold the family home as well. I think I’d have found out if he ever had. That sort of thing soon gets round. It matters hereabouts if you’re going to have new neighbours.’
    He’d opened the car door in a purposeful manner. Her source of information had been stemmed. Jess thanked him for coming.
    ‘All part of the job,’ the doctor said, cheerful now that he was getting away. ‘Pity it’s not a murder, I could increase my fee.’
    Jess watched him drive off. Like Layton, she wouldn’t normally be at the scene, not at this stage and not in the absence, so far, of foul play. But the uniformed officers first to arrive had been called away to a traffic incident on the main road. When the call came in about a body being found, she had been free and she had jumped in her car and come. Now she turned to the spectators. Anticipating her actions, the two travellers had already melted away and she was left with the tall man and the woman with the pug.
    She approached the tall man first because he seemed to be expecting it, and introduced herself. He treated her to careful assessment before he informed her that his name was Roger Trenton. He lived a little under half a mile away at Ivy Lodge. He had seen the red glow