Burying the Past Read Free Page B

you two go resigning! Not till you’ve paid us!’
    â€˜Quite,’ Mark said. ‘We can’t have Pact going bankrupt.’
    â€˜You mean you couldn’t face Paula doorstepping you till you coughed up. Who could? She’s a real pussy-cat, but crossing her is not something I’d recommend. Not that you would. Not that anyone does more than once.’ She added, ‘I only came down for a wee, anyway.’
    Fran laughed. ‘You came down because it looks as if the recovery team is about to start work and you wanted to see what they were up to.’
    â€˜I came down to say you can see much more from my ladder. But I don’t suppose you want to come up, do you, Mark? No? Now what’s going on?’
    All three watched. There seemed to be a lot of gesticulation towards the rectory.
    â€˜My God, they can’t want to make that part of the crime scene,’ Mark gasped.
    â€˜They won’t find much worth looking at,’ Caffy said flatly. ‘Not after all the work we’ve done. And had done by subcontractors who believed in brute force and ignorance. You want to tell them that every single floorboard has been replaced, downstairs at least, and joists too, so there’s nothing hidden down there. And we’ve had a very good look under those in the upper floors, remember.’
    â€˜And found not so much as a bent penny,’ Mark agreed. ‘Unless there’s something you haven’t told us?’
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ chirped Caffy, ‘like the bag of gold sovereigns we’ve flogged to pay for a joint holiday in the Bahamas. It’s funny – you’d have expected more, really. It’s almost, as Paula says, as if someone gave the place the spring-cleaning of its life before they moved out. Ironic, isn’t it, given the total chaos it fell into and which we, to be fair, have exacerbated.’ She pointed to the approaching car. ‘More of you lot?’
    Fran drifted the three of them towards the marked police car, wearing her least intimidating expression. After all, it was bad enough to be late on your first day in action; to find your DCS chatting to the Assistant Chief Constable (Crime) must be pretty terrifying. DI Kim Thomas, wearing a ridiculously elegant suit given the nature of the case, unfolded herself from the car, pulling down the pencil skirt with embarrassment. She looked straight out of school and was certainly no more than thirty-five. Her stance, all six foot of it, was as rigid as her poor mouth. ‘Sir. Ma’am.’ She saluted them both, as smartly as if she was in uniform. Fran supposed that Mark’s fancy dress, if not her muddied trousers, merited it.
    He responded with what Fran always called his friendly salute.
    â€˜Good morning, Kim. How’s the poor tooth?’ Fran asked, with a sympathetic smile.
    â€˜Temporary crown, ma’am.’ Or the nearest approximation to the words the frozen lips could form.
    â€˜We’re still at the forensic archaeology stage, as you can see,’ said Mark affably, ‘so the whole investigation’s a bit hypothetical. Fran and I are here only because we want to see what’s going on in our garden, and Caffy Tyler is one of the team working on the house restoration. Caffy, this is DI Kim Thomas, who’ll be in charge of the investigation—’
    â€˜Assuming it actually becomes one, of course,’ Caffy said, cocking a bright eye at him.
    â€˜Quite. Fran and I ought to head back to HQ, Kim, but I’d have thought Caffy could find you a cuppa to defrost that poor mouth of yours and fill you in on how we’ve had the rest of the crime scene destroyed before we even guessed there might be a problem.’
    â€˜Sir!’
    Caffy, ultra-casual, nodded. ‘I’ll find you some more sensible footwear too,’ she said with a sudden stern glance down. ‘We might mess up crime scenes, but we absolutely don’t