Death of an Old Git (The Falconer Files - File 1) Read Free

and watched with amusement as young Tristram toddled unsteadily out of the teashop door, only to be scooped up within six steps, and carried, bawling in protest, back into the cool, safe interior.
    Hearing the yapping of a dog behind her, she turned to see Reg Morley, nearly as old as her, only a couple of years behind her at school, emerge from the musty interior of Crabapple Cottage with his Jack Russell. As he bent to clip on the little dog’s lead, a head emerged from an upstairs window next door in Jasmine Cottage to issue an ultimatum. ‘You just make sure that mangy mutt of yours does his business while you’re out and doesn’t save it up for my back garden later.’ Muttering under his breath, old man and dog set off to see what sport the afternoon had to offer, Reg pulling viciously on the lead when the dog veered off in excitement at an interesting scent.
    Martha Cadogan, having exhausted her supply of stale bread on the ducks who resided at the village pond, sat down on the bench next to the war memorial to watch the continuation of the Castle Farthing Sunday afternoon perambulations, in the hope of a conversation or two. The fair weather currently prevailing boded well for St Swithin’s Day on the fifteenth, and thus the superstitious promise of fair weather to come should prove a good opening gambit.
    Shadows were beginning to lengthen when the squeak of the church gate announced that either someone had mistakenly turned up for Evensong, or the shortcut from the woods had been selected in preference to going round the long route on the Carsfold Road.
    As the catch caught with a ‘snick’, a still-energetic Buster bounded round his master’s feet, slowing the old man’s already arthritic progress to a funereal crawl. Reg Morley did not seem to notice the joyous capering of his pet, as he looked alternately cunning and confused, even stopping at one point, at the corner of Church Street and the High Street, to raise the greasy peak of his ancient flat cap and give a tentative scratch at his head with a grimy, broken-nailed finger, as he stood contemplating something in the middle distance. A perplexed smile creased his forehead as he muttered to himself, ‘I knowed that one. I’d’ve knowed that voice anywhere. That other though – can’t place it. But who’d’ve thought it. Dirty buggers!’
    Finally rousing himself from this reverie, he gave a sharp tug on the dog’s lead and, getting no response, used his foot to gain attention, before heading the few yards to his own front door, whistling softly to himself, half a twinkle forming in his age-dimmed, rheumy eyes.
    Even if the old man had realised that this was to be his last day on this earth, he would still have been surprised at what a busy and informative evening he would pass, before leaving this vale of tears to meet his maker. Oblivious to what was to occur over the next few hours, Reg Morley lit the gas under his old tin kettle, switched on the radio, and opened the back door to let Buster out to run off the last of his energy before bedtime. The action was about to commence as fate marched inexorably towards his shabby abode.
    II
    Castle Farthing is a smallish village, too far east to be deemed in the ‘West Country’, and too far west to be considered a part of the south-east. A small-ish village in an area of many such small-ish villages, it occupies an enviable position in a shallow valley bordered, on the north, by a stream and the ruins that gave it its name, and, to the south, by agricultural land and woods. Farms also line the roads leaving Castle Farthing to east and west.
    As far as small-ish villages go, it can afford to be slightly smug, as it is on the picturesque side. A diamond-shaped village green at its centre is home to a duck pond, a war memorial, several venerable oak trees, and two benches, where passers-by can sit and enjoy a shady umbrella of leaves in the summer.
    The Carsfold Road enters the village from roughly