Lois Meade 14 - Suspicion at Seven Read Free Page A

Douglas phoned. Shouldn’t you go and phone him back?”
    “Oh Lor, okay, okay. I’ll go into my office.”
    She went quickly into the cool, soothing quiet of her office and dialled her son.
    “Hello? Mum here. Did you want me?”
    “Just idle curiosity, Mother dear. Brigham Bakery is in the news today. Isn’t that the Blacks, opposite the hotel where that woman has been found dead in bed? I thought you might have an ear to Mrs. Black? Aren’t they Brooms clients?”
    “And I get my bread from them. Delicious it is, too, and Aurora Black is a very nice person. I count her as a friend. As for knowing anything more about the strangled woman, apart from the fact that her name was Sylvia Fountain and her occupation prostitute, then I don’t know anything.”
    “Fountain? An old and disreputable family here in Tresham, so the gossip goes. So possibly one for Inspector Cowgill and his brilliant sidekick, Mrs. Lois Meade? No, don’t answer that. The Fountains are known to be rich, largely as a result of dodgy dealings. Best not to have anything to do with any of them. We all love you, Mum, and don’t want to lose you. ’Nuff said! Bye for now.”
    *   *   *
    Lois spent the day visiting clients and checking over the accounts with Hazel in the Tresham office. She thought of calling on Susie, Douglas’s wife, but looked at her watch and decided the best thing would be to see if Cowgill was in his office and find out how much he knew about Tresham’s underworld in general and the Fountains in particular. He had spent a working lifetime in the area and probably knew all the villains, really bad, not so bad, and totally ineffectual. The Nimmos were another such family, and Dot Nimmo, a member of Lois’s team and cleaner extraordinaire, had opted out, more or less, but inside knowledge had proved invaluable in the past.
    “Afternoon, Mrs. Meade,” said the sergeant on the reception desk. “The inspector is in his office. Would you like to go on up and give him a nice surprise?”
    Inspector Cowgill’s partiality for Lois Meade was well known in the police station, and Lois said certainly not, she would be glad if he would wipe that grin off his face and enquire if the inspector was free.
    By the time she had climbed the stone steps to his office, he was standing at his door ready to welcome her.
    “To what do I owe this visit, Mrs. Meade?” he said formally, and then as soon as his door was shut, gave her a hug and drew up a chair for her.
    “It’s simple really,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about the families known to be involved in a network of crooks in this town and around. More as background information, really. Nimmos I know about, and now there’s the Fountains?”
    The next half hour Lois listened carefully as Cowgill gave her information about people she had never met. The Nimmos seemed to have been a bunch of Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, with no record of violence. Not so the Fountains. Mugging old ladies for their purses was a specialty.
    “So what are you going to do? And is there anything I can be doing to make life easier for Aurora Black?”
    “Trust me. I am sure you will be supporting her, and that is most important at the moment. She is carrying on with the bakery, and I suspect helping her is what you can do best. Now, Lois dear, unfortunately, much as I would love to keep you here for longer, I have a meeting to go to in five minutes. How’s the family? Matthew and Josie seem blissfully happy.”
    “And why not? Anyway, I have to go now. Work to do. Oh, and by the way, when you come to see me in my office, keep your voice down. Mrs. Weedon, alias Gran, has superefficient hearing.”

F IVE

    T he Blacks lived in the rear of their bakery, in an extension they had added years ago, when Aurora decided to set up her bread business in Brigham. They had one very precious child then, and had subsequently tried hard for another to be a companion for