A Killing Resurrected Read Online Free PDF Page B

scratch – he’s very good on design – while Mrs Bergman did mostly bracelets and repair work. In fact we are rather low on gold at the moment, but it still amounts to quite a lot of money at today’s prices.’
    The crime scene, both in the shop and outside in the alley, were subjected to the closest forensic examination, but there was little to go on in the way of physical evidence: a few black threads caught on the door latch; a partial bloodstained footprint made by someone wearing trainers; and a patch of regurgitated breakfast on the carpet.
    Three days later, a dark blue van, reported stolen two days before the robbery, was found, still smouldering, in Collier’s Wood, a reforested area on the site of a strip mine abandoned in the early 1900s.
    It was clear from DI Rogers’ notes that he’d been convinced that all three jobs had been done by the same gang of four despite the obvious differences. While others cited the differences, Rogers concentrated on the similarities, such as the vans stolen just before the robberies, and destroyed by fire in remote locations afterwards. And, of course, there were the flash cards, dropped apparently in their hurry to leave after the killings. When shown to those involved in the earlier robberies, they all agreed they were identical to the ones they’d seen. But the clincher, as far as Rogers was concerned, was that the indentations left behind on the tables in the first two robberies, and those on the counter in the jewellery shop, were also identical according to Forensic.
    Rogers had been right, Tregalles thought as he closed the file, and now the notes Barry Grant had left behind confirmed it. But if evidence had been hard to find thirteen years ago, what were the chances of finding anything now?
    â€˜Well, what do you make of it, Tregalles?’ Paget asked. ‘It seems to me that DI Rogers was right in linking the three robberies, and the letters left behind by Barry Grant confirms it. As to what actually happened inside the jewellery shop, Grant only knows what he was told, unless, of course, he was lying, and he
was
inside the shop. On the other hand, it seems unlikely to me that he would lie about that when he was contemplating suicide.’ He frowned. ‘Unless the motive wasn’t robbery at all, but murder.’
    â€˜You’re thinking Mrs Bergman could have been the intended victim?’ Tregalles said. ‘And Taylor just happened to blunder in at the wrong time? Come to that, we don’t know for certain who died first, do we? I mean, Mrs Bergman could have been dead before Taylor came on the scene.’ He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t buy that,’ he said, answering his own question. ‘I can’t see a gang like that doing a contract killing. Not four or five of them, when one man could do the same job and still make it look like a robbery gone wrong.’
    â€˜Well, at least one thing is certain,’ said Paget briskly. ‘We’re not going to resolve anything sitting around here. So, I want you to get things started here first thing tomorrow morning, while I take a run up to Manchester to have a chat with Rogers.’
    â€˜What’s the matter with Marion Alcott?’ Grace asked when they were sitting down to dinner later that evening. ‘Have you heard any more since I talked to you at lunchtime?’
    Paget shook his head. ‘Haven’t heard a thing,’ he told her, ‘but I thought I’d give Alcott a ring later on this evening after visiting hours.’
    â€˜Have you ever met his wife?’
    â€˜Just once, and then only briefly.’
    â€˜What’s she like?’
    â€˜Hard to say. I don’t think we exchanged more than half-a-dozen words at the time. She’s small and quite a dainty sort of woman. Not quite what I’d expected Alcott’s wife to be.’
    â€˜Dainty?’ Grace eyed Paget quizzically.
    â€˜Well, small