Death Dues Read Online Free PDF

slow-moving milk cart. He noticed Llewellyn – always a nervous passenger when Rafferty was behind the wheel – clutch the edge of his seat with white-knuckled hands as the speedometer touched fifty-five. He eased back on the accelerator as he passed the milk float and said, 'You can let the seat go now. I was only doing fifty odd.'
    'In a thirty mile limited,' Llewellyn pointed out. 'That's breaking the law. And the wet roads won't help with braking distances.'
    Rafferty's lips pursed at this, but he said nothing further about it. 'As I said, this case has all the hallmarks of a turf war.'
    'Possibly,' said Llewellyn, his manner as dampening as the weather. 'But we ought to wait until we've got more evidence before we come to any conclusions.'
    'You can wait if you like. Me, I think we ought to consider every angle sharpish. If this does turn out to be a turf war we could face riots in the streets. Superintendent Bradley’ll be able to get his plump cheeks and shiny buttons on the telly again. He’ll like that. How about you? Fancy being a media celebrity?’
    Llewellyn’s shudder was answer enough.
    Silence fell, a silence that lasted until they reached the police station and Rafferty executed what he considered a nifty piece of parking. Which brought a protest from Llewellyn, followed by a strained atmosphere. To escape it, Rafferty made a speedy exit from the car, leaving Llewellyn and the strained atmosphere trailing.
    Rafferty popped into the gents. His hair was dripping annoyingly down the back of  his neck and his wet trouser ends flapped around his ankles with each step. He got the worst of the wet off under the hand dryer, propped up on one of the sinks to do his trousers.
    Dried off, he returned to his office to find Llewellyn busily engaged on the phone. Back at his desk, it wasn’t long before Rafferty was in possession of the list he had requested of adults and juveniles living in the houses on the oddly numbered side of the street. As Claire Allen had said, there were thirteen all told, including the pregnant single mother Tracey Stubbs, who lived at number nine and the two pensioners, Mrs Emily Parker and Mr Jim Jenkins, both of whom lived alone and whose houses were numbered thirteen and eleven respectively.
    Of the thirteen, Billy Jones, the younger son of the Joneses at number five, claimed to have been at work at the canning factory that backed onto both Primrose Avenue and the alley; another, Dennis Jones, the elder son, claimed to have been at the Job Centre on Elmhurst’s High Street from two-fifteen to three-thirty, and a third, Anthony Clifford of number three, said he had been putting up shelves at his soon to be mother-in-law’s two streets away prior to when the body was found.
    That still left ten of the residents who had the greatest opportunity to murder Harrison. Some of these had been with family members the whole time, so unless there had been collusion, their potential as suspects was lessened though not completely out of the park.
    Llewellyn came off the phone and Rafferty shared his conclusions. ‘A lot depends on what we manage to get out of those youths. If Sam Dally’s time of death is as accurate as it usually is, most will be in the clear. Providing, that is, their stories check out.
    ‘That leaves a bunch of students at number seven who all seemed to be out, Mr and Mrs Jones who are both unemployed and live at number five along with their two sons and the lodger Peter Allbright, Anthony Clifford’s live in partner Josie McBride at number three, Samantha Dicker, the lodger at number one, the pregnant Tracey Stubbs, plus the two pensioners. The family at number one, it has finally been discovered are currently on holiday in Spain, lucky buggers, though their lodger, Samantha Dicker said she was home at the estimated time of Harrison’s murder.’
    The residents on the other side of the street whose back gardens adjoined a separate alley had also been questioned, but as