Fate Worse Than Death Read Online Free PDF

been brief. The regulars never disagreed for long when they could unite in teasing her. They began to comment on the photographic model in Charley’s copy of the Sun , but were almost immediately diverted by the entrance of a villager who rarely visited the Flintknappers Arms from one year to the next.
    â€˜Well, if it isn’t young Christopher!’ said Reg, amused. ‘How are you, boy?’
    The newcomer’s youth was relative. Christopher Thorold was a solid man in early middle-age. But he had such an aura of shy, clean-shaven innocence that most of his fellow villagers found it impossible to treat him as anything other than a slow-witted adolescent. His greying fair hair stood up in unbrushed tufts. He wore a striped flannel shirt, tieless but buttoned at the neck and wrists despite the heat of the day, and a pair of old grey trousers that had been torn at the knee and mended with large uneven stitches of green thread.
    â€˜N-nicely, thank you,’ he replied to Reg’s question. He had no speech impediment, but shyness usually brought his first words out in a stammer. He stood uneasily just inside the door of the pub, shuffling his heavy boots and blinking eyelashes that were as thick and pale as a bullock’s. ‘Er – ’scuse me, Mrs Goodwin – will you be wanting a load of firewood?’
    The other men shouted with laughter. ‘Hottest August for half a century, and he’s talkin’about fires!’ boomed Charley Horrocks, slapping his meaty thigh.
    Christopher Thorold blinked unhappily. ‘I can let you have it a bit cheaper, you see, if you order it now,’ he appealed to Lois. He was another self-employed man, buying unusable wood from the Forestry Commission and hawking it from door to door.
    â€˜You’ll have to buy a drink now you’re here, Chris,’ said Reg. ‘Can’t come into a pub without. Me an’Stan are drinking pints –’
    â€˜And the same for me,’ rumbled Charley.
    Lois, who was temperamentally incapable of thinking in terms of profit, glared at the regulars. Recognizing Christopher as a fellow victim, she ordered a load of firewood from him and offered him a drink on the house. He refused; but nervously anxious to do the right thing, he took out his purse and insisted on buying a round.
    â€˜An’ don’t forget my friend here,’ said Stan, pointing to the gnome. ‘He drinks halves.’
    Christopher stared, bewildered. ‘I thought that belonged to Beryl Websdell,’ he ventured.
    Lois had forgotten about it. She went round the counter, picked the gnome up – gingerly, because of its coating of dirt – and put it on the floor at the back of the bar, intending to clean it and return it to its owner. Meanwhile, Stan had seen an opening for some fun at Christopher’s expense.
    â€˜How come you know that gnome belongs to Beryl?’ he wheezed with mock ferocity.
    Alarmed by Stan’s aggressiveness, Christopher explained uneasily that he recognized the gnome. He’d often seen it in Beryl’s garden when he went to deliver wood.
    â€˜Oh yes? Well, that’s now stolen property, that is. Somebody nicked it, and threw it in a ditch. The police have been enquiring about it.’
    Christopher’s eyelids opened wide for a moment, and then began to blink rapidly over his pale-blue eyes. ‘I didn’t know that …’
    â€˜They must have overlooked you, then, because they’ve been trying to find out who knew that Beryl had a gnome. I reckon you could be just the feller they want to talk to!’
    â€˜Very likely,’ agreed Charley, wiping away from his puffy lips the foam from the beer that Christopher had bought him.
    â€˜Definitely,’ confirmed Reg. ‘When you come to think about it, Stan, young Chris is the obvious suspect. Goes in an’ out of everybody’s garden, so he can take whatever he likes. Fancied a little