Not In The Flesh Read Online Free PDF Page B

conversation all the time, and with the Victorians it was death. We talk about our insides. Ah, well. Now, we have a precise date for the burial, if not the death. Probably death occurred hours or, at most, days before. Whoever killed X must have known about the trench. It's not visible from Pump Lane or the Kingsmarkham Road.”
       “It would be visible from windows.”
       “Yes, we shall have to check that. I'd guess Athelstan House, Oak Lodge, and Marshmead, wouldn't you? Possibly Flagford Hall too. Was he a local man, Mike? Or was he here on a visit? Eleven years is a long time. We're going to get pretty tired of that phrase before we're done. Most of them, young or old, walked across that land regularly. However much Grimble dislikes it, all the houses that abut the field have got gaps in their fences or even gateways that give them access.”
       “Have we taken into account the predecessors of those residents who weren't there eleven years ago?”
       “Barry's working on it,” said Wexford, “with help from the Hunters. I'm hoping they're the sort of old people who know everything about who lived where since time immemorial. They haven't a clue about what happened yesterday or their own phone numbers, but when it comes to years back, they're recording angels.”
       “Who's seen the Tredowns?”
       “I'm reserving them for myself. They're my tomorrow morning treat. Want to come? I want Hannah to have a look at our sparse missing-persons list along with Lyn.”

    Eight years before, although quite a large number of men remained missing in the greater mid-Sussex area, there were only two in Kingsmarkham and its environs, which included Flagford. Trevor Gaunt was listed as being sixty-five at the time, which made him an unlikely candidate.
       “Unless Carina Laxton is way out with her calculations,” said DC Lyn Fancourt. “I never will understand how they can say someone's been eight or ten or, come to that, twenty years dead just by poking about with bones. Or how old they were.”
       Hannah laughed. “They can, though. You just have to accept it. She could be a year or two out on the age but not twenty years. This old boy isn't our man. He probably dropped dead somewhere,” she said with the callousness of youth, “and they never found the body. Who's the other one?”
       “A guy called Bertram Farrance. This list doesn't give much in the way of detail, does it? I mean, all it gives is his age, which was thirty-eight, his address, and that he was reported missing by his wife.”
       “What do you expect? You see the telly. You know what they all say. ‘He went out to buy the evening paper at five and when he hadn't come back by six I was devastated, I didn't know what to do. He'd never done that before,’ et cetera, et cetera.”
       “It can't always be like that,” said Lyn, laughing.
       “You could get over there—where is it? Station Road?—see if the woman's still there.”
       It went against the grain with Hannah to refer to any woman, even though she might have been married for forty years, was called Mrs., and had taken her husband's name, as a wife. She had an even stronger objection to “lady,” a word she had found out came from the Anglo-Saxon “lafdig,” meaning “she who makes the bread.” Lyn Fancourt thought she was quite right and admired her for the stand she made, but, just the same, wasn't it a bit silly?
       “I love your ring,” she said.
       “Between ourselves, I could have done without. I feel quite committed enough to Bal without wearing a shackle on my finger. But he wanted it, so what can you do? There's no need to get married, just because you wear a ring.”
       Lyn walked down to Station Road. It wasn't far and walking was good for her. When she had weighed herself that morning she found she had gained sixty-two grams. It wasn't that much, but it troubled her and she tried to think what extra calories she had consumed