Still Waters Read Online Free PDF

her, come to think of it.
    ‘I just hope he lives to enjoy his retirement,’ Pete was saying.
    ‘Is there any reason he shouldn’t?’ she demanded, anxious.
    ‘Only the statistics,’ he said. ‘Longer you work, sooner you die.’
    ‘Well, there’s an encouraging fact,’ she said. ‘Actually, Jim was talking about someone else’s death. Possibly a suicide. But maybe not.’
    He stared, clearly not placing the case immediately. Then light dawned. ‘Ah! Alec Minton. The old guy who topped himself in Hythe. Ten days back.’
    ‘Definitely topped himself?’
    ‘No evidence so far to the contrary at least.’
    She nodded. ‘Any idea why? It was his choice of venue that intrigued Jim – and now, of course, me. It’s infectious, isn’t it?’
    Pete looked as if curiosity was a bug he didn’t have time to catch.
    ‘I suppose the hotel room is no longer preserved as a scene of crime?’ she prompted.
    He shook his head. ‘The SOCO team gave it the spring-clean of its life. Considering the hotel’s only been open a year, there was a remarkable amount of grime. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Anyway, there was no evidence at all of any foul play, so it’s back in use, I should imagine.’
    ‘But not popular with the punters, unless they happen to have a dust allergy!’
    ‘His flat is still as he left it, though. No relatives that we can trace.’
    ‘Any chance of a conducted tour? OK, an unconducted one, since you’re clearly going under.’
    He shook his head and reached for his jacket. ‘Maybe a breath of sea air would clear my head – and I mean literal sea air. The place is right on the front at Hythe, one of those modern blocks you pass if you walk eastward along the promenade. And maybe seeing the place with a fresh pair of eyes would cast some light.’
    ‘Great. Meanwhile, can you get someone to photocopy the file on him? Just the main pages, at this stage. I can pick them up when we get back.’
     
    Fran had always liked Hythe, a small town that still managed to clutch some vestiges of individuality about it, though every time she walked down the pedestrianised High Street afamiliar shop seemed to have gone belly up to be replaced by another charity outlet. Some obliging author had included the place in a book of crap towns, presumably because it didn’t have much appeal for
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. Fran, however, whose career had taken her to many towns she thought far more deserving of inclusion, thought it had a great deal to offer the retired, with all the shops – including a couple of supermarkets – being within walking distance and more or less on the flat, too. The town was bisected by the Royal Military Canal, a relic of the Napoleonic war, with broad paths either side to tempt cyclists and joggers, or even wheelchair users. The seafront, on which the supposed suicide victim had lived, looked out to Dungeness to the west, Folkestone to the east, and, on a clear day, to France. It was always windy, and thus bracing. What must put families off was the fact that the beaches were steep and shingly, though there was always an angler or two with huge lines on stands, the owners as often as not huddling in mini-tents. They certainly needed shelter today.
    Pete held the communal door open for her, and headed purposefully up the stairs. At least he didn’t consider her decrepit enough to need a lift.
     
    Fran’s mother had always augmented the last-minute packing and milk-cancelling preparations for their annual jaunt to Burnham on Sea with a rigorous house-clean. Her rationale, if such it was, was that if a rail crash, or, later on, when a Ford Anglia became their proudest possession, a car accident should wipe out the entire family, at least the place would be decent for those left. Who those might be, Fran had never known.
    It seemed as if the late Alec Minton had followed the samephilosophy, even to a couple of air-fresheners, so powerful that even Fran could register them, to stop the place smelling