The Death of Marco Styles Read Online Free PDF

a company called Vulcan Pharmaceuticals. It’s synthetic and still at the trial stage, so even to identify it must have been difficult, and the murderer cannot possibly have obtained it from any other source. Therefore an employee of Vulcan Pharmaceuticals must be involved.’
    â€˜I’m sure Inspector Morden realises that.’
    â€˜Probably, but does he know that Dr Mary Adams, a senior research assistant at Vulcan, disappeared while on holiday in Cornwall this spring?’
    â€˜Do you think she was murdered?’
    â€˜Well, it certainly bears investigation, and if she was murdered, well, the implications are obvious: that she was coerced into providing a quantity of the neurotoxin, then killed in order to cover the murderer’s tracks.’
    â€˜Yes, so all very carefully planned, by somebody intelligent and completely callous.’
    â€˜So it seems. Fortunately I have a cast-iron alibi. I was in Burgundy at the time, on a wine tasting tour, which means I have any number of witnesses. Still, no doubt the inspector will want to bring me in for another grilling.’
    â€˜As long as you’re innocent you don’t have to worry about Inspector Morden. That’s just the way he does things, and you’d be surprised how many confessions come out after a direct accusation. He’s thorough, but he’s honest.’
    â€˜I’m relieved to hear it,’ de Lacy answered, ‘and his reasoning is sound enough, if only because he doesn’t seem to have any evidence against anybody else. He seems to think I’m some sort of low-level psychopath, deliberately taunting him, and you, in order to massage my own ego.’
    â€˜I’ve known people to do exactly that.’
    â€˜No doubt, but don’t you think that sort of clumsy posturing is at odds with the way the crime was carried out?’
    â€˜Yes, but that might be an act, and he has a thing about arrogant, public school types.’
    â€˜So I noticed. Look, this new murder moves the case outside my scope, so I’ll leave it with you, if I may?’
    â€˜That’s what I expect you to do, Mr de Lacy, unless there’s anything else you want to tell me?’
    â€˜Not really, no. No doubt you realise that if it was Dr Adams who provided the neurotoxin, as seems likely, then she was probably bribed.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Because a blackmailer needs compromising material, and it’s extremely unlikely that the murderer would know of any such material relating to anybody who could get hold of what they needed. It’s not impossible, but it would take a remarkable coincidence.’
    â€˜It would take a lot of money to bribe her,’ Sergeant McIntyre mused. ‘She was a professional, probably well-paid, and she’d have known what was going to happen, more or less. So we’re looking for somebody with easy access to plenty of money, then.’
    â€˜So you are,’ de Lacy agreed, ‘so you are.’
    Having secured himself a pint of beer, de Lacy made for his preferred seat in the saloon bar of The George, only to pause as he recognised the lean, grizzled features of Richard Vine across the room. He was seated at a table beside a window, with a glass of what looked like neat whisky in front of him, and to judge by his manner it wasn’t the first. De Lacy hesitated, aware that it was almost certainly Vine who had given Inspector Morden the unsavoury details of what had happened at school between Marco Styles and de Lacy’s father, but curiosity quickly got the better of him.
    In the two days since his interview with Inspector Morden and the conversation with Sergeant McIntyre, he had avoided talking to either of them and so far they had not sought him out. A round of golf with Clive Styles and Adam Carradine had allowed him to confirm that no arrests had been made, although Clive had been taken into Solsbury Police Station for a second interview after the