The Messiah Secret Read Online Free PDF

a call.
    But he had a completely different recipient in mind for the forensic report he’d copied from the police database.

4
    Two hours later, Angela had turned off the M25, where the traffic was actually moving, for a change, and was heading up the A10, the old London Road. Her satnav had protested when she made the turn, but she’d decided to take the scenic route because she had two ulterior motives. First, she wanted to treat herself to lunch in a country pub somewhere, and there were no such facilities on the M11. And, second, she wanted to be able to stop somewhere and ring her ex-husband, Chris Bronson, to explain why she’d be out of town for the rest of the week. She’d called his mobile from her flat in Ealing before she left, but it had gone straight to voicemail. Knowing Chris as well as she did, she knew she’d be able to reach him at lunchtime.
    Nearing the village of Wendens Ambo, she spotted an old pub and parked her Mini in one of the few remaining spaces in the front car park.
    She ordered a Caesar salad and a bottle of Perrier, andcarried the drink over to a seat right beside a window that overlooked the main road outside. While she waited for her food to be served, she pulled out her mobile. This time, Bronson answered almost immediately.
    ‘Hi, Angela. Where are you?’
    ‘How do you know I’m not in my office, slaving away over a broken pot?’ she said, a little annoyed with herself for feeling pleased to hear his voice.
    ‘I’m a detective, remember. Actually, I called your office. So where are you?’
    ‘Suffolk, I think.’ She looked up and nodded her thanks as the barman placed an enormous bowl of salad on the table in front of her.
    ‘Suffolk?’ Bronson was clearly surprised.
    ‘Yes. I’ve just stopped for lunch in a pub near a village called Wendens Ambo, and I’m heading for a country house somewhere near Stoke by Clare. Wonderful names, don’t you think?’
    ‘A country house party, is it?’
    ‘Sadly not. Actually, I’ve been sent up here to work. An elderly minor aristocrat named Oliver Wendell-Carfax was murdered in his home near here about two weeks ago—’
    ‘I know about that,’ Bronson interrupted, sounding concerned. ‘I saw one of the reports. Somebody strung him up from the staircase and then beat him, but the autopsy showed that he actually died of a heart attack. I think the local police have drawn a blank on the case so far – noobvious suspects and no apparent motive, though somebody had searched the house. It’s a nasty business. But what’s it got to do with you?’
    ‘Well, the museum has now become involved – not because of who Wendell-Carfax was, or how he died, but because of what he did. He was pretty much the last of a long line of avid collectors of antiques and ancient relics. Apparently his country house is full of the things. He was also, according to Roger Halliwell, a typical grumpy old bastard. Over the last ten years or so he managed to alienate just about every member of his family, and almost everybody else who knew him. When he died, the firms of solicitors he’d used opened up his last will and testament and had a bit of a shock.’
    ‘ “Firms of solicitors”?’ Bronson asked. ‘In the plural?’
    Angela sighed. ‘Yes. Over the last year Wendell-Carfax visited four different solicitors in Suffolk and deposited his last will and testament with each of them.’
    ‘Different wills, I suppose?’
    ‘All completely different, and each cutting out one or more different family members. The trouble was, each time he made a new will, he never bothered telling the new solicitor acting for him about the earlier ones, although he made sure he told the beneficiaries of the new will.’
    ‘But not the people he’d just disinherited?’
    ‘Of course not. That wouldn’t have been any fun, would it? So as soon as he was found dead, various family members crawled out of the woodwork, each of themexpecting to inherit about two hundred