Unholy Rites Read Online Free PDF

Arthur’s image of her as an ordinary, rather unimaginative working class woman. Judging from the women Danutia had encountered at the funeral reception, Ethel Fairweather had a wide and diverse circle of friends. Why would she seek help from a strange Canadian woman half her age?
    Because I’m a stranger, Danutia thought as she picked her way down the B&B ’s icy front steps. From a farming community herself, she could imagine how quickly gossip would spread in Mill-on-Wye if Mrs. Fairweather’s concerns touched on a neighbor’s behavior or reputation. At the back of her mind was a more disturbing thought: I’m not just any stranger. I’m a policewoman .
    A car honked, a bicycle bell tinkled, a dog stopped to raise its leg into snow hidden under hedges. Imposing three-storey stone houses lined the street, many of them apparently divided into apartments, or “flats to let,” according to a sign outside the corner mansion. A brisk walk to the left would take her to the market place in Higher Buxton with its shops, pubs, and bus stops. She turned right and in a few minutes arrived at a curved stone building that looked more like a small Roman amphitheater than a police station. Buxton Constabulary, her work place for the next four months.
    â€œMorning, Gloria,” she said to the receptionist, a wisecracking single mom with prematurely gray hair she claimed to owe to her kids.
    â€œMr. Blackstone cook you a Full English this morning?” Gloria asked.
    â€œNot a chance.”
    â€œYou’ll have to go up to him like that kid in Oliver .” Gloria mimicked holding out a bowl. “‘Please sir, I want more.’”
    â€œOr get a requisition from Headquarters. They’re the ones paying the bill,” said Kevin, pulling on a brown leather jacket. He was a big man, tall and broad-shouldered, with a few extra pounds around the middle, a ready smile, and a wart beside his nose that he rubbed when thinking.
    â€œFat chance. I can’t even get a new notepad.” The phone rang, and Gloria answered it.
    â€œWe’ll be off, then, luv,” Kevin said, ushering Danutia out the back, to the secured car park. When they were belted into his unmarked Ford Escort, he asked, “Coffee Cup?”
    â€œYes please.” Morning coffee for her, lunchtime beer for Kevin, sitting outside unless it was pouring. That’s the deal they’d struck after a blue haze of cigarette smoke had left Danutia gasping for breath on their first day working together. She hadn’t realized how much she took Victoria’s smoking ban for granted until she came to England.
    Kevin squeezed the Ford into a parking place near the Probation Office and they walked downhill to the Coffee Cup, their boots loud in the winter stillness. Kevin proudly pointed out the restored Opera House and the work underway on the Pavilion Gardens.
    â€œBoom and bust. That’s the story of Buxton,” he said. “Bustling spa town to sleepy backwater, another boom when the railway came in 1863 and a bust during the Depression, and now it’s booming again.” He gestured towards the pedestrian shopping mall across the busy main road. “Just look at Spring Gardens. Built on the site of the old Midland Railway Station that closed thirty years ago.”
    Was that progress? Danutia thought of Arthur’s father in his uniform and splendid mustache, shuttling back and forth on the branch line between Buxton and the main cross-country line at Mill-on-Wye, a once prosperous village now struggling to survive.
    At the Coffee Cup they ordered—a triple shot Americano for Danutia, milky tea for Kevin. Danutia handed over the coins she’d carefully counted out so that she wouldn’t have to break another five-pound note. The sleepy-eyed barista shoved their drinks across without a word. Danutia wondered how often they’d have to come here before a glimmer of recognition