Untimely Graves Read Online Free PDF Page A

Abigail tried to envisage the land as it was in reality: the source of the stream was several miles out of the town, the only indication of its whereabouts a wet patch surrounded by reeds in the middle of a field, unless those same fields became waterlogged with excessive rain; then water spread outwards and channelled itself into a stream, flowing down the slope past Covert Farm and alongside Wych Cottage, until it spread out again on the flat land of the Kyneford estate.
    Twenty years ago, Kyneford had been little more than a hamlet surrounded by an undistinguished tract of scrubland. Now, since the land had been released for development, it had become a great spread of houses, set out in crescents, avenues and closes. Of particular interest in view of their easy access to the stream was Pinfold Lane, a row of bungalows, where several of the small gardens reached right down to its edge. Built on land that had always been prone to flooding (a fact which the developer had failed to point out to intending buyers), most of the gardens had been under water during the recent floods, if not most of the houses themselves. But enquiries had drawn a blank there, like everywhere else.
    After leaving the estate, the stream flowed alongside an abandoned brickworks and then down into Lavenstock’s outer suburbs. Crossing a recreation ground, through a culvert under the
main railway line, it emerged in the industrial park, passed the brewery and finally flowed into the Stockwell. All the while gathering momentum, especially when swollen, as it had been recently, with flood water.
    ‘But why?’ Abigail murmured thoughtfully.
    ‘Why was she put in there ? Or why was she put in the river at all? You tell me. What puzzles me,’ he said, stabbing his forefinger at the map, allowing her to take away his empty cup and giving her the opportunity to tip her own into a rubber plant, ‘is why anybody should have dumped her at that particular point. Between where she was found and the source of the Kyne, there’s only Covert Farm, Wych Cottage and the beginning of the housing estate, there, on Pinfold Lane. Whoever chose the spot must have realised she might be found quite soon, and that would pretty well define the limits of our search.’
    ‘Yes, they’d have done better to have put her in lower down, where the current gathers force. Unless they hoped she’d be swept down with the other debris and carried right down into the Stockwell? Which, but for getting snagged on that tree, she probably would have been.’
    Mayo rubbed a hand across his face. ‘It’s a bugger, this, and right, isn’t it? We’re on a hiding to nothing until we find out who she was. And don’t tell me what I already know – that we’re running out of steam.’ The hollow feeling in his guts told him that this, another shooting, could well join the Fermanagh file. A thought insinuated itself. Could the murder of Miss X have been another drug-related crime? It was a depressing thought which he didn’t care to examine at that particular moment.
    ‘Have another look at this, will you?’ He slid the discouragingly thin buff folder which held all the dead woman’s case notes across to Abigail. ‘On the offchance that anything strikes you.’
    While she scanned it for the umpteenth time, he sat at his desk, picking things up and putting them down again, staring absent-mindedly through the window at his old familiar foes, the scruffy pigeons, settling on the Town Hall for the night. He watched one land on a narrow window ledge, close to three others already perched there. Like fastidious old ladies moving away from an unwelcome tramp who’d decided to occupy the same park bench, the three began a shuffling, sideways progress,
closely followed by the intruder, which resulted in them being forced off the far edge one by one, leaving the victor alone to preen himself. Obviously a natural for heading the pecking order. Like some humans he knew.
    As she read, Abigail