Wexford 4 - The Best Man To Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

indecent.
       ‘When he didn’t come,’ she said, ‘I thought he hasn’t made it, he hasn’t made Jack’s party. He’s stopping off on the road, he’ll be in in the morning, I . . .’ The sobs were uncontrollable and she gave a long piteous cry.
       ‘I won’t trouble you any more now, Mrs Hatton. You say you mother’s coming? If I could just have Mr Pertwee’s address.’
       ‘Jack, yes,’ she said. ‘Jack’ll take this hard.’ She drew a long breath, twisting her hands. ‘They’d been pals since they were schoolkids.’ Suddenly she stood up, staring wildly. ‘Jack doesn’t know! It’s his wedding day and Charlie was going to be his best man. Oh, Jack, Jack, poor Jack!’
       ‘Leave it to us, Mrs Hatton,’ said Inspector Burden. ‘We’ll tell Mr Pertwee. Bailey Street, is it? We’ll tell him. There’s your front door bell now. I expect that’ll be your mother.’
       ‘Mum,’ said Lilian Hatton. ‘What am I going to do, Mum?’ The older woman looked past her, then put her arms around the shaking shoulders. ‘Marilyn said I shouldn’t wear green to a wedding, she said it was unlucky.’ Her voice was very low, a slurring mumble. ‘I bought that green coat just the same. I never got as far as the wedding, Mum, but it was unlucky, wasn’t it?’ Suddenly she broke into a terrible, loud and demented scream. ‘Charlie, Charlie, what am I going to do, Charlie?’ She held on to her mother, clawing at the lapels of her coat. ‘Oh my God, Charlie!’ she screamed.

    ‘I never get used to it, you know,’ said Burden quietly.
       ‘Do you think I do?’ Wexford had amiable, sometimes distinctly fond feelings for his subordinate, but occasionally Burden made him impatient, especially when he instituted himself keeper of the chief inspector’s conscience. He had a smug, parsonical face, Wexford thought unkindly, and now his thin mouth turned piously, down. ‘The worst is over anyway,’ he said crossly. ‘The bridegroom won’t go into transports of grief and you don’t put off your wedding because your best man’s been done in.’
       You callous devil, said Burden’s look. Then the neat, well-modelled head was once more averted and the inspector re-entered his silent, respectful reverie.
       It took only ten minutes to get from the Hatton’s flat to Bailey Street where, at number ten, Jack Pertwee lived with his widowed father. The police car stopped outside a tiny terraced house with no garden to separate its front door from the pavement. Mr Pertwee senior answered their knock, looking uneasy in a too large morning coat.
       ‘Thought you were our missing best man come at last.’
       ‘I’m afraid Mr Hatton won’t be coming, sir.’ Wexford and Burden edged themselves courteously but firmly past him into the narrow hall. ‘I’m very sorry to tell you we have bad news.’
       ‘Bad news?’
       ‘Yes, sir, Mr Hatton died last night. He was found down by the river this morning and he’d been dead since midnight or before.’
       Pertwee went pale as chalk. ‘By gum,’ he said, ‘Jack’ll take this hard.’ His mouth trembling, he looked at them both and then down at the knife-edge creases in his trousers. ‘D’you want me to go up and tell him?’ Wexford nodded. ‘Well, if that’s the way you want it. He’s getting married at eleven-thirty. But if I’ve got to tell him, I suppose I’ve got to tell him.’
       They both knew Jack Pertwee by sight. Most Kingsmarkham faces were familiar to Wexford, and Burden remembered seeing him the night before arm-in-arm with the dead man, singing and disturbing decent citizens. A happily married man himself, he had the deepest sympathy for the widow, but in his heart he thought Jack Pertwee a bit of a lout. You didn’t have to tread softly with such as he and he wondered scornfully why the fellow’s face was lard-coloured.
       Impatiently he watched him lumber blindly down the steep narrow