With a Narrow Blade Read Online Free PDF Page B

Flo’s telly come on last night at the usual time, about six o’clock. She liked to listen to the news.’
    ‘Did you hear it go off again later that night?’ Hillary asked sharply, remembering that the television had still been on when she’d popped her head around the door for a look.
    ‘No, but then I wouldn’t. I always went to bed before she did, see. Told her she was the spring chicken, but us older bods needed their shut-eye. I’m eighty,’ he added.
    Hillary nodded. ‘Did she usually watch breakfast TV?’ she asked next, blessing the thinness of the walls.
    ‘Never,’ Walter Keane said firmly. ‘Neither of us could stand them blathering, all those smiley faces first thing.’ He shuddered.
    Hillary nodded thoughtfully. So, if the telly was still on, it probably meant it had been on all night. In which case, Flo Jenkins had been dead for some time. ‘Do you know when Mrs Jenkins usually went to bed?’
    ‘Eleven or thereabouts.’
    So, the killer probably came some time between six and eleven, Hillary mused. It would be interesting to see if Doc Partridge’s findings, when he came, confirmed her working theory.
    ‘And you never heard someone come to the door last night? She have a doorbell or a knocker, by the way?’
    ‘Both. And now you mention it, I did hear the doorbell go next door last night. About 6.30, 6.40. Something like that.’
    ‘Did you hear whoever it was talking to Mrs Jenkins? Did they argue?’
    ‘No. Not loud, at any rate. You can’t hear normal human voices so much. The telly, yeah, and the doorbell. And when she plays that bloody awful music of hers – Des O’Connor. I ask you! But no, I didn’t hear no voices.’
    Hillary underlined the last sentence in her book. Find out who called last night at 6.30. ‘Did Mrs Jenkins have any enemies that you know of? Did she ever mention any ill feeling between her and her family perhaps? Or a neighbour?’
    ‘Flo? Any enemies? Don’t be daft,’ Walter Keane snorted. ‘Salt of the earth, Flo. Always willing to help out – not that she could do much, mind. Not been well lately. But she would lend you the shirt off her back if you needed it more’n her. She didn’t gossip nasty about you neither, behind your back, unlike some around here.’
    ‘And her family?’
    ‘Her and Clive only had the one. Daughter, Elizabeth, though everyone called her Liza. Not that she was much good to her old mum. Hit the sauce, didn’t she, when her husband left her. Drank herself to death, I reckon, though they did say it was cancer of the liver. She only had the one boy – Dylan. And he’s worse than his mum, only with him it’s the drugs, see. A proper little druggie. Layabout, idle good-for-nothing bum. He was always cadging off Flo, and all she had to live on was her own pension, and a little money Clive left her.’
    ‘Dylan. Do you know his last name?’
    ‘Hodge.’
    ‘I don’t suppose you know where he’s living, do you?’
    ‘Squatting somewhere I ’spect,’ Walter Keane said flatly, then added, more plaintively, ‘She’s really gone then, Flo?’ His voice trembled slightly, and Hillary slowly reached out and touched the old man’s knobbly hands, where they rested on top of his knees.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly.
    ‘Pity,’ Walter said, his eyes suspiciously bright. ‘She was looking forward to her birthday at the end of the week. “I’ll be all the sevens, Walt,” she said to me a while ago. “My lucky number, seven.” And then she laughed.’ Walter shook his head. ‘Christmas too. She loved Christmas – like a big kid she was. Always put up a tree, and lights, and those colourful twirling things hanging from the ceiling. She couldn’t get up a stepladder no more, so it was usually me she had round to help her put ’em up. She was really looking forward to it this year, especially.’
    Hillary swallowed hard, was about to say something, then heard a car pull up outside. She got up, and a quick look