Death of a Friend Read Online Free Page A

Alexis sat on either side of him, slight beside his bulk. The two boys had been sent to bed with difficulty. The news of Charlie’s death had produced the same numb effect in them as it had in the adults.
    Richmond had told the police how he had been walking across the lower field after Nina’s funeral, when he noticed a smell familiar from his younger days on a sheep farm. ‘That ditch is fairly deep,’ he explained, ‘so I thought an animal of some kind had got itself stuck and died there. Been there since Sunday, do you think? That’s when we last saw him.’
    Den was non-committal. There had been a team working along the ditch and across the field it bordered, in the hour or two of daylight remaining, and now they were packing up, preparing to take away their findings for analysis. A WPC had been despatched to break the news to Charlie’s immediate family. Eventually his body would be delivered to the mortuary for post-mortem examination. Richmond provided an identification of Charlie Grattan not just from his clothes, but the colour of his hair and thosefew features still discernible. According to the preliminary findings of the police doctor, he had indeed been dead for over twenty-four hours.
    Den had returned to High Copse Farmhouse in the early evening, under instructions to make a start on an inquiry into a death which showed every sign of being unlawful. Slowly the threads of the incident would be teased out like the unravelling of a tangled piece of Fair-Isle knitting. Too new at the job to distinguish any kind of pattern at this early stage, he was nonetheless acquiring a degree of confidence in his questioning.
    ‘Could you tell me a bit about Charlie?’ he asked. ‘What his connection with your family was; where he worked; anything you think would be useful.’ A computer search had already revealed certain facts about the deceased: a man already well known as an animal rights activist, with prosecutions for disturbance and trespass as well as a reputation for unruly behaviour. Den had personal experience of this, having witnessed Charlie’s antics at the protest which had led to the death of Nina Nesbitt.
    Martha spoke tonelessly. ‘He wasn’t in work. He was giving all his time to the protests. The hunt season finishes in another week or two and Charlie was going to get a summer job before the new campaign next winter. He spent a lot oftime here …’ She glanced at Alexis and raised her eyebrows, but Alexis made no response apart from an almost invisible shrug. Martha heaved a weary sigh, which made Den wonder how she would find the strength to carry on. He wondered also how anyone could be cruel enough to kill Charlie in the week the Cattermoles were burying their sister.
    ‘Charlie was Alexis’s boyfriend,’ Martha said. ‘They’d been together for about six months.’
    ‘Longer than that,’ said Richmond, who’d said almost nothing thus far. ‘Must go back to July last year.’
    ‘He was a Quaker,’ said Alexis. ‘You should know that. It was important to him.’
    Den noted the ready use of the past tense, while searching his memory for any information about Quakers. It came up blank.
    ‘Was he a member of the local Quaker … group? Church? What do they call it?’
    ‘Meeting,’ supplied Alexis. ‘They use a lot of archaic terms. There’s a Meeting in Chillhampton. It’s very small. Eight or nine people. Very close-knit, like a family, really.’
    ‘Do Quakers approve of animal rights activism?’ Den asked.
    Alexis smiled sourly. ‘Some do. Some followed Charlie as if he was a new Messiah. Others thought he was bringing the Meeting into disrepute. It might give you an idea of howit was if I say that Charlie tried to understand everybody and ended up offending them all. He told Nina she was simplistic and naïve. He called Gerald Fairfield a monster to his face. You’ll soon hear from them all, I’m sure.’
    I’m sure I will , thought Den without enthusiasm. A