Murder Is Academic Read Online Free

us, I was aware that it was quiet in the church, too. The hymn had finished.
    â€˜They don’t think – they can’t think – that he was having an…’ I couldn’t get the word out. ‘Malcolm was absolutely devoted to Margaret!’
    â€˜They have to ask these questions. I’m sure it’s just routine,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Look, they’ll be coming out in a moment. Do you feel up to joining them?’
    I nodded.
    She bent down and picked up my hat for me.
    The church doors opened. The leading pall-bearers emerged, and the coffin with its cargo of wreaths came into view. Malcolm followed it, hands clasped in front of him, head bowed. He was a tall, thin, sandy-haired Scot with that fair skin that marks so easily. Around the eyes his skin was pink and puffy. He had a tendency anyway to stoop, but now he was bending over as though he had been buffeted and bowed by gusts of grief.
    I glanced at Jane. She seemed to be gazing at Malcolm, but it was impossible to be sure or to read her expression behind the dark glasses.

Chapter Two
    â€˜I just can’t believe that Malcolm was having an affair.’
    Stephen groaned. ‘Look, Cass, I thought we’d already been through this – how many times? Three, four?’
    We were sitting on a bench at the end of my garden. It was late on the day of the funeral and it was a glorious summer’s evening. In other circumstances it would have been perfect. The faintest of breezes, no more than a stirring of the air, brought the scent of roses and honeysuckle to us. The long spell of hot weather had brought them fully into bloom. The tall, narrow shape of the house was almost black against a turquoise sky, the weather-boarding no longer visible in the twilight. Light was spilling out of the floor-length kitchen window and laying streaks of gold on the channel of water that flowed beneath the house. The house had been built as a granary across a creek where barges could moor underneath to receive grain through a chute.
    A dark shape detached itself from the eaves, swooped over the flower-beds and darted down to the surface of the water.
    I felt Stephen’s arm jerk against mine.
    â€˜It’s only a bat,’ I said. ‘They come out for the insects.’
    We sat on for a while in silence.
    My thoughts plodded round the same old track again and again like a weary old horse.
    â€˜Malcolm is the last person … I mean, they were such a settled couple. They’d been together, what fifteen years? Twenty years?’
    â€˜Cassandra!’
    â€˜Sorry, sorry. I’ll shut up.’
    After a minute or two, Stephen said, ‘That in itself doesn’t necessarily mean much, does it, the length of time?’
    I slipped my hand into his and squeezed it. I guessed that he was thinking of his own twelve-year marriage, and the way it had ended four years ago. His wife had left with one of his closest friends.
    He sighed. ‘You can never really know what’s going on in someone else’s marriage. Or even in your own for that matter.’
    I knew that, of course, and, like Stephen, I knew it from bitter experience. But Malcolm and Margaret … they had been one of those couples who seemed as married as your own parents, the kind that makes you think perhaps it can work after all. I gave a sigh and stretched, trying to ease the ache between my shoulder blades. My eyes were sore and I could feel their shape in my eye sockets. I ought to go to bed, but I was too tired to make up my mind to do it.
    â€˜Anyway, aren’t you reading too much into what that woman said?’ Stephen went on. ‘Perhaps it was just a malicious little comment.’
    I considered this. ‘No … it wasn’t like that. It was more as though she were warning me about something … or, perhaps not that exactly…’
    My voice trailed off as I realized that Stephen wasn’t