The Bursar's Wife Read Online Free Page A

and I followed her lead.
    “This way,” she ordered. We walked up to where DCI Brampton was talking to an elderly woman cradling a small dog in a coat. We stood at a distance, waiting. I gathered from what I strained to hear that the woman had found the car early this morning. I noticed that underneath her open raincoat Brampton was wearing an expensive and well-cut version of what Stubbing had on, and also had her hair tied back, but less severely than Stubbing’s eyebrow-lifting effort. She was stocky and looked like she was on a richer diet than Stubbing. We approached when the woman had been led away by the uniform.
    “George, thanks for coming up,” Brampton said, in that pleasant way of speaking educated middle-class people have even when they are shafting you. She did not offer to shake hands. She reminded me of my headmistress at secondary school – severity wrapped up in charm. Her round nose and pudgy cheeks were red with cold.
    “DCI Brampton,” I said. “Thanks for dragging me up here. If it wasn’t for community-minded policing I’d never get any fresh air.” She gave me the sort of smile bad poker players give you when they know they are holding a better hand than yours. “Step this way, George.” Stubbing, grinning at me with gappy teeth, lifted the yellow ribbon surrounding the cabriolet. Brampton stepped under and then Stubbing let go of the tape as I was about to follow. I lifted it myself and caught up with them.
    “You’re just in time, the SOCOs have finished,” Brampton said. We walked up to the car, me wishing that forensics still had several hours’ work to do and I could delay seeing what I knew I was about to see. Brampton shooed away a photographer in protective white overalls. The driver’s door was open and Trisha Greene, naked from the waist up, was slumped in the seat. I say slumped: her neck was fastened by a wide leather belt to the bars of the seat headrest, her head lolling forward in an unnatural position, her eyes still open, as if surprised at her own topless state. Her dress had been ripped open at the front and pulled down over her arms; it had also been pushed up her parted thighs and was bunched at her waist. Her body was relaxed, which made her neck look longer than I remembered. Brampton turned to me. “I think you come up here more than you make out, George. I think you might know this woman.” There seemed little point in lying about it; they obviously knew I had been watching her, although the swollen, purple face I saw now bore little relation to the pretty, animated one I’d photographed last week.
    “Know is a strong word. I’ve seen her from a distance, through a camera.”
    “Pervert,” said Stubbing. Brampton smiled.
    “Detective Inspector Stubbing here has a strong moral streak,” said Brampton. “She disapproves of people spying on other people who are having sex.”
    “I think that’s the idea, isn’t it? They come up here to be seen,” I said.
    “By other perverts,” spat Stubbing. Brampton raised her bushy eyebrows and asked her to go and check something with a scene of crime officer.
    “Would you mind identifying the woman in the car, George, just for the record.” I did the necessary, then tore my gaze from Trisha Greene and turned to Brampton.
    “I’ll assume you’re holding the husband, since he’s not doing the identifying?”
    She pulled her raincoat round her and shrugged to keep warm.
    “He’s made a statement, we’re just confirming his story. He says he hired you to watch her and that she was having an affair.” I told her the truth about Trisha’s activities, omitting the fact that I’d advised her husband to confront her.
    “He doesn’t seem the type,” I said, as we walked back to the cars.
    “There isn’t a type, George, just motive and opportunity.” She signalled for the waiting forensics team to remove the body. “I’m not pleased about this,” she said, in a tone suggesting that it might be my