Cooper and Fry Crime Fiction Series Books 1-3: Black Dog, Dancing With the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue. Stephen Booth

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СКАЧАТЬ to ask me how business was. She would ask me about some of the people she had met. Business contacts, you know. She was so intelligent. She knew who was important without me telling her. Amazing.’

      ‘She met your business contacts here?’ asked Tailby. ‘They visit you at home?’

      ‘Oh yes. I think entertaining is important. We both do, Charlotte and I. You have to treat your clients right. It’s a question of mixing business with pleasure, if you like. A nice house, a good meal, a decent bottle of wine or two. A normal, happy family around. It makes a good impression on clients, I can tell you. It’s the key to long-term success.’

      ‘Of course.’ Tailby wondered where a happy family came in the list of requirements. Somewhere between the Bordeaux and the beef Wellington?

      ‘And your son, Mr Vernon?’

      ‘Daniel? What about him?’

      ‘Is he part of this … I mean, does he meet your clients when they visit?’

      ‘Well, he has done, on occasion.’ Vernon got up from the chair and poured himself another whisky. He didn’t offer the policeman one, having already been refused once.

      Tailby had noted that there was a drinks cabinet in Vernon’s study as well as in the sitting room, and no doubt another in the dining room. Not that Vernon himself called this room his study. It was an office, and it looked like one – with a personal computer and laser printer, a fax machine, a phone and a bookcase full of presentation folders in tasteful dark blue with gold block lettering. From the high sash windows there was an excellent view of the garden, right down to the avenue of conifers and the rocky summit of Win Low in the distance.

      ‘He’s at university, Chief Inspector. Exeter. Studying politics. Not my idea of a subject, but there we are. He’s a bright boy, and he’ll make a success of something one day, I suppose.’

      ‘He was close to Laura?’

      ‘Oh, very close. They doted on each other.’

      ‘He’ll be extremely upset then, by what’s happened.’

      ‘He was dreadfully cut up when we told him. He’ll take it very hard indeed.’

      Tailby considered this. He wondered if the son would put on a better show of being cut up than the father was doing. Shock and grief took people so many different ways, of course. And Graham Vernon had already had three days in which to go through the range of emotions expected of a man whose fifteen-year-old daughter had gone missing and had then been found again, battered to death. There had been emotions, certainly. Anger most of all – but directed almost obsessively in one direction, towards the boy called Lee Sherratt, who had, it was claimed, lusted after young Laura. The intelligent, innocent, extremely attractive Laura. But if there had been genuine grief in Graham Vernon’s heart, then Tailby had missed it.

      ‘It’s a little early to be back at university, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Surely August is still the summer holidays for these students, isn’t it?’

      ‘Of course.’ Suddenly, Vernon looked as though he might be losing patience. ‘But there are always things to do before the term starts proper. Summer schools, revision, settling into new digs.’

      Tailby nodded. ‘Tell me again about Lee Sherratt.’

      ‘Again? Surely you know enough about him already? I don’t think there’s any more I can tell you that will help you to find him, if you haven’t managed it already.’

      ‘We’re looking as hard as we can, sir. I’m hopeful we’ll locate the boy soon. But I’d just like to get the alleged circumstances clear in my mind.’

      ‘The alleged circumstances?’ Vernon looked a little red in the face.

      ‘His relationship with Laura.’

      Vernon sighed. ‘He’s a young man, isn’t he? Twenty years old. You know what young men are like. Laura was a very attractive girl. Very attractive. You could see by the way he looked at her what he was thinking. I had to get rid of him in the end. It never occurred to me when I took him on – I blame myself for that.’

      ‘So he looked at Laura,’ said Tailby. ‘Anything else?’

      ‘Well … he took any excuse to strip off his shirt when he worked in the garden. Whenever he knew she was watching him. I thought of telling him not to, but it would only have drawn attention to the fact.’

      ‘It’s not what I’d call a relationship,’ said Tailby.

      ‘It was obvious that he wanted to go further. I don’t need telling about young men like Sherratt, Chief Inspector. I had to nip it in the bud. I couldn’t have him pestering my daughter.’

      ‘Did she say he was pestering her? Did she complain?’

      ‘Well, in a way.’

      ‘Mmm. Yet from what you say, it sounds as though Laura was equally interested in the young man.’

      ‘For God’s sake, she was only fifteen. That age is … difficult. They’re easily influenced, in the full flush of adolescent hormones. Surely you understand that.’

      It was obvious to them both that Vernon was floundering.

      ‘So you sacked him.’

      ‘Yes. Last week. I told him we didn’t need him any more. He wasn’t very pleased, I can tell you.’

      ‘You tend to deal with these things yourself, do you, sir? Rather than your wife.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Well, you’re away all day on business. Sometimes you work long hours, no doubt. You arrive home late in the evenings. But your wife is at home most of the time, I gather. She would have had more contact with a gardener. Yet you would do something like that yourself, rather than letting your wife do it.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I just thought, it might have been difficult to find the opportunity to speak to Sherratt, if you weren’t at home during the day.’

      ‘I made a point of it on this occasion, Chief Inspector.’

      ‘I would also have thought it might be difficult for you to get the chance to observe the boy.’

      ‘Observe him? You’re losing me.’

      ‘I’m going on your description just now. You described him looking at your daughter and showing off to her while she watched. That suggests to me, sir, that you must have spent some time observing him. Perhaps I should say, observing them both.’

      Vernon was pacing towards the windows with his whisky. His hands were moving again now, touching his lips as if he feared his mouth might react of its own accord. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at. It’s quite natural. Are those men of yours finished up there yet?’

      ‘Shall we see, sir?’ suggested Tailby.

      

      Sheila Kelk’s gaze passed over Daniel’s СКАЧАТЬ