Bricks and Mortality: Campbell & Carter 3 by Granger Ann

too. He believed he’d done his bit in educating the boy. One can’t blame Gervase for – being a little foolish as a youngster. There was no one to guide him …’
    Her voice had become sad. She gave herself a little shake and added, ‘I can’t be of much help to you, I’m afraid.’ She hesitated. ‘Although, it was a funny thing …’
    ‘Yes?’ Jess encouraged her.
    ‘No, no, it’s nothing!’ Poppy obviously regretted her last remark.
    ‘If it’s nothing, I’ll disregard it,’ Jess told her gently. ‘But I’d like to hear it.’
    Poppy was turning a colour that reflected her name. ‘It’s such a silly thing and it happened about two weeks before the fire, so really of no interest to you. It’s just that I thought I saw Gervase.’
    ‘Saw him? Here?’ Whatever Jess had expected, it wasn’t this.
    ‘Yes, that is to say, at Key House. I’d gone for a walk. It was a little late in the day for it and I’d already decided I should turn back. It was starting to get dark early. The road is little used, but that means motorists tend to roar down it as if it were a racing track. I was passing by Key House when I saw a light, moving about in the garden. I was suspicious, because I knew the house was empty and no one should be there. On the other hand, I didn’t want to face a gathering of drug addicts all on my own! Roger’s seen people of that sort there. He told the sergeant who called here yesterday evening, Sergeant Morton. But I was curious and I thought I ought, as a local resident, to take a look. So I crept up very cautiously and peeped over the wall. As I did, a young man came round the corner. He was holding a torch – it had really got that dark. He was playing the beam all over the outside of the house and, as I watched, he stopped and shone the light through a window, trying to light up inside. I was really worried and wondered if I ought to call the police on my mobile. But just then, he moved and the torch jerked in his hand and the beam played over his face. It gave me such a shock. I thought it was Gervase. He must be on a visit to England and checking out the condition of the exterior of the house. I knew he couldn’t be staying there because the power had been cut off and there wasn’t a stick of furniture in the place.’
    ‘Did you call out?’
    Poppy hesitated. ‘I was going to. It would have been nice just to say hello to him. But then the man switched off the torch. He turned and left, striding off quickly across the garden and out of the front gate. I saw then that there was a car parked up under the hedges. I hadn’t noticed it. He opened the door and got in and the light inside the car showed me his face again. It looked very like Gervase … that is to say, like Gervase as I remember him. I could have been wrong, because we haven’t seen him around here for quite a while. He didn’t see me behind my wall. He drove off and I lost my opportunity. I felt quite sorry about it. But then I thought perhaps it wasn’t him. But if it wasn’t, who could it be? I worried about it for a while. If it
had
been Gervase I saw that evening, I thought he’d come back again, so for a few days I kept an eye open. Only whoever it was didn’t come back again to my knowledge.’
    Poppy fell silent and stared down at the little heap of leaves she’d amassed.
    ‘Did you mention this to your husband?’ asked Jess, thinking that if Poppy had, then Roger hadn’t seen fit to mention it to the police. Nor had Poppy spoken of it when Phil Morton had called to see them.
    Poppy looked up in surprise. ‘To Roger? Of course not! He’d have said I was being silly. Or worse, he’d have started phoning the council again, or the solicitor who acts for Gervase. Roger has a bee in his bonnet about Key House standing empty, you understand. It would never have done to encourage him.’
    That was why Poppy hadn’t mentioned it to Morton in her husband’s presence, Jess decided, and it was