The Skeleton Room by Kate Ellis Page B

mate. How are you doing? Sit down. What’ll you have?’
    ‘I’ll get them, Harry. Pint of lager, is it?’
    ‘Well remembered. I’ll tell you one advantage this dead place has over London . . . the prices are cheaper.’ Harry laughed
     and handed Steve his empty pint glass.
    Five minutes later they were settled with their drinks: Harry’s pint of lager next to a bottle of some exotic brew which Steve
     put to his lips at regular intervals.
    After a brief exchange of news Harry looked Steve in the eye. It was time to get down to business.
    ‘So what brings you down here?’ Steve prompted. ‘I thought you said you’d never set foot in Tradmouth again.’
    ‘I never intended to but my guvnor had other ideas. He said that I knew these parts so I’d be the man for the job.’
    ‘What job’s this?’
    ‘Murder suspect’s disappeared. Well, we didn’t know he was a murder suspect until after he’d scarpered. A month ago he bumped
     off his missus, and I’ll give him his due, he was very convincing – played the distraught widower to perfection. Everyone
     reckoned it was accidental death, cut and dried. But then her family demanded a second postmortem which was done a few days
     ago – now we’re treating her death as suspicious. Our suspect left London a couple of weeks back – said he had to get away
     to do some work and told his in-laws he was heading this way. He was brought up round here and apparently he comes back regularly.’
    ‘Where does he stay?’
    ‘They don’t know.’
    ‘Does he know about the second post-mortem?’
    ‘No. He probably thinks he’s got away with it.’
    ‘What about his work? What does he do?’
    ‘He’s a . . . oh, what do they call it? He traces people’s family trees . . . got his own company on the Internet – the Root
     Route, he calls it. I ask you . . .’
    Steve shrugged. It sounded a funny sort of job to him.
    ‘He said he’d only be away a couple of weeks but now it’s almost three so I reckon this story about him working is a load
     of crap. I reckon he’s decided to disappear before anyone started asking questions. Here’s as good a place as any to start
     looking for him.’
    ‘But why have you gone to the trouble of coming down here yourself? Why not just let the local . . .’
    ‘Because I’d recognise the bastard anywhere. And I want him banged up.’
    Steve saw bitterness in Harry’s eyes as he took a long swig of lager, as though cooling the fires of his anger. Steve wasn’t
     usually a perceptive soul but something told him this wasn’t just a routine enquiry. This was personal.
    There was something Harry Marchbank wasn’t telling him.
    *
    The next morning Gerry Heffernan sat at the breakfast table and smiled at the two young people sitting opposite him.
    ‘Nice, this.’
    ‘What is, Dad?’ It was the girl who spoke. She had a pretty, earnest face, framed by a shock of dark curly hair. She reached
     for a slice of toast with slender musician’s fingers and looked at her father enquiringly, tilting her head slightly just
     as her mother had done when she was alive.
    ‘Having you two back home.’
    Rosemary Heffernan smiled. Her brother Sam said nothing. His mouth was full of toast.
    ‘Ran out of money, didn’t we,’ said Rosie, helping herself to cornflakes.
    Heffernan grinned good-naturedly. The pair were a terrible drain on his pockets but they were all he had.
    ‘At least we’ve got ourselves jobs,’ said Sam as he reached for another slice of toast. ‘It’s going to be bloody hard work
     this landscape gardening. Not like Madam here: playing the piano in a restaurant. What kind of job do you call that?’
    ‘At least it’s better than what you did last summer,’ she teased. ‘What was it? Stripogram?’
    ‘Kissogram,’ he corrected. ‘I never took anything off.’
    ‘At least that’s what he told his father.’ Heffernan grinned. ‘So Eric the Viking has finally hung up his helmet, has he?’
    Sam bit into his