'Til Death (DI Steven Marr Book 1) - UK Crime Fiction Whodunnit Thriller by SP Edwards Page A

can help you. How can I be of service, inspector?’
    ‘Anna Markham, you knew her?’
    Thomas raised an eyebrow.
    ‘Knew?’ he said.
    Marr cursed himself silently.
    ‘She’s dead’ he said, deciding that there was little point trying to regain the lost ground.
    Thomas said nothing for a moment. He put the mug down and joined his hands together, pointing the fingers up to his chin, his expression one of a disappointed headmaster.
    ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I liked Anna.’
    ‘How long had you known her?’ Marr asked. No offer of a seat was forthcoming, but he took one anyway.
    ‘Probably fifteen years…it might even be longer’ Thomas said, thoughtfully. ‘We met in the last couple of years of primary school.’
    ‘And you’d been friends ever since?’
    Thomas nodded.
    ‘We’ve lost touch a couple of times, I suppose, but we always came back to each other.’
    ‘Would you say that you made more of an effort to keep the friendship going? Or vice versa?’
    ‘No; it was six of one, half a dozen of the other. That’s one of the nice things about having such a long term friendship, isn’t it? No matter how long you spend apart, you can always pick right back up where you started.’
    ‘Did you ever have feelings for Anna?’
    Thomas smiled.
    ‘Once, when I was young.’
    Marr recognised a quote when it was being made, but he couldn’t place it.
    ‘And you got over it? It must have been tough if you were friends. Some friendships don’t recover from something like that: it can make things awkward.’
    Thomas shrugged.
    ‘As I said, we had a couple of periods where we lost touch. That was one of those times, if you must know. We didn’t see each other much for a couple of years. But, we regained touch, and it became easier.’
    ‘Just like that?’
    ‘I said easier, not easy. It took time. I won’t pretend I was over the moon to be turned down, but like anything else in life, I learned to live with it and KBO, as Churchill would say.’
    ‘KBO?’
    ‘Keep buggering on.’
    Marr smiled.
    ‘Can you think of anyone that might have had a grudge against Anna? Anyone who might have wanted her dead?’
    Thomas rumpled his brow.
    ‘No, not really. I mean, she was an ambitious professional. God knows how blood-thirsty it got at her place: contracts to be won, commission gained and lost. Maybe she stole a contract from under someone else’s nose and they bumped her off.’
    ‘You don’t seem too concerned that one of your oldest friends was murdered.’
    Lifting his cup back up to his lips, Thomas seemed to mull the point over.
    ‘Well, maybe you’re right’ he said, eventually. ‘I’ve always found it easier to be flippant. Lots of people do. My sense of humour was always a bit dark, even when I was younger.’
    ‘Did Anna ever talk about work?’
    ‘No, not really; she liked to talk about nonsense when we spent time together. I’m not entirely sure she enjoyed her job that much, but I think it paid quite well and she was obviously good at it. Anna always had an aptitude for anything that involved being social.’
    ‘What was she like as a child?’
    ‘Tough. Twenty years ago, you’d probably use the term ballbreaker. She was tough. She knew what she wanted, and most of the time she’d get it.’
    ‘Did you think she was spoilt?’
    Thomas laughed.
    ‘Oh god, no. No, John and Michelle were loving parents, but they didn’t have any money when Anna was young. John’s earned his money in the last ten years or so. I always got the impression he was a little bit of a drifter, but then hit forty and realised he had no money for his retirement. Ten years later, he sold a business and retired. He should write a book: ‘How I changed my life in ten years’ or something. I’d buy it.’
    ‘Where do you think Anna got her toughness from?’
    ‘Who knows? I used to think it might have been Michelle, but then I saw her sobbing her eyes out to a TV show about puppies. The truth is, I think Anna