Time to Die

‘All right, mate, keep your hair on,’ Will said, folding his arms. ‘We’re all trying to do our jobs here.’

‘Yeah well you may be happy dealing with this crap but I’m not. I’ve missed out on a good suspect interview for this. You may think this fortune teller is responsible for half the deaths in Haven, but I don’t.’

Counting to ten, Je

Will made her jump as he crept up behind her, whispering so no one else could hear. ‘Are you picking anything up?’

Je

‘He’s a knob. But from what I’ve seen, there’s not a lot to go on, is there?’

Je

Geoffrey’s sister Miss Pike lived just four doors down. A light mist of rain descended as they walked to the address, and Je

‘Hello, I’m DC Knight and this is my colleague DC Dunston. And you are Linda Pike, I take it?’ Checking the identity of the homeowner was a given in their line of work. The last thing they wanted to do was to turn up to someone else’s address to discuss a sudden death and discover they had the wrong person. The woman nodded, her red-rimmed eyes brimming over with tears.

‘I’m so sorry for your loss, but could we speak to you for a few minutes?’ Je

‘Can I get you a drink? A cuppa perhaps?’

Je

‘Oh no, not at all. I should be making one for you, it must have been a terrible shock, finding your brother like that.’ It may have seemed a comical suggestion, offering to make someone tea the first time you stepped into their house, but both Je

Linda pulled a balled-up tissue from under her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. ‘It was such a shock finding him like that. The police – are they finished now? I mean, have they taken him?’

‘It won’t be much longer. Linda, I know officers have already spoken to you, but do you mind me asking you a couple of questions? I just want to make sure we have covered everything.’

‘Of course, but I don’t see why the police are involved. It was his own fault, the daft bugger. I told him to stop going out spying on people, because it got him in so much trouble. I didn’t mean he should take it up in his own back garden.’ Linda sighed heavily, her shoulders drooping with the weight of her loss. ‘He wasn’t a bad man really. He told me he wanted to change, but he just couldn’t help himself.’

Je

‘He never used to go out much, just to the chip shop for his tea, and sometimes a pint in the pub. Then he joined some online group, he used to go out every now and again to meet them, never said where it was.’

Je

‘We hadn’t seen each other in years, I left home at a young age while he stayed in Liverpool. He moved here so we could look out for each other in our old age.’

Je

‘No. I popped over most mornings.’ Her face crumpled as a sob hit the back of her throat. ‘I can’t believe he’s dead.’

Je

‘Yeah, it was weird. He thought I knew the man through the spiritualist church. When I told him I didn’t, Geoffrey was a bit shaken.’