One Way Ticket by Evie Evans Page B

her address book, you know.”
    “Mobile phone?”
    “She didn’t have one.”
    I stopped at one of the cards. “This one
is written to ‘Aunty Tina’. I didn’t know she was an aunt?”
    “Yes, her sister has a son and a married
daughter.”
    “It doesn’t say that anywhere in the
notes.”
    He pulled the file over and quickly
scribbled something on a page. “There, it does now. It doesn’t matter anyway,
they don’t inherit anything.”
    “And yet, still nice to know.” No wonder
he hadn’t solved this case. “Are there any other relatives lurking around?”
    “I don’t think so. Is it important?”
    I began to despair.
    “They don’t stand to gain anything. None
of them are going to inherit under her will so what’s their motive?”
    When Addi nipped off to use the toilet, I
slipped some of the birthday cards into the back of my notebook. I knew someone
who could help with those.
    “You said she was living off a work
pension, where had she worked?” I asked on his return.
    “She’d been a receptionist back in England.”
    “What, in an office?”
    “No, in a doctor’s clinic, you call it a
surgery? I don’t understand that, they don’t operate on people there, do they?”
    “No, not anymore, it’s probably an
historical thing.”
    “Hysterical?”
    “I doubt it was very funny for the people
involved.”
    “It’s very confusing some of the names you
have for things.”
    “What about ex-patients? Would she have
had access to people’s medical records? Some things people might want to kill
to protect. Although I can’t really think of anything off the top of my head. Paternity
tests? HIV positive?”
    “No, she couldn’t see their medical
history, only their names and addresses.”
    “Huh, I’ll bet she saw some.”
    “Well, we haven’t found a connection to
anyone here.”
    “Yet. Let’s go through the rest of this
stuff.”
    It took us a few hours to go through the
whole box of papers.
    “There wasn’t much there,” Addi said,
stretching up his arms.
    “I don’t know. I think we’ve got a better
picture of her now. Despite the bubbly persona, she was quite lonely at times,”
I pointed to letters from a friend back in Essex telling her to cheer up. “And
she was very careful when it came to money, we’ve seen her bills. She managed
to live well on very little.”
    “And she had trouble with something called
bunions,” Addi chipped in, waving letters from her chiropodist, “but none of this
helps find her murderer.”
    “It will, I don’t know how just yet, but
I’m sure it will.”
    I looked at Addi’s unconvinced face.
    “First of all, I think we should speak to
the sister, see her for ourselves. We can’t just work off these reports.”
    “She was already interviewed twice by the
other officers. She wasn’t involved.”
    “I know but I’d still like to see her
myself. Can’t we say we’re introducing ourselves to her?”
    “We?”
    “Alright you. You’ve taken over the case,
we’ll tell her it’s a courtesy call, keeping her up to date.”
    “Yes, maybe you’re right. Okay, we’ll go
tomorrow.”
    “Good.”
    We piled the paperwork back into the box.
Fortunately, he didn’t notice there were a few bits missing.
    He stopped me as I was leaving the room.
“You must keep this between us, yes? You mustn’t talk about this with your
aunt. None of the details of what we’ve read today, nothing.”
    “You wanted me to ask her for help
earlier.”
    “Yes, but you can’t tell her about anything
you’ve read.”
    Would I?

11 Mrs Robinson
     
     
    I think we can establish the
answer to that is, yes. It didn’t make sense if Addi wanted Aunt June to help,
she’d have to know something about what was going on. I showed her the birthday
cards after dinner, laying them out on the kitchen table.
    “What do you think? Do you recognise any
of the names?”
    She fumbled around for her glasses.
“Molly? That could be Molly Henstridge, I