Deadlock
A Kelsey and Lambert novel. Has Chief Inspector Kelsey meet his match at last?Anna Conway, rising twenty, had much to live for: not least a devoted young husband who put her welfare before all else. Yet she suffered from depression and, just before leaving on a restorative cruise, she was found dead in her bath.Chief Inspector Kelsey and Sergeant Lambert at first accepted Anna's death as suicide, and the more they learned of her unloved childhood, the more understandable suicide became. So it was with shock that when Anna married David she was already the widow of an elderly man, whose death was not without unusual features.But when they learned that David Conway too had been a widower, his first wife having also committed suicide, Kelsey developed a gut feeling that this grief-stricken widower was a cold-blooded murderer. Yes there was testimony on all sides to his devotion to Anna, his alibi was unimpeachable and his motive for murder non-existent.Doggedly the Chief Inspector set out to prove David’s guilt. But each time he unearthed a suspicious circumstance, David came up with an innocent explanation.
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Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in 1991 by Collins Crime
Copyright © Emma Page 1991
Emma Page asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008175788
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008175795
Version [2016-02-18]
For J.B. and B.B. in gratitude
CONTENTS
The brass plate beside the front door of Dr Peake’s handsome Edwardian premises, half a mile beyond the northwestern tip of Cannonbridge, glittered in the mellow sunshine of late afternoon.
Sunlight flashed from the doctor’s gold-rimmed spectacles as he strolled along the peaceful walks of his beloved garden in the welcome lull before evening surgery – on Tuesdays surgery began at six.
He glanced about with pleasure. Still plenty of colour in the flowerbeds and borders for the first week in September. He paused to savour the delicate fragrance of a rose. A silver-haired man with a spare, upright figure, a look of buoyant optimism undimmed after long years in general practice.
He looked at his watch. Time he was getting back indoors. He let himself in through the conservatory, into the cool interior, along the corridor into the entrance hall.
At the window in reception he saw the husband of a patient – Conway, yes, that was the name. Mrs Conway had consulted him for the first time a couple of months ago; she and her husband had come to live in a neighbouring hamlet back in the spring.
Conway was picking up a repeat prescription for his wife. ‘Hello, there!’ the doctor called out as he came up behind him. ‘How’s your wife? More relaxed and cheerful, I hope?’
David Conway turned from the window. He had a direct, open glance. On the tall side, with a slim, athletic build. Still boyish-looking, although a year or so past thirty. A square jaw, a broad forehead with a lock of fair hair falling forward. Well-groomed, smartly dressed in a business suit, shoes polished to a mirror finish.
He smiled at the doctor. ‘Anna’s much improved, I’m glad to say. And she’s sleeping a lot better.’ He put the prescription away in his pocket.
‘That’s good,’ Peake said heartily. Patients were beginning to drift in. He nodded to one or two, spoke a word here and there. He moved away from reception with Conway and stood talking to him further down the hall. ‘I’ll look in on your wife next time I’m over your way – but don’t for heaven’s sake tell her that or she’ll work herself up into a stew every morning, wondering if it’ll be today I’ll be calling in.’ He paused. ‘Is she getting out much?’
Conway shook his head. ‘Not very much, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s got to be altered,’ Peake pronounced briskly. ‘She’s at a time of life when she should be full of plans for the future. She should be enjoying making new friends, a whole new life. If you could get her to start thinking positively along those lines it would do her more good than any amount of sleeping pills and anti-depressants.’ A thought struck him. ‘Does she drive?’
Conway shook his head again. ‘She’s never shown any inclination to learn.’
‘Then start teaching her. She’ll fall in with anything you suggest. Could be the very thing for her. Living out in the country, on her own all day, it’s easy for any woman to get shut in on herself, stuck at home without transport. It’ll give her a new interest, something to aim at.’
He clapped Conway on the shoulder. ‘And if you could manage a little second-hand car for her, that would encourage her even more. You needn’t pay the earth for it. Once she’s passed her test she’ll be able to drive into town every day, even if it’s only to do a bit of shopping, change her books at the library. It’s all human contact, it all helps.’
