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Back Invitation to Die Save as PDF
Chapters (27)
  1. Chapter 1
  2. Chapter 2
  3. Chapter 3
  4. Chapter 4
  5. Chapter 5
  6. Chapter 6
  7. Chapter 7
  8. Chapter 8
  9. Chapter 9
  10. Chapter 10
  11. Chapter 11
  12. Chapter 12
  13. Chapter 13
  14. Chapter 14
  15. Chapter 15
  16. Chapter 16
  17. Chapter 17
  18. Chapter 18
  19. Chapter 19
  20. Chapter 20
  21. Chapter 21
  22. Chapter 22
  23. Chapter 23
  24. Chapter 24
  25. Chapter 25
  26. Chapter 26
  27. Chapter 27

“Not very compelling as evidence of a pattern, sir, surely? These things happen all the time. People succumb to war wounds, the Spanish ’flu, starvation, cold . . . Their bodies might well have been moved on to make them someone else’s problem. I’ve known bartenders who were a whizz at discreetly spotting and removing the dead drunk—so why not the drunken dead? Are there any other features in common?”

MacFarlane wrenched his focus back from the past onto the keen, handsome face in front of him and prepared to watch it crumple. “One. They all seem to have belonged to the same dining club. A weekend feast, washed down with a claret and topped off with . . . a rare brandy. A condemned man’s last supper? Who caught, tried and condemned him, Redfyre? And of what sin was he found guilty?”

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Cambridge, Sunday, the 18th of May, 1924

Did he really have time for this? Redfyre paused by the entrance to the church. On his way home to smarten up for his own lunch engagement, an inconvenient professional niggle had stayed him in his stride.

All was silent here. The morning worshippers had gone off to reward themselves for two hours’ devotion with a roast and Yorkshire pudding and an afternoon’s snooze to restore their strength for evensong. He rattled the side gate opposite his house in the lane and found it locked as usual. Someone had posted a handwritten notice asking the public to avoid the area, since demolition work was being undertaken in the churchyard and their safety could not be guaranteed. Any queries to be addressed to the vicar. The Reverend Turnbull had grudgingly appended his signature to this lie, bowing to the greater good and police pressure. Redfyre had personally advised the vicar that the body of a poor unfortunate had been found in the churchyard and asked him to tactfully ensure that parishioners and church employees were kept away from the scene until the police force had done its duty and tidied up.

Satisfied with the response to his requests, Redfyre could have walked on. But he gave in to an impulse and decided to climb over the iron grille and enter the crime scene for the second time that morning.