Read Online Cold Coffin by Nancy Buckingham - Free Book Online Page B

Gavin Trent out of the way, do you think?”
    “Me, for one.”
    Smothering her surprise at this blunt answer, Kate asked mildly, “Because you resented his having been appointed to the job you wanted?”
    “Aha! Someone’s been talking, I perceive. Yes, I resented Gavin, damn right I did. Wouldn’t you resent a man who was less qualified than you getting promoted over your head?”
    “Did you kill him, Dr. Miller?” It could have been a woman who’d held Trent beneath the water till he drowned. It wasn’t so much strength that had been needed, but cool cunning and ruthless determination. And Cheryl Miller was probably capable of both.
    “Oh, for God’s sake,” she snapped. “Of course I didn’t kill him.”
    “Maybe you know who did? Or can guess?”
    Kate received a hard stare. “I’m beginning to wonder about you, if this is the best line of approach you can think of.”
    “Please answer the Chief Inspector’s question,” intervened Boulter automatically.
    “It’s all right, Sergeant,” said Kate. “Dr. Miller has already answered me, in her own way. But we’ll need to have an account of your movements at the relevant times, Dr. Miller, just so you can be formally eliminated.”
    “What are the relevant times?”
    “From when Dr. Trent left the laboratory on Wednesday evening until say 3 A . M .,” Boulter told her.
    Cheryl Miller considered unhurriedly, then announced in a casual tone, “In that case, you’ll have to formally retain me on your list of suspects. Actually, I knocked off yesterday about half-past four—much to dear Gavin’s annoyance. He was always so puritanical about sticking to proper hours, but I wanted to catch a boutique in Marlingford to pick up a skirt I’d bought which they were altering for me.”
    Boulter noted the name of the shop and the times she’d have got there and left.
    “And after that?” asked Kate.
    “After that, nothing. I had a drink and a bar snack at the Dolphin, then I drove home and stayed home, curled up with a good book.” Home, they had already established, being one of the flats in the converted Old Rectory at Lower Aston.
    “Do you live alone, Dr. Miller?”
    “Yes, I do. From choice. How about you? Do you live alone?”
    Kate ignored that. “Did you have any visitors during the evening? Any phone calls?”
    A hesitation, slight but definite. “No, I didn’t, as it happens.”
    Kate wondered about that hesitation. Was she shielding some man ... and if so, why? Or did she just hate having to admit that she’d been left to her own devices for the space of an entire evening?
    “Tell me, Dr. Miller, was your resentment of Dr. Trent purely from a professional point of view? Or did you dislike him on a personal level?”
    The green eyes half closed in speculation. “Tell me, Chief Inspector, what would your attitude be towards a senior officer, a superintendent say, who you knew bloody well was less competent than yourself, but who’d been given the job that should have been yours solely because he was male? Wouldn’t it make you hate his guts on a personal level?”
    Kate wished that Boulter hadn’t been present, ears twitching. “I hardly think this is relevant, Dr. Miller.”
    “Oh, yes it is, totally relevant. And you know it.”
    No, let it pass, Kate. This wasn’t the moment for trotting out her grudges against the male hierarchy.
    “What did other people in the lab think of Trent?” she enquired.
    “You’d better ask them that.”
    “I intend to. Right now, I’m asking you.”
    Cheryl Miller shrugged. “He treated Roger like a snotty-nosed kid. Well, he isn’t much more, I suppose, but he does have quite a good degree which deserves a modicum of respect.”
    “Roger Barlow? He’s Sandra English’s boyfriend, I believe?”
    “For the moment. Though what a good-looking stud like him sees in someone so insipid, I can’t imagine.”
    Stud? Was that said on the basis of personal experience? Cheryl Miller would