In Her Defence (Bunch Courtney Investigates, Book 2) by Jan Edwards
Release date: April 4, 2019
Subgenre: Historical mystery, WWII mystery
About In Her Defence:
Bunch Courtney's hopes for a quiet
market-day lunch with her sister are shattered when a Dutch refugee
dies a horribly painful death before their eyes. A few days later Bunch
receives a letter from her old friend Cecile saying that her father,
Professor Benoir, has been murdered in an eerily similar fashion. Two
deaths by poisoning in a single week. Co-incidence? Bunch does not
believe that any more than Chief Inspector William Wright.
Set against a backdrop of escalating war and the massed internments of 1940, the pair are drawn together in a race to prevent the murderer from striking again.
Set against a backdrop of escalating war and the massed internments of 1940, the pair are drawn together in a race to prevent the murderer from striking again.
Excerpt:
Bunch Courtney leaned
against the top rail of the stock pen, enjoying the sensation of unseasonably
warm May sunshine on her back, and perused the pair of Jersey heifers she had
purchased at auction. The cows stared back with their soft-doe eyes and quietly
continued their munching.
When a trio
of fighter planes swooped across a clear sky it was Bunch who broke that
peaceable contact, shielding her eyes against the sun to watch the aircraft
dwindle into the distance. ‘Fourth flight we’ve seen in under an hour.
Something’s up’, she said. ‘Were those Hurricanes or Spits? What do you think?’
Roger
raised his head hopefully and thumped his tail in the dust, and she reached
down to scritch the top of the dog’s head, finding comfort in the gesture. The
planes were a dark reminder of what lay a mere hundred miles to the south;
Bunch offered up a silent prayer of thanks for the English Channel. She
wondered for how much longer market days could possibly survive. Or anything
else for that matter, she thought. No,
I refuse to even contemplate the possibilities. She stretched across the
rail to give her Jersey maids a final pat and pushed away from the barrier.
There was a lunch appointment to keep and she was already late.
A few minutes
later she stepped into the dim oak-panelled confines of The Marquis Inn’s
saloon bar, where the smell of roasting meat and Friday fish, mingling with the
ever-present pall of smoke and beer fumes, closed in around her. Every
white-clothed table was occupied and she searched the room for her luncheon
partners without success until Daphne waved to her from within one of the
window bays that overlooked the market. Daphne was grinning at Bunch, as she
wove her way toward the table, tapping at her watch.
The perfect English rose in her red and blue
florals. And Mother would love that
spiffy little pillbox hat. Bunch adored her sister but was constantly aware
of how unalike they were. She was the sporty, tall brunette; her sister the
golden blonde, slight and delicate despite her pregnancy. Bunch leaned down to
kiss her sister on the cheek. ‘Yes I know, I’m late as always. Hello Dodo,
you’re looking well. Positively blooming.’
‘Thank you
Rose, darling. So glad to see you. We were beginning to think you’d forgotten
us.’
Bertram
Tinsley got to his feet and pulled out Bunch’s chair. ‘Good to see you, Rose.’
‘Thank you,
Barty.’ Bunch nodded to Dodo’s father-in-law as she slid into her seat and laid
her slouch hat on the vacant chair beside her.
‘My
pleasure.’ Barty took a mouthful of beer as he settled back down, wiping his
extravagant moustaches carefully with a napkin. ‘Good auction?’ he asked.
‘Excellent,
thank you.’ Bunch waved Roger beneath the table out of harm’s way. She took a
sip from her schooner of sherry that was over-sweet and did nothing to quench
her thirst. She wished it was a beer but, knowing how the old-fashioned Tinsley
disapproved of ladies with pint pots in their fists, she said nothing and
poured herself a glass of water.
‘Busy out
there today,’ Barty continued. ‘You’d think with everything going on people
would be terribly cautious about being out and about.’
‘They are
trying very hard not to consider the alternatives,’ Bunch replied.
A roar of
good-humoured jeering attracted their attention toward the bar and the gaggle
of Canadians gathering there.
‘Damned bad
form. Should be in the four-ale bar if they want to kick-up.’ Barty glowered in
their direction. ‘No discipline.’
‘They’re
very young,’ Bunch replied. ‘And a long way from home.’
Barty
grumbled some retort but Bunch had ceased listening.
A young
woman seated alone, just a few feet away from the raucous drinkers, had caught
her attention. A sturdy girl in her early twenties with light-brown hair
scraped up beneath a red hat. Her clothes were worn though of good quality, and
plainly not English by their cut. Whether it was her obviously foreign air or
that she leaned on the bar top with her head in her hands that made her a
source of curiosity, the girl had attracted attention from others in the room.
Some were inquisitive glances, a few of them lecherous, others hostile in
varying degrees, each seeing what they wanted to see in a woman drinking alone.
For Bunch, it was the way she wore her sadness like a halo. Obviously ill at
ease, perhaps even in pain from the way she stared fixedly into her half-pint
of pale ale, oblivious to the noise and bustle all around her.
Lost, Bunch thought. That’s
the only word for her. Probably waiting for somebody who never turned up. And
she’s so obviously unwell. Poor little wretch.
Then the
crowd shifted and Bunch’s attention drifted back to Dodo and Barty. Her sister
was, as she had already observed, positively blooming.
Hardly
surprising, she thought. With all the stiff upper lip in the
world, one doesn’t lose one’s wife, son and reputation without some kind of
change.
The
trio chatted on about this and that for some minutes and had placed their
orders for lunch when a sharp cry sliced across from the bar. A strangely
liquid shriek. As though, Bunch thought, someone was crying from beneath
water. Bunch swivelled in time to see the young woman snap forward, with
both arms clutched around her midriff, making no attempt to save herself from
crashing to the floor where she writhed, screaming for help in English and some
other language that was Germanic to Bunch’s ears, yet not the German she
recognised.
The
room broke into panic as diners rose to their feet. Some rushed toward the girl
and as many backed rapidly away. Bunch was forced to elbow her way through the
gathered watchers, to where the girl flailed at their centre, uttering wordless
sounds on a tide of vomit and foam.
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