‘Must you disturb him? I’m afraid that poor Timothy has rather taken to his bed, quite upset about some girl or other. There was nothing to it of course, just a dalliance, she was totally unsuitable for him but a young man must sow his oats, I suppose, if that is the right expression. It sounds so vulgar.’
Miriam Hazlett spoke with an affected cut-glass accent, possibly appropriate for Queen Charlotte’s Debutant Ball at the Dorchester or Grosvenor House in London but totally out of place in suburban West Garside. There was also a nasal quality to her voice which gave the impression that she sneering at lesser mortals when she spoke and obviously included the two detectives in that category.
She was a tall thick-set woman in her late forties or early fifties, her brunette hair tightly pul
