Read Online A Limited Justice (#1 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) by Catriona King - Free Book Online Page B

felt excited; she’d been sitting by the window all day! He’d expected an hour if they were lucky, but this was brilliant. He was even more impressed by her ability to exist without food for eight hours.
    “Didn’t you leave the window at all in that time? For more tea, or whatever?” He hesitated to mention the word ‘toilet’ to a lady of that generation; he’d said it to his Granny once and could still remember the resulting sore ear.
    “Oh no, I had a flask with me.” Then she looked at him as if she’d suddenly realised something.
    “Now I remember. I stayed there until Countdown started on Channel 4 Plus one, at 4.25. I always watch it with some tea and toast. That’s when I sat back down there.” She indicated the P.C.’s chair, smiling, satisfied that she’d been accurate. Both men stared, impressed that she knew about the Plus One channels, Liam had only found out they existed a few months ago!
    “Lizzie came round at five with Gina and Roy, her youngest, she brought in fish and chips. A lovely piece of cod from the corner of the Belmont Road. Then the children did their homework while we chatted, and we left at about 6.30. I watched ‘Midsomer Murders’ over at hers.”
    Liam was almost afraid to ask the next question, the possibility that she might have seen something almost too good to be true. But he needn’t have worried about framing his questions to tease information out of her, because she suddenly reached up to the mantelpiece grabbing at a worn red notebook, and opening it at the second last page. She looked at it intently for a moment, and then started to read.
    “At 10.10am the postman walked into the garage and put some letters through the shop door. He’s my postman - Mr McGimpsey - such a nice man; I always give him something at Christmas. Then at 11.40am a boy on a bicycle rode around the forecourt a few times, doing those dangerous one-wheel things.” She pursed her lips disapprovingly.
    “Wheelies?”
    She nodded and pushed her large glasses further up the bridge of her nose, without taking her eyes of the page. “Yes, I think they’re called something like that, Roy does them in the park and his mother shouts. I recognised the boy; his father owns the grocery shop.”
    She squinted hard at the page and Liam’s heart sank again at her eyesight, but what she said next removed all his doubts.
    “At 12.37pm a young man walked onto the forecourt and over to the cars that were parked at the back.”
    She jerked her head up at them accusingly.” They’ve all gone today. Have they been stolen?”
    “No, don’t worry, we’ve just taken them to our compound to stop them being vandalised.” Satisfied with Liam’s explanation she moved on.
    “He walked around a few times and looked at a couple of them very closely. He didn’t look like a criminal, but I’ve written a description of him anyway.”
    She tapped the page emphatically, “Six foot, about thirty, wearing a suit. Balding dark hair and overweight. He looked like a spiv – we used to have lots of those during the war.”
    The two men laughed aloud and she smiled, pleased that they appreciated her work. Ida continued.
    “At 1.45pm a young woman walked up and down the street a few times. She looked very shifty so I paid special attention to her. She was in her 20s somewhere, very thin and pale looking, you know that pale that says you’re not healthy? And she had on those jeans things – I hate those. Doesn’t anyone dress like a lady nowadays? My Lizzie does, she’s always nicely turned out.”
    Liam leaned forward encouragingly, desperate not to be drawn into a fashion diatribe, and he noticed her eyes again. They were huge and the palest blue that he’d even seen, almost translucent, as if you could see behind them. Ida looked thrilled by his keen interest, continuing eagerly.
    “She was small and she had her hood up, but you could still see she had dark hair. Not black but dark brown, down to about