Read Online A Twist of the Knife by Peter James - Free Book Online Page B

bang, and he began to haul himself out, grinning from ear to ear, hot and sweaty, wearing nothing but a boiler suit over his naked skin and black work boots.
    She stood and stared at him for a moment, in total wonder and joy. He looked even more amazing than she remembered. More handsome, more masculine, more raw.
    He stood up, and he was taller than she remembered, too.
    ‘My most beautiful angel in all the world,’ he said. ‘You are here! You came! You really came!’
    ‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’
    ‘My brave angel,’ he said. ‘My brave English angel.’ Then he scooped her in his strong arms, pulled her tightly to him, so tightly she could feel the contour of his body beneath the thin blue cotton, and kissed her. His breath smelled sweet, and was tinged with cigarette smoke, garlic and beer, the manly smells and taste she remembered. She kissed him back, wildly, deeply, feeling his tongue, holding it for a second, losing it, then finding it again.
    Finally, breathless with excitement, their lips separated. They stood still, staring at each other, his eyes so close to hers they were just a warm blur.
    ‘So,’ he said. ‘We have work to do,
ja
?’
    She pushed her hands down inside the front of his trousers and gripped him gently. ‘We do,’ she smiled.
    He drew breath sharply and exhaled, grinning. ‘First we must work.’
    ‘First we make love,’ she replied.
    ‘You are a very naughty little girl,’ he teased.
    ‘Are you going to punish me?’
    ‘That will depend, yes? On how naughty you have been. Have you been very naughty?’
    She nodded solemnly, stood back a pace, and put her finger in her mouth like a little child. ‘Very,’ she said.
    ‘Tell me?’
    ‘I can show you.’
    He smiled. ‘Go and fetch the car, I will be prepared.’
    *
     
    Five minutes later, Janet reversed the Passat up to the side entrance of the crematorium, where there was a green elevator door. As she halted the car and climbed out, the metal door slid open and Hans stood there, with a coffin on a trolley. There was a strange expression on his face and he was looking at her in a way that made her, suddenly, deeply uncomfortable.
    Her eyes shot to the coffin, then back to his face.
    Then to the coffin.
    Had she made a terrible mistake? To be alone, here, with all her bridges burned, her trail carefully covered. Had she walked into a trap?
    No one at home in Eastbourne knew where she was. No one in the world. Only Hans. And she was alone with him at the crematorium, in the falling darkness, and he was standing, looking at her, beside an open coffin.
    She felt suddenly as if her insides had turned to ice. She wanted to be home, back home, where it was safe. Dull but safe. With Trevor.
    But none of that was an option any longer.
    Then he smiled. His normal, big, warm Hans smile. And the ice inside her melted in an instant, as if it had flash-thawed. ‘In the trunk?’ he questioned.
    Nodding, she popped open the boot of the car, and then they both stood and stared for some moments at the black plastic sheeting, and the curved shape inside it.
    ‘No problem?’ he asked her, putting his arm around her and nibbling her ear tenderly.
    ‘He was good as gold,’ she said, wriggling with the excitement of his touch. ‘Went out like a lamb after I swapped his insulin for sugared water. But he was heavy. I nearly didn’t have the strength to get him into the boot.’
    Where there’s a will, there’s a way,
Trevor was fond of saying. And, of course, what was particularly sweet was that Trevor had written a will a long time ago, leaving everything to her, naturally.
    ‘It is good he is so thin,’ Hans said, unwrapping him. ‘I have two cadavers waiting for the burners and one is very thin. I have the death certificates from the doctor’s; we are all set. He will fit nicely into the coffin with the thin one. No one will know a thing.’
    Down in the basement, as they wheeled the coffin out of the elevator, Janet recognized