Read Online Angel of Death by Charlotte Lamb - Free Book Online Page A

at him. Perhaps it was that calm, cool expression he always wore? You felt you could trust him. She should have remembered him. He had a memorable face.
    ‘How did it happen?’ he asked her.
    Nervously she whispered, ‘I don’t remember much, just that I was crossing a road when a car hit me.’
    She remembered his quiet, level voice very well, she found; the patient technique with which he questioned, water dropping on a stone, repeating every query until he was convinced he had got a final answer. He took her through her accident now in the same way.
    ‘Did you notice the make of car?’
    ‘No; just that it was black.’
    ‘Had you ever seen the car before?’
    ‘Not that I remember.’ She was puzzled by the question – why should she have seen the car before? What was he implying? Filaments of doubt began twining through her mind. Why was he here, anyway? Why would a detective follow up a perfectly ordinary traffic accident? Surely they didn’t suspect her of inventing it?
    ‘Did you see anything of the driver?’
    She shook her head. ‘It all happened too fast.’ Defiantly, angrily, she said, ‘There were plenty of people around. I’m not inventing it.’
    He considered her soberly, his head on one side, then crisply told her, ‘I know you’re not. We have statements from a number of people who saw it happen, including an eye witness who says the car deliberately swerved towards you after you had moved out of its path.’
    ‘Deliberately . . .’ Miranda looked at him with startled incredulity and he nodded.
    ‘You seem surprised – that hadn’t occurred to you? Our witness said the driver drove straight at you.’
    She remembered with sudden, shocking intensity the way the car had been driven at her, had hit her twice. ‘He meant to hit me?’
    ‘You didn’t get that impression at the time, or since?’
    She had to be honest. ‘No. Never.’ She wished it hadn’t entered her mind now, she did not want to think that somebody had deliberately tried to kill her. A shudder ran down her spine.
    Sergeant Maddrell stared fixedly, those hazel eyes wide and clear. ‘Try to remember exactly what happened, how the car came towards you – and think about it. Could the driver have meant to hit you?’
    ‘I don’t know, how can I tell? I heard the car behind me and looked round.’ Her memory sharpened. ‘No, wait a minute . . . the driver sounded his horn, to warn me he was there. Yes, that was what happened. I heard his horn and looked round – surely he wouldn’t have warned me if he wanted to hit me?’
    ‘Maybe not,’ agreed Neil. ‘You hadn’t been aware of a car behind you until then?’
    ‘No, it was the horn sounding that made me realise there was a car right behind me. When I saw it, I tried to get out of the way but it swerved at the same time, and hit me. And . . . anyway . . . why on earth should anyone try to kill me?’
    A little silence fell while they stared at each other. A coldness crept through her bones at something in his eyes, a thought which leapt from him to her.
    ‘You can’t think of anyone who might?’ His voice held no particular inflection, yet she knew what he was hinting.
    She slowly shook her head, refusing to believe what she realised he was suggesting.
    ‘Someone couldn’t be trying to silence you?’ he persisted.
    ‘Terry wouldn’t do something like that,’ she burst out. ‘No. The idea’s ridiculous. Terry’s not a murderer.’
    ‘But you believed his son killed that girl.’
    She bit her lip, remembering those sounds in the bathroom. Sean was so young, a boy with fresh, apple-blossom skin and clear eyes – it was hard to think of him as a cold-blooded killer. If he had killed his pregnant girlfriend it must have been in a fit of crazy rage. He wouldn’t kill again, Sean wasn’t a natural killer; she couldn’t believe he would try to kill her.
    ‘You didn’t believe a word I said!’ she accused and saw his eyes flicker. Suddenly she began to