Read Online Death On a No 8 Hook (A Willows and Parker Mystery) by Laurence Gough - Free Book Online Page A

took the clothing down out of the tree. A pair of white cotton panties with a pattern of little red strawberries fell lightly to the grass. Rossiter picked them up. He went through the pockets of the white shorts, and found three twenty-dollar bills wrapped tightly round a driver’s licence and a small black and white photograph. The picture was a head and shoulders shot of a boy in his early teens. His eyes were a very pale grey. The teeth were large, so white that they looked over-exposed.
    Rossiter flicked the plastic laminate of the driver’s licence with his index finger. “Dickie was right,” he said. “Naomi Lister it is.”
    Rossiter handed the licence to Willows. It was the girl in the river, all right. The licence had been issued two months earlier, on her sixteenth birthday. She had been restricted to driving vehicles with an automatic transmission, and was required to wear corrective lenses.
    “You notice she was wearing an engagement ring?” Rossiter said.
    “Yeah, I saw it.”
    “What do you think happened up here, have we got a crime of passion, or what?”
    “If I had to guess, I’d say she and whoever drove her up here went for a swim. And she banged her head on a rock, and he panicked. Or maybe he was off in the woods somewhere, wandering around. Maybe he never knew she was in trouble and still has no idea what happened to her.”
    “If she was with her fiancé, and the death was an accident, wouldn’t he have reported the fact that she was missing?”
    Willows indicated the small black and white picture. “Be nice to know who he is, wouldn’t it?”
    “Looks to me like it came from one of those automatic machines.”
    “Maybe her parents can help you.”
    “You like to be in on that?”
    “Not particularly,” said Willows. He handed the driver’s licence back to Rossiter. It was a gesture of rejection.
    Rossiter tucked the licence and the money and the picture away in his shirt pocket. “We better get back down to the meadow,” he said. “That pilot gets paid by the hour.”

 
     
     
    Chapter 9
     
    Junior caught a CP Air redeye out of Vancouver International. The plane was almost empty. Junior sat down in an aisle seat over the wing, where he couldn’t see the ground even if he forgot and looked out the window.
    The plane touched down at LAX at one o’clock in the morning. It took Junior a couple more hours to make the drive down the coast to Felix’s beachfront mansion. By the time he hit the sack it was almost four o’clock. At five, Felix and Misha dragged him out of bed to watch the latest shuttle launch. At ten minutes past five, with the three of them sitting in front of the Sony and the first pale light of day seeping hesitantly in through the windows, the flight was cancelled.
    Junior mumbled something about going back to bed, but Felix would have none of it. He and Misha had been up all night, smoking a little and drinking a lot. He had his second wind, and he was feeling full of beans. The idea of a picnic breakfast on the beach suited him just fine.
    Misha went into the kitchen to prepare the food.
    Felix punched through the channel selector to see what was on, and then used the remote control to turn off the TV. Junior was sprawled out on the chesterfield, his eyes half-closed. Felix went over and sat down beside him and patted him on the knee. “It’s good to have you back, kiddo.”
    Junior yawned.
    “Been a long night, huh?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Later on, when you’re feeling a little more energetic, you’ll have to tell me how it went. Okay?”
    “Sure,” said Junior.
    Junior closed his eyes. Felix sat there on the edge of the chesterfield, looking fondly down at him, until Misha came back into the room. She was carrying a wicker basket, holding it awkwardly with both hands. She staggered across the room and dropped the basket on Junior’s lap. Junior grunted. The basket looked heavy, and it was a lot heavier than it looked.
    They went out of the house,