Read Online Indian Summer by Elizabeth Darrell - Free Book Online

for the Open Day. Thank you for your time, sir.’
    On the point of driving away, Tom’s mobile rang. A glance told him the caller was Max. He grinned. Having given his lady lunch, had he claimed an urgent need to call for an up-to-date sitrep? He had known Max would be unable to dismiss what he had been told of the case. The jellyfish was almost certainly the lure. There was nothing Max liked more than puzzling out how a killer’s mind worked.
    â€˜You’re supposed to be romancing your ladyfriend for two weeks,’ he said lightly.
    â€˜Where are you, Tom? I’m coming in for a full report. Should be at HQ in forty-five, possibly less if the traffic has thinned by now. Are you able to r.v. around then?’
    â€˜On way,’ Tom said, still smiling as he disconnected and turned on the ignition. That love affair was on the road to nowhere.

FOUR
    H eather Johnson was combing accommodation blocks to track down RCR soldiers, all of whom were presently officially on several weeks’ leave as part of the wind-down from Afghanistan. They had spent the first few days back at base in surrendering equipment, kit and desert combat uniforms, having medical checks and being debriefed by Intelligence staff. This had led up to the fun and relaxation of the Open Day, which many of them had enjoyed.
    On this, the day after it, those troops planning to spend time in the UK were packing, consulting ferry timetables, preparing for the long drive, making steamy calls to wives or girlfriends and cheery ones to parents and mates. The men with families on the base were more likely to be starting a holiday in Europe when they had recovered from the inevitable rehabilitation period.
    The stay-at-homes could not fully grasp what it was like to come from a day-to-day existence in a vast camp filled with mainly male personnel, living in a small unit with four bunk beds, or spending four days and nights with just a handful of mates way out in the desert, potentially vulnerable, where you sweltered and sweated by day and often awoke to find frost coating your sleeping bag. At the base there was the constant thunder of aero engines, the thwak-thwak of helicopter rotors and the rumble of the eternal passage of trucks. Alcohol was forbidden; so was sex with any of the women serving there, military or civilian. And, all the while, there was the risk of any day being your last on earth. It took time to slough off the warzone skin and resume the former one.
    Heather was mainly seeking men of B Company, of which Keane had been a corporal. Olly Simpson was visiting married quarters and the Sergeants’ Mess. Heather had drawn the short straw which obliged her to traipse through these accommodation blocks in the hope of finding squaddies who might have seen Keane on Saturday morning just before he was killed. It was a thankless task for a young woman dressed in a fitted grey skirt and a starched white shirt. Often found on their beds wearing just underpants, the soldiers jeered, cheered or wolf-whistled when she appeared. Even when she revealed her identity they pushed their cheeky masculinity as far as they could during the interview.
    She had taken a break for lunch and now, late in the afternoon, she was confronting two riflemen of B Company who had plenty to say. Heather had discovered them playing darts in the recreation area, and they now sat in leather chairs facing her. This pair were close friends, clearly NCO material, if not higher. It was a relief to get intelligent replies from men of relatively serious vein. They revealed that they planned to fly to Canada the following day to trek through the Rockies.
    â€˜We miss the wide open spaces,’ explained one with a smile.
    â€˜You’re both in Corporal Keane’s platoon?’ They nodded. ‘What’s your opinion of him?’
    Rob Kelly, a serious twenty-year-old with brown hair and eyes, spoke without hesitation. ‘He made a good job of it out