Read Online Mercy Killing by Lisa Cutts - Free Book Online

mind and be putty in your hands.’
    Toby carried on walking, feeling as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, before he realized that Leon was not beside him. He slowed and looked back over his shoulder to see that
his friend had drawn to a stop and was being swallowed up by a hen party wearing little except for pink-fur-trimmed cowboy hats and their underwear on a chilly November evening.
    Toby stood rooted to the spot, worried that he had underestimated the toughest, most resilient person he knew. Leon’s expression was a blank, although that was usually the first sign of
trouble.
    He gave the twenty or so scantily clad women time to walk past as they whooped and shouted before he made his way back to his stationary friend.
    ‘Something is definitely wrong,’ Toby said. ‘You didn’t even glance at those girls and most of them weren’t wearing skirts.’
    Leon looked down at his feet, or in that direction as his eyes probably only got as far as his burger-sauce-stained belly.
    ‘That’s the problem, you see,’ he mumbled.
    ‘What’s the problem? No skirts?’
    ‘No, no, you don’t get it, do you?’ he said, looking up. ‘You’ve got a wife and two fantastic kids. I don’t have anyone.’
    It had been a difficult day and Toby usually had time for his friend’s maudlin attitude towards being single, but tonight should be the night of all nights that they let their hair down
and didn’t get depressed about anything.
    Toby stopped short of sighing and put a reassuring hand on his friend’s arm.
    ‘There’ll be someone for you one day, Dill. I promise.’
    ‘It’s not that,’ Leon said, shaking his head. ‘You’ve got a wife who will probably forgive you for just about anything. How do I ever meet someone who’ll
understand and accept everything that’s happened to me?’
    ‘I don’t know, mate, I’m sorry. I really don’t know but let’s at least go and get a drink and talk inside.’
    Toby watched Leon lumber towards the Blue Bar, worried more than ever about his friend and how life would be for him from now on.

Chapter 17
    One thing Harry knew only too well was that with every year that passed it was more of a struggle to recover from a missed night’s sleep. Even though he enjoyed what he
did, arriving at a crime scene, a dead body, sometimes more than one, trying to fit the pieces together and work out who thought they had the God-given right to take another’s life, it took
its toll. If he was honest, the groundwork was all done by the detective constables and civilian investigators anyway. Now that he’d been promoted, he managed and oversaw the investigation.
He was more than capable of nicking someone, but beyond that he only had a basic idea of how to put the paperwork together and get the investigation towards the court system. He always left that
bit to the DCs. Most of the time, it was for the best.
    He pushed this thought from his mind as he turned off the engine and looked up at the front of his house. He could make out the dim light of his wife’s bedside lamp through a crack in the
curtains. That immediately annoyed him.
    The memory of their row in the department store was engraved on his mind, despite it being over five years ago: she had insisted on ordering the most expensive made-to-measure curtains, fully
lined with blackout material to ensure eight hours’ shut-eye. And she never closed them properly.
    ‘Two bloody grand,’ he murmured to himself as he got out of the car and fumbled in his pockets for his door keys.
    He tried to keep as quiet as possible, but he was clumsy and usually made more noise when he attempted to creep around the house. All too often, he was chided for not putting something back when
he had finished with it. Some of his wife’s complaints were well founded.
    Harry glanced up at the kitchen clock, saw with surprise that it was after three in the morning and wavered between putting the kettle on and pouring himself a