Read Online Mondays are Murder by Tanya Landman - Free Book Online

much that night.
    For hours thoughts circled inside my head. Mike was the murderer. But how? It wasn’t possible. Nobody could have killed Isabella. Nobody could have shut Donald in the freezer. Nobody could have cut that rope.
    Nothing made sense. It was too strange. Supernatural. Spooky. Thoughts chased each other round and round, but I couldn’t pin down any of them. Eventually I fell into an uneasy sleep, and dreamt about jungles, glaciers and snow-capped mountains.
    When I woke up the next morning my head was aching and my eyes felt like they’d been rubbed with hot sand. Blearily I climbed out of bed, grabbed my wash bag and made for the shower.
    I stood in the stream of hot water, breathing in the jungle-like steam. Jungles, I thought… Steve. My mind ran through the names of the dead like a teacher calling out the register. Richard Robertson, Steve Harris, Bruce Dundee, Donald Shaw, Isabella Rackenford. Had Mike really killed them all? Was he totally deranged? Because it had to be him, didn’t it?
    Or could someone else be responsible for everything – someone we hadn’t really talked about last night?
    Cathy. She wasn’t on that trip to South America. There hadn’t been anything to link her with the others. So where
had
she come from? Why had she ended up working here on Murrag?
    I got out of the shower and dried myself. Cathy had disliked Isabella, I was sure of it – I’d seen the sideways glances she had sent off like poisoned darts at Mike’s wife. I was also sure that Cathy liked Mike. But suppose I was wrong? I mean, I’d thought Mike was perfectly sane until I saw him in the kitchen with Isabella’s body and then he’d seemed completely demented. Appearances could be misleading. Suppose all those looks Cathy gave Mike weren’t loving glances, but something more sinister? Perhaps she’d disguised her real feelings towards him…
    Cathy’s surname was Price. But could she be related to Richard Robertson and be seeking revenge for his death? If she was his half-sister or his cousin they wouldn’t necessarily have the same surname.
    Throwing my clothes on quickly, I ran to Graham’s bedroom. I badly wanted to talk to him. I opened the door and there was Jake, still asleep and sucking his thumb. Graham was on the top bunk, dozing beneath his duvet.
    “Do you think Cathy might be related to Richard Robertson?” I demanded, prodding him awake.
    “Erm…” mumbled Graham, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Maybe…”
    My mind was rushing ahead. I didn’t know how Cathy could have managed it but… “She was there on the cliffs that first day,” I said. “She could have done something with the ropes even if none of us saw it. Swapped them over, maybe, while no one was looking? Yes – that must be it. And then Bruce died by mistake. She must have been furious! So that’s the reason for the looks at Mike – she’s planning another accident for him!”
    “But,” objected Graham, “she took us riding the day Donald died.”
    “Yes. But she went back to fetch her gloves. She was the last person to see him alive…” I trailed off. I’d seen Donald myself when we’d ridden away. I shut my eyes, recalling his silhouette at the window. Realization hit me in a sudden, blinding flash. “That’s it!” I squealed. “Suppose it wasn’t Donald?”
    “In the freezer? But we saw him.”
    “No! At the window. I saw an outline, that’s all – the light was behind him. Someone was there that I
thought
was Donald, but I couldn’t see his face. He was standing still. He might have been a cardboard cut-out for all I know. It could have been a trick, don’t you see? Cathy could have locked him in the freezer and put the cut-out up. And then when we got back she went straight off to the loo. She could have got rid of it then and none of us would be any the wiser.”
    “And Isabella? How do you explain that?”
    “I don’t know. But Cathy was being fantastically cheerful on the mountain,