Read Online Murder... Now and Then by Jill McGown - Free Book Online Page A

somewhere until her mother’s back.’
    â€˜Didn’t you hear what I just said?’ asked Holyoak.
    â€˜Yes – but …’
    â€˜Find her and you’ll be banking more than you’ve ever banked at one go in your life. Start ‘‘just thinking’’ instead of doing what you’re being paid to do, start poking your nose into my business – and you won’t have a business any more. Got it?’ He stood up. ‘And if you don’t want the job, then you’ve just wasted an hour of my time. I could get very angry about that.’
    â€˜No – no. I want the job. I’m not wasting your time. Did your stepdaughter have any money on her?’ he asked, swiftly getting back to impersonal questions.
    Holyoak nodded. ‘I expect so,’ he said. He sat down again. ‘She usually does.’
    â€˜And she took clothes, you said.’
    He nodded again.
    â€˜Do you have a photograph?’
    Holyoak had sorted out photographs that morning; he had chosen the ones taken on her sixteenth birthday, and handed the last one to the detective. ‘If you find her, you report back to me,’ he told him, as he had told the others. ‘You make no contact with her.’
    He nodded, and took the photograph. ‘London’s a big place,’ he said.
    â€˜Use your head,’ Holyoak said. ‘Use your wallet. Use muscle if it helps jog any memories, but don’t let the police get interested, and don’t let her out of your sight if you do find her.’
    London was a big place. But she’d be found. Sooner or later, she would turn up somewhere. She couldn’t just disappear.
    Saturday, mid-morning. Grey, overcast but dry, thus far. Geraldine stepped from the car, taking her father’s arm. Her matron of honour held up the creamy folds of material clear of last night’s puddles as they picked their way through the cars which had spilled over from the church’s tiny car park on to the pathway.
    A white wedding. A cream wedding, at any rate. It was supposed to be her big day, but Geraldine had never cared for all the razzmatazz of church weddings. Charles was the one who wanted it this way, who wanted the bridesmaids and the confetti and the picture of them cutting the cake, who wanted top hats and morning suits and a reception in an hotel that cost the earth.
    And it was her father who was having to pay for it all, of course, because she and Charles couldn’t afford it. They were saving every penny for the practice. Not that her father minded in the least. What he hadn’t liked was Charles’s and Geraldine’s habit of holidaying together, and going off for the occasional weekend together, as they had done for the last four years. Despite the fact that she was now a qualified doctor, her father tended to regard her still as his little girl, and this was what he had wanted, just like Charles, who had never seemed too keen on their premarital forays.
    Charles had been planning this since he and Geraldine had met, practically. She smiled. He was a great man for plans, was Charles. As soon as they had saved enough, he had said, they would marry, and they would set up a practice in Stansfield. She wanted all of that; she just hadn’t wanted this. And more than anything, she wanted a baby. But she hadn’t told Charles that yet.
    She stood in the doorway of the church, with her dress being arranged, and smiled at her father, trying very hard to make herself feel romantic. In truth, she just felt a little silly in her bridal gown, with flowers braided through her long hair. Her father had had tears in his eyes when she came downstairs. Because she was wearing an off-white dress. That was what it amounted to.
    The inner door opened, the vicar nodded to the organist and ‘Here Comes the Bride’ heralded her entrance She felt sillier than ever, not looking right or left, but staring straight ahead at the back of