Read Online The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2) by Valerie Laws - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Valerie Laws
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now, it leaves us wide open, if we do find anything she can just say it’s
from their visit earlier.’
It was as bad as Erica had
feared. She got home to find the early edition on the mat and herself described
as a ‘slim, petite blonde new age therapist’ next to a photo which made her
look completely gormless. Worse, she’d given her supposed answers to Gary in a ‘shaken
voice’ while her ‘trembling hands clutched a mug of sweet tea, her swimming
eyes huge in her pale face’ as he’d ‘encouraged her to face her dreadful
experience’. Sweet tea! As if.
The police had given him some official guff about
ongoing enquiries, tragic case, worst seen in a long career etc, and the
neighbours said the usual belatedly complimentary things similar to those she’d
heard on local TV news. ‘You don’t expect that kind of thing to happen here,’
and ‘This is a quiet, respectable neighbourhood’. Nothing from the estranged
wife; presumably Gary hadn’t been able to get to the new widow yet. Erica
wished she could get to Gary and write his obituary.
CHAPTER TEN
Erica had had enough for
one day. She felt tense and her shoulders were tight. She put on her running
gear and set out to work it all off. The tide would be still pretty far out,
plenty of damp firm sand to run on. As she jogged slowly at first, warming up,
down to the sea front and then gaining speed along the beach, the moon was up
already, a pale translucent jellyfish swimming in the still-light sky. The
slow, slushing sound of the sea as ever had a calming effect on her spirit. She
turned inland again before the track to the lighthouse at the north end of
Wydsand bay and ran back alongside the cemetery.
She often took this route because it made a
circuit, along the sea front, looping back past the cemetery and along a wooded
track by the golf course. It just so happened that it would take her past
Kingston’s house, which backed onto the golf course, separated from it by a muddy
worn track. She felt an urge, like a criminal, to return to the scene of the
crime.
She reached the end of the asphalt path at the
corner of the cemetery. The crematorium, grey stone mock-gothic, stood silent,
the chimney smokeless. No risk today of inhaling somebody’s mortal remains as
they puffed out of the chimney straight into her lungs, as had happened
disconcertingly before. She thought of them still in there, rising and falling
with her breath, embedded in her lungs, living on in her body.
She turned in again to run alongside the cemetery
where it ran at right angles to the asphalt track. The ground now was dirt
track fringed by long grass, dock leaves, cow parsley, edged with elder,
hawthorn and poplars, the golf course on her right. Where the cemetery had been
on her left were now the backs of large detached houses, sixties built, their
back fences having gates onto the path. Towards the end of the path, before she
turned down a snicket back onto the streets that would lead her home, was
Kingston’s house. She was right behind it. Well how about that.
She stepped back almost into the twiggy hawthorn bushes
against the golf course boundary to see what she could of the house above its
high, solidly built back fence. Kingston’s house itself looked just like an
expensive, respectable house - there was nothing to say a murder had been
committed there, apart from some sadly dangling crime scene tape across his
back gate. Taking a side step, Erica felt her trainer skid on something. She
looked down and found an empty quarter vodka bottle of a cheap brand keeping
company with a couple of crushed beer cans and a cigarette packet, also empty.
A few fag ends lay around as a garnish.
Obviously the local youths hung about here. She
had seen similar caches among the newer but equally affluent clumps of houses
in the area. Kids with nowhere to go. The police called their little refuges ‘drinking
dens’, which sounded much more exciting, more
from their visit earlier.’
It was as bad as Erica had
feared. She got home to find the early edition on the mat and herself described
as a ‘slim, petite blonde new age therapist’ next to a photo which made her
look completely gormless. Worse, she’d given her supposed answers to Gary in a ‘shaken
voice’ while her ‘trembling hands clutched a mug of sweet tea, her swimming
eyes huge in her pale face’ as he’d ‘encouraged her to face her dreadful
experience’. Sweet tea! As if.
The police had given him some official guff about
ongoing enquiries, tragic case, worst seen in a long career etc, and the
neighbours said the usual belatedly complimentary things similar to those she’d
heard on local TV news. ‘You don’t expect that kind of thing to happen here,’
and ‘This is a quiet, respectable neighbourhood’. Nothing from the estranged
wife; presumably Gary hadn’t been able to get to the new widow yet. Erica
wished she could get to Gary and write his obituary.
CHAPTER TEN
Erica had had enough for
one day. She felt tense and her shoulders were tight. She put on her running
gear and set out to work it all off. The tide would be still pretty far out,
plenty of damp firm sand to run on. As she jogged slowly at first, warming up,
down to the sea front and then gaining speed along the beach, the moon was up
already, a pale translucent jellyfish swimming in the still-light sky. The
slow, slushing sound of the sea as ever had a calming effect on her spirit. She
turned inland again before the track to the lighthouse at the north end of
Wydsand bay and ran back alongside the cemetery.
She often took this route because it made a
circuit, along the sea front, looping back past the cemetery and along a wooded
track by the golf course. It just so happened that it would take her past
Kingston’s house, which backed onto the golf course, separated from it by a muddy
worn track. She felt an urge, like a criminal, to return to the scene of the
crime.
She reached the end of the asphalt path at the
corner of the cemetery. The crematorium, grey stone mock-gothic, stood silent,
the chimney smokeless. No risk today of inhaling somebody’s mortal remains as
they puffed out of the chimney straight into her lungs, as had happened
disconcertingly before. She thought of them still in there, rising and falling
with her breath, embedded in her lungs, living on in her body.
She turned in again to run alongside the cemetery
where it ran at right angles to the asphalt track. The ground now was dirt
track fringed by long grass, dock leaves, cow parsley, edged with elder,
hawthorn and poplars, the golf course on her right. Where the cemetery had been
on her left were now the backs of large detached houses, sixties built, their
back fences having gates onto the path. Towards the end of the path, before she
turned down a snicket back onto the streets that would lead her home, was
Kingston’s house. She was right behind it. Well how about that.
She stepped back almost into the twiggy hawthorn bushes
against the golf course boundary to see what she could of the house above its
high, solidly built back fence. Kingston’s house itself looked just like an
expensive, respectable house - there was nothing to say a murder had been
committed there, apart from some sadly dangling crime scene tape across his
back gate. Taking a side step, Erica felt her trainer skid on something. She
looked down and found an empty quarter vodka bottle of a cheap brand keeping
company with a couple of crushed beer cans and a cigarette packet, also empty.
A few fag ends lay around as a garnish.
Obviously the local youths hung about here. She
had seen similar caches among the newer but equally affluent clumps of houses
in the area. Kids with nowhere to go. The police called their little refuges ‘drinking
dens’, which sounded much more exciting, more
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