A Reason to Kill by Jane A. Adams Read Free Book Online Page A

and magnolia walls, it had most likely always been that way. The intruder who had killed Mrs Freer – always supposing, Mac reminded himself, that there had only been the one – had rampaged through this tiny back bedroom. Mac guessed he’d soon realized there was nothing to find and that much of the damage – torn photographs, smashed glass, blankets pulled from the airing cupboard and slashed with the same ferocity evidenced by the sofa downstairs – had been actions of spite and frustration.
    He picked up one of the torn blankets, sniffed. It smelled of age and mould. Damp and chill came out of the walls and rose from the uncarpeted floor. Mrs Freer didn’t use the upstairs of her house; she probably didn’t bother to heat it either. He’d noticed a gas fire in the living room and a small halogen heater in the kitchen. It was likely she just managed with those.
    He wondered if Rina was responsible for the kitchen heater. Then he realized he’d have to be the one to break the news.
    The bedroom had seen less ferocious treatment. The dust strata settled on the bed was still largely intact. Pink candlewick showed through the cobweb grey. The bed was still made and Mac wondered how many years it had waited like that, for sleepers who would no longer settle there.
    The curtains were drawn and Mac tugged them open, setting off a cascade of dust that attacked his throat and eyes. He coughed spasmodically, rubbed his eyes with hands that he realized, belatedly, were filthy and grimed with more of what he was trying to wipe out. Rapid blinking produced tears and washed the worst of the grittiness away, bringing a modicum of relief.
    Mac peered out of the dirty window, gazed down into the street. The funeral ambulance had arrived but scientific support had gone. Across the street a uniformed officer continued with his questions. Mac glanced sideways, towards the top end of the street, and wondered if he would, after all, be the one to tell Rina or if her antennae would be twitching even now.
    The room was a little brighter now and Mac finished his search. Drawers had been pulled out here as they had downstairs but the ransack here was tidy in comparison. Drawers had been placed on the floor, their contents rifled, but not tipped out. Mac stooped to look. There was little to see – a box of matches, a paperback romance, a photograph. He looked more closely at the picture of the young couple, smartly dressed and gazing out with confidence at the camera. He turned it over. Written on the back in a tidy hand were the words
Trip to Edinburgh
. He remembered what Mrs Freer had told him about their travels.
    â€˜Honeymoon?’ he wondered aloud. She had been a pretty woman. Mac closed his eyes to block the unbidden image of the body downstairs.
    He checked the wardrobe. Old clothes, mostly male. A couple of winter coats and a pair of shoes. The drawers in the chest beside the window were empty. Mac noted that, apart from the top one, they had not even been pulled out. The dust was largely undisturbed.
    Two searchers, Mac thought. Two people. One angry and vindictive and the second whose heart was not fully in it.
Find the second
, Mac thought. Find the second and they would break the case. The other one would tough it out. He might boast though.
    Mac made his slow way downstairs and joined Eden in the living room. The photographer was finishing up, recording where the body had lain. Mac studied the blood stains, frowned.
    â€˜She fell on her right side first,’ he said. ‘Then was rolled on to her left?’
    Eden nodded. ‘That’s the way I read it, and the scene co-ordinator suspects the same. Maybe he knocked her down, left her to bleed long enough for that patch to form, then he either rolled her or …’
    Mac shook his head. ‘If he’d rolled her, the two blood pools would be closer. He picked her up, hit her in the face and dropped her down again. She fell