Acid Row by Minette Walters Read Free Book Online Page B

man's lights out, assuming of course there was any passion left in the relationship. "Why didn't you inform Martin you'd left Eddy?"
    “I was trying to protect Amy.”
    It was an extreme phrase, he thought. "Is there some other abuse that you haven't told me about?"
    “No.”
    Tyler allowed a silence to develop while he referred to his notes again. It was a very decided negative and he wondered if she had prepared for the question. He would have expected a rather more shocked response, a rush to explain why the suggestion couldn't be true. It raised doubts in his mind, particularly as her husband had reacted very angrily to a similar question.
    He traced his finger down the lines on the page. "According to your husband, Mr. Townsend's on holiday at the moment. He's gone to Majorca with a girlfriend." He looked up but Laura didn't react.
    “Townsend's been a client of your husband's for over ten years,” he went on. "A property developer. He and his wife divorced two years ago. You and he began your affair shortly afterwards and you moved in with him last October. He lives in Southampton. Your husband agreed to your having custody of Amy while you were living with Townsend. His only proviso was that if the relationship failed, you would return Amy to his care until the issue of your own divorce was settled. He says you returned his maintenance cheques while you were with Townsend and weren't in a position to support Amy on your own. Is that correct?"
    She lifted her hand in a small gesture of protest. "Martin was never as she sought for a word “reasonable as that.”
    "You were sleeping with his friend. He was hardly going to be pleased."
    “I didn't expect him to be,” was all she said.
    “So what happened?”
    “It didn't work out with Eddy so we came here.”
    “Is there a reason why it didn't work out?”
    She fingered the hair in front of her face. "It never had much of a chance. We wanted different things from the relationship."
    “What did you want?”
    “An escape,” she said simply.
    “Why did you return the maintenance cheques?”
    “It wouldn't have been an escape.”
    “What did Eddy want?”
    “Sex.”
    “Is that what Gregory wants?”
    “Yes.”
    “You're a fast worker,” Tyler said mildly. "One minute you're with a developer in Southampton, the next you're with a bus driver in Portisfield. How did that work exactly?"
    “We stayed in a hotel for five weeks.”
    “Why?”
    “It was anonymous.”
    “Were you hiding from Martin?”
    She shrugged.
    “Because he'd have taken Amy back?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who paid?”
    “I used my savings.” She paused. "I couldn't work because there was no one to leave her with, and we were running out of money. That's why I needed somewhere else."
    He glanced about the kitchen. "Why another man? Why not put yourself on the housing list and find a child minder?"
    She set to drawing circles again. "I couldn't risk Amy telling the housing officer about her father. They'd have taken her off me if they knew she had somewhere else to live." A tiny laugh fluttered from her mouth. "In any case, Martin's a snob. I knew he'd never come looking for us here. It wouldn't occur to him that I might be willing to live in a council house and work in a supermarket just to be free of him."
    “How does Amy feel about it?”
    "Even your daughter knows you're only sleeping with him to keep a roof over your head.. .“ ”I don't know. I've never asked her."
    “Why not?”
    “You've seen Martin's house.” She flicked him a quick, assessing glance. “Which would you choose if you were a ten-year-old girl?”
    Rogerson had asked the same question after learning where Amy had been for the last two months. "Your husband's of course, but if that's what she wants then she should have been given the choice. She has the same rights as you, Laura, and to be a prisoner of war between her parents isn't one of them."
    “If she were a prisoner,” she flashed back, 'she'd be locked