Angel of Death by Charlotte Lamb Read Free Book Online

early to go to work. She put on muted grey; a trouser suit with a white shirt and flat, sensible shoes. The outfit made her feel responsible and sensible, but it would not make any difference, she knew that. Terry would terminate her contract. It was bound to happen.
    Filled with dread, she left her apartment building and stopped in her tracks, recognising the dark red Jaguar parked outside.
    Terry’s usual smiling cheerfulness was absent. His features were drawn and grim. Her nerves jumped as he lowered his window and stared at her like an enemy.
    ‘Get in, Miranda.’
    She shivered, slowly walked round his car and got into the passenger seat. Terry started the engine again and drove off at speed, his tyres spinning on loose gravel in the road. He didn’t speak until he had turned into a quiet road beside a small local park. Pulling up beside railings through which she could see well-mown grass, trees, spreading sycamores under which children were running, laughing, All so familiar and summery.
    He turned to face her, his stare level and remote as if he didn’t know her and did not like what he saw.
    ‘You realise you’ll have to leave the firm? I couldn’t keep you on after this.’
    She lowered her head and stared at her hands, biting her lip. What was there to say? She had been expecting this ever since she really started to think last night in bed, working out the reactions that were bound to follow her accusation against Sean.
    After a pause Terry burst out, ‘Haven’t you got anything to say? My God, you’ve accused my son of murder. Murder! Why? Why did you do it? Are you off your rocker again? When I offered you a job people said I must be mad, said I was taking a terrible risk, employing someone who wasn’t all there. But I thought you were over all that. I thought you were cured. But you weren’t, were you? And now you’ve done this to my son, a mere boy, only twenty-one, his life just beginning, and you’ve accused him . . .’ He broke off, breathing roughly. ‘Well, you’ll have to go. I don’t want you around me from now on. There’s no room in my firm for crazy people. Do you understand?’
    She sighed, nodded. Yes, she understood. She didn’t blame him. Everyone knew how much Terry loved his son. Sean was the apple of his eye and he had great hopes for him. She had always admired Terry’s love for his only child and had understood how he felt. Terry had built up a successful company by a lot of hard work, he was proud of what he had achieved, with good reason, and he wanted to leave it to his son, to give Sean all the things Terry, himself, had not had when he was growing up.
    ‘I’m sorry, Terry – really. I thought about ringing you before I talked to the police, but I was in a terrible state. I had to make up my mind quickly and . . . well, I couldn’t just ignore it, could I? I had to do something fast. If you had heard her drowning . . . it was horrible, Terry . . .’
    He burst out angrily. ‘It never happened, you crazy bitch! You imagined the whole thing! And not for the first time, either. I told the police all about you. It’s not the first time you’ve claimed to hear people drowning, is it? That’s why they put you away.’
    She flinched. ‘I was ill, then, I’m not ill, now, Terry. I’m quite clear about what I heard and saw.’
    ‘Sean was with me, at home,’ he told her furiously. ‘He wasn’t in London at all. You know, I was sorry for you, after your husband’s death, that’s why I gave you the job, but now you’re trying to destroy my son. Why are you doing it?’
    She groaned. ‘I don’t want to harm Sean, I’ve always liked him, but I saw what I saw and I heard what I heard, it was not my imagination, it really happened.’
    ‘You lying bitch! My boy wouldn’t harm a fly, let alone drown a girl!’ Terry put his flushed, strained face right next to hers, his eyes stared into hers, she could see the little yellow rays around his dark pupil, the