Beside a Narrow Stream by Faith Martin Read Free Book Online

explain herself to her new, super-efficient DS, and carried on, a bit more sharply, ‘but the crime scene’s too far out of the way to make any witnesses to the actual event likely, and I need to get any interesting worms to come out of the woodwork as soon as possible. And from something one of the Suttons’ neighbours told me, I think there are plenty of worms of the female variety about who could tell us a thing or two.’ And, she thought silently, given that red paper heart, it would be interesting to see which women volunteered to come forward, and which had to be winkled out.
    ‘Right guv,’ Gemma Fordham said, and waited for Hillary to hang up first. When she did, she put her phone away thoughtfully , and allowed herself a small smile. The boss either trusted her with the radio appeal, or else wanted to give her enough rope to hang herself. Either way, she was obviously making an impression.
    Then she felt the smile fall from her face and gave herself a mental kick. Making an impression was not exactly what she was there for. If she was going to get that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow she needed to be unobtrusive. To fly below the radar, to watch, listen and learn, then nip in and out again and be off before anyone could wonder why.
    Damn it, she was going to have to keep her need to impress and outshine Hillary Greene firmly in check.
    Oblivious to the glories of the late spring day around her, Gemma Fordham walked quickly back to the crime scene, andgot a lift back to HQ with a patrol car, already planning the radio appeal in her head. Quiet, calm, concise. Nothing flashy but enough to get the job done.
    That was going to be her motto from now on.
     
    Monica Freeman, the victim’s girlfriend, lived in a small block of red-brick flats overlooking a large car park in the nearby market town of Banbury. According to Claire Sutton, she worked as a trainee veterinary nurse at a practice in town, so Hillary wasn’t particularly surprised to find no one in at the flat. It didn’t take her long to walk back to her car or track down the surgery.
    The Fairways Clinic was situated not far from the famous Banbury Cross, in a small, fairly new-looking industrial estate. Hillary parked in a surprisingly spacious car park and made her way to the clinic doors, feeling the sun beat down on her back and make a trickle of sweat run down her shoulderblades . Inside, a large black-and-white cat was yowling from the depths of a carrier-cage, and an excitable Jack Russell pup, wearing what looked like a lampshade around his neck, barked at the cat like a thing demented.
    Hillary walked over to the reception desk and, low-voiced, asked if she might have a quiet word with Monica Freeman. She showed her ID card yet again, and the receptionist, a little wide-eyed, left the desk and moved quickly into the back, where something was whining pitifully.
    Hillary hoped it wasn’t a vet.
    A few minutes later, the receptionist came back. ‘Please, follow me. You’ll have to use an examining room, I’m afraid. We’re a bit short of office space.’
    Hillary smiled to show that was fine, and followed the woman through a narrow maze of corridors, obviously made of thin hard-wood. The tap-tap-tap of the woman’s high heeled shoes on the linoleum flooring sounded weirdly amplified. Again something whined pitifully, and Hillary was glad shedidn’t keep pets. The wild mallards and moorhens who regularly congregated around her boat of a morning to beg for breakfast didn’t count.
    ‘Through here,’ the receptionist said, pushing open a door to reveal a small cubicle containing a very high table, shelving full of plastic containers of various liquids and drugs, and a tall, ash blonde young woman, who was wearing a white coat and a puzzled, vaguely worried frown.
    ‘Thank you,’ Hillary said firmly to the woman still holding open the door, who then flushed and quickly withdrew. ‘Monica Freeman?’
    ‘Yes. Vera said you were with