Chill Factor by Stuart Pawson Read Free Book Online Page B

ringing Mr Wood with the latest bombshell. The roads were empty and I drove fast. Soon we were clear of the streetlamps, tearing along through the night.
    “You seem to know where you’re going,” Dave observed.
    “I came to look at them, once,” I replied.
    “What? You were thinking of moving?”
    “Mmm.”
    “You kept that quiet.”
    “I don’t tell you everything.”
    A cat darted halfway across the road, then stopped and stared into my headlights. I hit the brakes and the front of the car dipped and pulled to the right as a wheel locked. The moggie regained the power of movement and leapt to safety.
    After a silence Dave said: “You and Annabelle?”
    “Yeah. We could have afforded one reasonably comfortably if we’d pooled our resources.”
    Annabelle was my last long-term relationship. We were together for about five years, which was a personal best for me, but she decided the grass was greener when seen through the windscreen of a Mercedes. I live in the house I inherited from my parents, and she owned an old vicarage. When things were good between us we’d done the tour of a few places, including Mountain Meadows. On paper it had looked ideal, but a quick visit one summer’s evening destroyed the dream. The smoke from all the barbecues and the incessant drinky-poos with the neighbours would have ruined our lungs and livers. Then she left me, so it was just as well that we hadn’t moved.
    Except, maybe, if we had… Ah well, we’d never know.
    “So what do you think,” Dave asked, changing the subject.
    “We’ll soon find out,” I replied. “This is it.”
    I turned off the lane and slowed down for the speed humps, hardly recognising the place. The darkness was almost absolute, broken only by an occasional lighted window , and all the twigs with garden centre labels on them that had dotted the open plan gardens were now luxuriant shrubs and trees. As my headlights swung around, probing the shadows, we saw that the conservatory salesman had done a roaring trade, and since my last visit the registration letters on the cars parked outside every house had progressed two places along the alphabet. Two houses, next to each other, had speedboats. Tony Silkstone had told us that his house, The Garth, was the last one on the right. “The one with the converted gas lamps along the drive,” he’d added. Somebody’s million-watt security light flicked on behind us, turning night into day.
    The panda sent by Inspector Adey was parked outside The Garth. We’d radioed instructions for them to guard and contain the property until we arrived. I freewheeled to a standstill behind it, yanked the brake on and killed the lights as the two occupants opened their doors and stretched upright. “Got the key?” I asked the driver.
    “Right here, Boss,” he replied.
    “Thanks. Hang around, we might need you.”
    The converted gas lamps were not switched on and a Suzuki Vitara stood on the drive, nose against the garage door. The house was in total darkness, although all the curtains were pulled back. Dave put the key in the Yale latch, turned it and pushed the door open. When Silkstone dashed out he hadn’t locked the door deliberately; he’d just pulled it shut, or it had slammed behind him. Mr Yale had done the rest. So far, so good.
    As we stepped inside a wind chime broke into song above our heads. “I could do without that,” I hissed.
    The feeble illumination from a digital clock was enough to tell us that we were in a kitchen, and it was a good deallarger than the last one we’d stood in. Edges of implements and utensils in chrome and stainless steel reflected its glow. Unblinking green and red pilot lights watched us, like animals in the jungle, wondering who the intruders were, and a refrigerator added a background hum.
    I found a light switch and clicked it on. The shapes became Neff appliances and the jungle animals lost their menace. Dave handed me a rolled-up coverall and I started to pull it