Core of Evil by Nigel McCrery Read Free Book Online Page A

to see, just a pile of clothes or a tramp who’d had a heart attack. I thought we’d be clear inside an hour. Didn’t plan on this turning into a crime scene.’ Her gaze switched back to meet Lapslie’s. ‘He never got out of the car, boss. I promise you that.’
    Lapslie took a deep breath. These things happened. Sometimes it was difficult to disentangle personal from professional. God knew, he’d had enough experience of that himself over the years.
    ‘Okay. We’ll leave it there. Get your boyfriend home, get a bacon sandwich and a cup of coffee inside you and I’ll see you back at the office later.’
    ‘Thanks, boss.’ She nodded, waiting until Lapslie had started to move away before she moved back towards her car. Lapslie took a few steps more, until he heard the
clunk
of her car door closing, then heturned and watched as she gunned the car to life and pulled away. He stood for a couple of seconds, watching it go, wondering whether to take things any further or just forget about it.
    And just as he realised that there was another car, a black Lexus with a tinted windscreen, parked in the trees a hundred yards or so down the road, it too gunned its engine to life, quietly pulled out of the tree line and drove away after DS Bradbury.

CHAPTER THREE
    It was dark by the time Violet returned to the house that had once belonged to Daisy but now belonged to her. The thin wash of cloud that had given the sky its texture and depth during the day now gave the night an oppressive closeness, like sheets of sackcloth pinned from one side of the street to the other and sagging in the middle under their own weight.
    She turned the ignition key and let the Volvo’s engine die away. Something inside the bonnet whirred for a few seconds more, then it, too, gave way to the silence of the night. Violet just sat there, sinking back into the seat and letting the nervous tension drain out of her body.
    Lights were on all the way down the street. Behind those lit windows, families were boiling pasta and heating up sauce, watching TV, telling stories to excitable children or sitting quietly and reading a book. Life went on – if repeating the same old routine, night after night, was life.
    Tiredness had wormed its way into Violet’s joints. Every time she turned her head slightly she could feelthe tendons and muscles pulling tight across her neck. Sometimes, when she felt like this, she had the worrying thought that all she had to do was keep turning her head further and further and the tendons would snap, one by one, like the horsehair on an old violin bow.
    She shook herself.
Come on, Violet
, she thought,
focus. You still have a job to do. This was only the first step.
    She climbed out of the car, locked the door and took a look around her. Nobody was watching. No curtains were twitching. She was safe.
    Violet had parked a few hundred yards down the street from her new house, of course – just opposite a patch of waste ground where children played football at the weekends – and now she walked slowly along the pavement to that familiar front door, with its crazy-paving paint and its tape-bandaged letter box. She paused for a moment, gazing at the drooping geraniums. Those would have to go, she thought. Too dreary. Too drab. Too meaningless.
    Perhaps she could plant a nice Christmas rose before she left. In memory of Daisy.
    Smiling, she inserted her key into her lock and walked into her house.
    The smell hit her as soon as she entered. Older now, and fouler, undercut by the acridity of bleach and overlaid by Daisy’s favourite lavender perfume,but still lurking there like some old, mangy dog in the undergrowth. Air fresheners and pot-pourri could only do so much, but there was obviously more cleaning required. Quickly, Violet walked along the hall – slipping her thin cotton gloves on as she did so – then through the tiny kitchen and out into the conservatory. She flicked the latches on the back door, top and bottom, and