Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1) by Paddy Magrane Read Free Book Online

the smell of manure. Eleanor Scott wore an over-sized overcoat – perhaps, thought Sam, her father’s, and an attempt by her to stay close to him. Above this dense, protective layer her face, despite raging eyes, seemed fragile and delicate – pale skin etched with fatigue and sadness.
       ‘He came to see me for a session the day before he died,’ said Sam, immediately regretting his choice of words.
       Eleanor said nothing, which made Sam even more edgy. Right now, she had every reason to hate him. He briefly considered mentioning what Scott had said about her, but as quickly decided against it.
       ‘All I can say is that he looked a shadow of the man I knew from the media. He talked about something that was haunting him day and night.’
       The shotgun dropped a fraction.
       ‘Your father talked about being in a deep pit – one he was never going to get out of.’
       Eleanor’s eyes had begun to well. Sam knew what he needed to say now to finally remove the threat of a shotgun being fired into his stomach. It was cheap but, Sam was confident, guaranteed to wrench at the heart of a bereaved daughter.
       ‘He was frightened.’
       Eleanor was crying now and the shotgun hung limply by her side.
       ‘I’m so sorry about your father,’ Sam said. ‘I’m also sorry for marching on to your property like this. But I couldn’t think of any other way to get in contact with you. I knew you wouldn’t talk to me on the phone in case you thought I was some prying journalist.’
       Eleanor looked up, her eyes wet with tears. ‘So why have you come?’
       ‘Something about your father’s death doesn’t add up,’ said Sam. ‘And I have to find out what.’
     
     

Chapter 12
     
    Sussex 
     
    They were sitting at the kitchen table, the surface scattered with unopened mail and piles of newspapers. Clearly Eleanor had been ploughing through them, reading both the good and bad stuff about her father. It was understandable. As long as he continued to be talked about, he was alive to her.
       Around them, the room looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for days, with muddy boot prints across the floor and a sink stacked with unwashed plates and pans. But the place had an undeniably homely feel to it. A dog – an elderly chocolate Labrador – was curled up in front of an Aga. Photos of Scott, Eleanor and Wendy in happier days – a fading snap of a family holiday from Eleanor’s teenage years, the three of them in swimming costumes on an empty beach; another of Eleanor in mortar board and gown flanked by her grinning father – were pinned to a cork board.
       Sam couldn’t help but contrast this domestic scene with the home of his childhood, a sterile, cold house in an isolated rural spot in Wiltshire. In the absence of his father, who’d died shortly after he was born, Sam’s mother, a scientist who worked at the MoD, dictated life for her only child. The home was wholly lacking in human touches, or warmth of any kind. It was a building he had revisited countless times in his own therapy – and one which he hoped never to see again.
       He could see Wendy Scott, the Minister’s widow, through an open doorway. She was sitting in what looked like a specially adapted armchair and a carer was helping her to drink from a beaker with a spout.
       ‘Keep your voice down, by the way’ said Eleanor, her tone still brittle. ‘Mum may look gaga but she’s not – and I don’t want her hearing what you say.’
       Eleanor took a sip of her coffee. She was, Sam reckoned, in her early thirties, slender with a mass of unbrushed, shoulder-length brown hair. She was attractive, in an unconventional way, with a trace of freckles across the smooth skin of her cheeks and straight nose, and a dimple beneath her full mouth. Tired eyes – the irises a deep, dark brown – flickered inquisitively in his direction. Sam noticed – as he frequently did of his clients – that at the end of