Driftnet by Lin Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

girl whose hand fitted
easily inside his big one, whose cheek met his in a whiff of
tobacco smoke and bristly beard. All her certainties began to
crumble. And it was happening again. Seventeen years of her life
dissolving into nothingness.
    There was a
second knock at the door, this time much louder, then someone tried
the lock, rasping it this way and that. Her name was being called.
It came from far away.
    ‘Rhona. It’s
me, Sean. Open the door.’
    Rhona went to
the door and unlocked it.
    ‘Sorry,’ she
said. ‘I must have turned the key by mistake.’ She kept her face
turned away from him because she had no idea what she looked like.
She didn’t even know if she’d been crying.
    Sean closed the
door carefully and checked the lock (not because he wanted her to
know he didn’t believe her, she knew that, but to give her time),
then he hung his coat on the peg. Rhona went into the kitchen. The
golden light was there, trying to lift the room to normality. Rhona
went to the fridge, took out a bottle of wine and opened it.
    Sean didn’t
like drama. She knew that. He was puzzled by it. His attitude to
life was, if things went wrong, they went wrong. If he couldn’t
figure out why, he forgot about it and went and played his music.
Music held all the drama Sean needed. Tonight he didn’t go and play
his saxophone, but followed her into the kitchen.
    ‘I’m going away
for a week,’ he said quietly. He poured himself a glass of wine and
sat down opposite her at the table. ‘I’ve got a gig in Paris.’
    She said
nothing and he reached out and took her hand, stroking the palm
gently with his thumb. ‘An old mate of mine wants me to fill a spot
while one of the band takes a holiday.’ He gripped her hand more
tightly now and dipped his head so that he caught her eyes and drew
them up to meet his. ‘I thought you might come with me.’
    ‘I can’t.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘The
murder...’
    ‘You’ll have
finished with that. I don’t go for a couple of days yet.’
    She shook her
head. ‘No, it’ll take longer.’
    She pulled her
hand from his, got up, and went to the window. The convent bells
had stopped and the world seemed suddenly empty without them. If
she didn’t go with Sean to Paris he wouldn’t come back, she
thought, at least not to the flat, not to her. He had put down his
glass and was coming towards her. She turned and tried to walk past
him but he stopped her at the door. She turned her head away but he
brought it back and held it there while he looked at her.
    ‘You’re going
to have to tell me if you don’t want me, Rhona. You’re going to
have to say the words.’ He laid his cheek against hers and spoke
softly in her ear. ‘Tell me, Rhona. Tell me you want me to go away.
Tell me you don’t want me to come back.’
    In the silence
that followed he moved his mouth to cover hers.
    When Bill got
back to the office after speaking to Rhona, Janice had plastered
his desk with yellow notelets. It seemed as though plenty had been
happening while he was away. A few phone calls had revealed the
owner of the murder flat, but, according to Janice, he was swanning
his time away in a bar he owned in Tenerife. The guy had lots of
money and plenty of property in and around Glasgow, most of the
details of which were well hidden. The flat in question was let out
for him by a property services company on Dumbarton Road. Janice
had already been there. The place was clean looking, she reported,
but deserted. Maybe the owners had also decided to take a
break.
    When Rhona
called him later to tell him some of the results would be with him
by the morning, she sounded more like her old self.
    ‘We’ve
identified a DNA profile from the saliva and the seminal fluid. We
also have two hairs, neither of which came from the boy,’ she
said.
    ‘So we have a
genetic profile of the killer?’
    ‘Yes. I’ve sent
the samples to the DNA Lab. The fastest they can do is forty eight
hours.’
    ‘It’s not much
use