In for the Kill by Pauline Rowson Read Free Book Online Page A

sure, except he thinks I killed Joe, or was an accomplice to his death. I assumed he was from specialist investigations. He knew all about me.’
    ‘I’ll find out. Joe was handling a couple of cases for me. I’ll talk to Detective Superintendent Reede; he’s head of the Major Crime Team. I expect he’ll send someone to interview me.’
    ‘What will you say if they ask you about me?’ I asked a little anxiously.
    ‘I’ll tell them the truth - if they ask me the right questions.’ He smiled. ‘But they might not know what the right questions are.’
    ‘Miles, don’t get into trouble.’
    He cut me short with a smile. ‘You’re forgetting I’m a criminal lawyer and a good one at that, with one exception: you.’
    Yes.
    ‘Was Joe married?’
    ‘Divorced. How did you get on at the funeral?’
    ‘Jennifer Clipton told me that Sergeant Hammond, Clipton’s second in command, won the lottery or the pools or something, chucked in his job and took off for sunny Spain. Can you check it out for me?’
    ‘You think he might have been paid off?’
    I shrugged. ‘If Andover bought Joe off, he might have bought Hammond too. And see what you can find out about DCI Clipton’s death. I know the coroner said natural causes, and it probably was, but see if the police are satisfied with that.’
    ‘How do I get in touch with you?’
    ‘I’ll ring you. I’ve given Jennifer Clipton your telephone number; she’ll call you if she remembers anything that can throw a light on what her father was doing visiting the Isle of Wight. Could you ask Joe’s secretary if she’ll meet me?’
    ‘Of course. Where?’
    ‘Wherever she wants.’
    I glanced at my watch. It was almost four o’clock. ‘Could you try her now?’
    Miles picked up his phone. ‘She won’t be in the office. I’ll try her mobile.’
    I crossed to the window as he called her number.
    ‘Joy, it’s Miles.’
    His voice faded into the distance as I stared at the grey brick façade of the grammar school opposite. It was where Vanessa had once taught, and where our boys had gone to school. Vanessa had suggested I try Miles’s law firm. After my trial and conviction Vanessa had resigned her job as assistant head teacher. She’d since found a new job teaching at a private school just outside Petersfield, which the boys now attended. It was close to where they lived with their stepfather.
    My eyes travelled along the road to where a stocky man wearing a crash helmet was standing beside his motorbike, looking this way. Was he following me? Was he a copper?
    I wondered if Joy would tell me anything.
    Would she still have those reports that Joe had compiled on his investigation into Andover? Had she handed them over to the police? Or had Joe destroyed them? Perhaps Andover had done that after killing Joe. If they were the same reports I had then I knew they weren’t worth the paper they were written on. But what if Joe had sent me edited highlights and the real reports contained some clue as to the identity and whereabouts of Andover? I had to check.
    Miles came off the phone. ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow.’
    Damn. I had hoped it would be today. I said,
    ‘Where?’
    ‘The café in the Portsmouth Museum.’
    That seemed as good a place as any.
    The day was drawing in earlier than usual because of the now relentless rain and heavy skies and I was surprised to find my neighbour waiting for me in the small forecourt of my houseboat when I returned home. Her long, very wet hair in various shades of brown was framing a scowling face. She wore a long flowing green raincoat that reached Doc Martin-type boots.
    ‘Have you seen my mother?’ She demanded before I had even pushed back the gate. She was glaring at me as if I’d kidnapped her.
    I didn’t even know she had a mother. ‘No. I’ve just returned from the mainland.’
    She looked cross, as if it had been irresponsible of me to leave when her mother had gone missing.
    ‘She might be inside your