Kill My Darling by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Read Free Book Online Page A

defeatism.
    An urgent phone call to Swilley from Atherton had diverted her on her way back from Ealing and she had arrived with a stack of pizza boxes, so they had all had lunch after all – rather belated but better than nothing. Connolly had made Slider a proper cup of tea to go with his, but he had eaten absently, looking at Melanie Hunter’s picture in-between reading the reports from Connolly, Atherton and Swilley and trying not to fear the worst.
    They had done all they could by way of circulating the picture and description to police and hospitals and the usual agencies, and ringing anyone she might have visited or telephoned, while outside the thin sun had dipped out of contention through a red sky, and the icy cold had returned like a marauder, as if it had been hanging around in the shadows all day just waiting for its chance.
    There was no news of Melanie Hunter, either good or bad, by the time Slider called it a day and went home to a cold beef supper, which he could not taste through the dust and ashes of his certainty that she was a goner. And too many people now knew she was missing for it not to get to the press, and there would be all the parade and palaver that the media so loved, the questions and appeals and endlessly repeated factlets about her last known movements, all presided over by the photo – the photo – the photo; until eventually the sad, crumpled, discarded body would be found, and they’d have a murder investigation on their hands. Sometimes he hated his job.

THREE
    Babe in the Woods
    P robably it was the pizza, but he had a restless night, not falling asleep properly until half past five; and then the telephone roused him at seven from such a depth it was almost an agony to open his eyes. But his brain clicked back into position an instant later, and he knew as he reached for the bedside phone what it would be.
    It was Atherton. ‘Found her.’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜By Ruislip Lido. In the woods.’
    â€˜Oh God.’
    â€˜My sentiments exactly.’
    â€˜I’ll see you there.’
    Slider had lived a large part of his first marriage, to Irene, in Ruislip, so he knew it well. He had taken the kids to the Lido on sunny Sundays. It was the poor man’s seaside – in his case, time-poor as much as anything. The north part of Ruislip ran up into the foothills of the Chilterns, so it was both hilly and much wooded – surprisingly country-like, considering it was still part of London. The Lido itself had started life as a man-made reservoir intended as a feeder for the Grand Union Canal, before becoming a swimming-and-boating day resort in the thirties. It had declined since its heyday, but still had a sandy beach, children’s playground, pub/restaurant and miniature railway. The woods came down to it for three quarters of its circumference. They were popular with ramblers, dog walkers and horse riders, so they were not exactly unfrequented, but they covered several hundred acres, so could still be reckoned a good place to abandon a body if you got off the main paths. Slider anticipated a long trek from the car park. Still, it had been freezing cold for so long – he’d lost count now how long, but weeks, anyway – the ground at least would not be muddy.
    There had been a frost in the night, such a stiff one it was lying along the branches like snow, half an inch deep; roofs were white with it, and in the fields every stem of grass was outlined and rigid like the blade of a Zulu spear. The woods looked beautiful as the sun reluctantly rose for its low-slung hibernal trajectory across the sky, sparkling and tinged with pink.
    The hard winter had taken its toll on the road surfaces, and in Reservoir Road, the approach to the Lido, there were potholes you could find lost tribes in. Slider bumped and manoeuvred his way carefully down to the car park. Despite the early hour, there was quite a crowd there already. Some, all, or more