Needing by Sarah Masters Read Free Book Online

here, me or you?”
    Langham shot him another dark look. “I’ll ignore that comment too. Put it down to sexual frustration.”
    Oliver opened his mouth to give the detective what for, then closed it again as Langham’s laugh filled the room.
    “Fuck you, Langham.”
    “Yeah, you will do.” He smiled. “In the meantime, we have someone to ask a shitload of questions.”
    “Mark Reynolds?”
    “Damn fucking right it’s Mark Reynolds.”

Chapter Five
    Funny how they went straight back into work mode. Out of the office and in Langham’s car, Oliver was less horny and more focused. Unease at interviewing a guy who might not want to answer their questions made him shift a little in his seat. What if the bloke had been threatened to keep quiet? What if Langham had to haul his arse into the police station in order to get some answers? Even then the man might not play ball. Fright would keep his mouth shut. Shit, if some guy with murder in his eyes had told Oliver to zip it, he’d damn well zip it.
    Langham drove out of the city, their journey taking them to some out-of-the-way place called Lower Repton Oliver had only heard of but not visited. A tiny hamlet wasn’t his ideal destination, but he was pleasantly surprised by the quaintness of the area. Cottages flanked the roadside, and a small, Cotswold stone pub, Pickett’s Inn, sat hunched on the bend in the road like a decrepit old man, its roof bowed, walls bulging outward.
    Oliver shuddered. The place might be quaint, but something was off here. He sensed many spirits lurking nearby and imagined there would be a fair few, what with the hamlet being so old. People would have lived here all their lives, dying in their beds.
    “Um, which cottage is his?” he asked, anxious to get this interview over and done with. The vibes he was getting freaked him the hell out. “I don’t like it here.”
    “Me neither. Maybe it’s the remoteness, but I wouldn’t live here if you paid me.” As they slowly drove along, Langham leant forward over the steering wheel and peered at the cottages. “None of them are numbered. Just named. Reynolds’ records said he lived at number two, but it’s anyone’s guess which end of the road number two is.”
    “You could get out and ask.” Oliver nodded at an elderly woman in her front garden, who had come out to nose at what they were doing, no doubt. She held a watering can, which she’d tipped as though she’d really come out to wet the plants, except no water drizzled from the spout. “She’ll know which one we’re looking for.”
    Langham drew up to the roadside outside the woman’s aged wooden picket fence and wound down his window. “Excuse me, madam. Which house is number two?”
    She squinted and ground her unquestionably false teeth, wispy strands of hair escaping her bun. Her lips looked elasticated, undulating like that. “What you want to know for? Who are you?”
    “I’m Detective Langham,” he said, whipping out his badge and showing her. “And I need to speak to the resident. Mark Reynolds?”
    “Ain’t seen him. Not since the last copper came along to speak to him, and he looked familiar. Like I’d seen him before somewhere.”
    Oliver’s stomach clenched, and his arsehole bunched as a wave of nausea came over him. “Something’s fucking off. I feel it.”
    “You and me both, man,” Langham said out of the side of his mouth, then to the woman, “Another policeman was here?”
    “Yes, I just said so, didn’t I?” She tsked and rolled her eyes. “No idea how you people solve crimes if you can’t even process a simple sentence. Yes, another policeman. Badge just like yours. And Mark lives back there. Second house in on the other side of the road.” She marched down her path towards her house, turning to stare at them when she reached her front door.
    “Thank the Lord for nosey old bitches, but fuck me, she’s mean as hell,” Langham muttered.
    “Yeah, well, mean or not, let’s interview