The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves Read Free Book Online Page A

impressing potential clients. If there had been more people in the chapel Rachael would have resented Amelia’s presence. Surely she had never met Bella and she seemed to be there on sufferance, though she too had dressed up. She sat at some distance from Peter and stared with an engrossed concentration at her immaculately shaped nails. As it was, Rachael was glad that there was one more person to mark Bella’s passing.
    “Good God!” The exclamation came involuntarily from Anne as a middle-aged couple came in. The woman had her hand on the man’s arm.
    They seemed pleasant, ordinary. Rachael hoped that at last these were relatives of Bella’s or friends from her past.
    “Who is it?”
    “Only Godfrey Waugh and his wife. What the hell are they doing here?
    He’s got a nerve.”
    Godfrey Waugh was a director of Slateburn Quarries, the moving force behind the development at Black Law, the reason for Anne, Grace and Rachael being in Baikie’s. For their counting on the hills. He seemed mild and inoffensive to have caused such disruption.
    Rachael was disappointed, felt oddly that she had to stand up for him.
    “They live at Slateburn, don’t they? I suppose in a way they were neighbours.”
    But Anne was still fuming. “Well, I think it’s a bloody cheek.”
    Rachael thought she would express her feelings more forcefully, but she had to shut up because the proceedings were starting.
    Dougie was in a wheelchair pushed by Neville. Rachael thought he was not as smartly turned out as Bella would have liked. He was wearing his best suit but his shirt collar was crumpled. Whoever had shaved him had missed a patch on his cheek. His shoes could have done with a polish. Neville, in contrast, was impeccably dressed. He was a short, muscular man with hair which was the blue-black of crow’s feathers and a full black beard. His shirt looked startlingly white against his dark skin and his shoes gleamed.
    The vicar had already started speaking when the door banged open again.
    Rachael was reminded of an old, bad British movie, though whether it was a thriller or a comedy she couldn’t quite say. The vicar paused in mid-sentence and they all turned to stare. Even Dougie tried to move his head in that direction.
    It was a woman in her fifties. The first impression was of a bag lady, who’d wandered in from the street. She had a large leather satchel slung across her shoulder and a supermarket carrier bag in one hand.
    Her face was grey and blotched. She wore a knee-length skirt and a long cardigan weighed down at the front by the pockets. Her legs were bare. Yet she carried off the situation with such confidence and aplomb that they all believed that she had a right to be there. She took a seat, bowed her head as if in private prayer, then looked directly at the vicar as if giving him permission to continue.
    Neville had booked a room in the White Hart Hotel and afterwards invited them all back to lunch. Anne gave her apologies, then when no one could overhear she gave Rachael a sly grin.
    “You don’t mind, do you? Only I do actually have better things to do with a free afternoon than stand around in the White Hart nibbling egg sandwiches, trying to avoid talking about the fact that Bella committed suicide. I mean she chose to do it, didn’t she? I find it hard to feel sorry for her. I know you were mates, but there it is.”
    Rachael guessed that she’d arranged to meet a man. Anne’s sexual appetite was legendary, and she was wearing a little black dress and jacket which would do just as well for a discreet dinner as for the draughty crematorium. Rachael could tell she was itching to get away as soon as they were outside.
    “Where shall I meet you?” she asked.
    Anne hesitated. “Look, I’m not sure what’s happening. I quite fancy a night in my own bed. I’ll get Jeremy to drop me off at Baikie’s first thing tomorrow.”
    It took Rachael a while to remember that Jeremy was Anne’s long-suffering