The Eyes of the Accused: A dark disturbing mystery thriller (The Ben Whittle Investigation Series Book 2) by Mark Tilbury Read Free Book Online Page A

wonder how many women have said that before and ended up dead?’
    Maddie stepped out of the car and shivered. She buttoned her coat up to the neck and thrust her hands deep into her pockets. ‘At the moment, Crowley’s all we’ve got.’
    Ben looked about to say something else, but Maddie closed the door and walked off towards Tadmarsh. She didn’t want to get drawn into an argument about the rights and wrongs of going after Frank Crowley. As her father would say: ‘Never try, never know’.
    The grass verges along the edge of the road gave way to a ditch about three feet deep, with tall hedgerows separating it from the fields beyond. Snow frosted the naked trees. Maddie’s lips already felt numb. The cold penetrated her thin woollen coat. A vision of Hannah popped into her mind: a corpse at the bottom of the ditch, mouth frozen into a wide rictus grin. Maggots using her eye sockets as a macabre playground.
    ‘Hannah won’t be here,’ she told the empty road. ‘Someone would have found her by now. Someone walking a dog. Kids playing.’
    Unless she’s been covered over with leaves and dirt in the bottom of the ditch.
    Maddie shuddered. She walked along the edge of the road for almost two miles scanning the grass verges. It was a pointless exercise. She wouldn’t find anything. She had more chance of finding a book on the occult in her father’s study.
    She stopped and stamped her feet. She took her hands out of her pockets and blew onto them. Warm breath for temporary relief. Her fur-lined boots were hurting the soles of her feet. It had been quite some time since she’d walked this far. And she was marching on an empty stomach. She’d managed a slice of burnt toast with a thin spread of orange marmalade for breakfast. Her father had told her she was thinner than a hanky in a steam press, but he was only saying that to be kind. Anyone could see she was carrying too much weight. She’d been comfort eating a fair bit since events at Penghilly’s Farm. Maybe next year she could afford to take up exercise classes. Lose weight naturally, instead of skipping meals.
    You need to eat something.
    Her mother’s voice. The one she’d made when she was scared of the witch under the bed. Other kids had imaginary friends; Maddie had to make do with an imaginary mother. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a Snickers bar. Her stomach growled. It looked so good. So tempting. Perhaps one bite. A sugar rush to kick her brain into gear. She would keel over soon if she didn’t eat something.
    No! Her mind was playing tricks on her. Coercing her to do something she would later regret.
    You can always purge.
    ‘I don’t want to purge. I haven’t purged since…’
    Since the last time?
    Since school. She wasn’t going down that road again. So what if she was carrying a few extra pounds? It was nothing a baggy jumper couldn’t hide. She was getting stressed about the job. Hannah Heath’s photograph had just reminded her of school. Took her back to that unhappy hunting ground where the kids had spiteful tongues.
    She needed to focus. She put the Snickers bar back in her pocket, but kept her hand wrapped around it. It felt somehow reassuring. Comforting. Like holding hands with an old friend. She looked up the road. It looked as if a vampire had sucked all the colour out of the world. She imagined Hannah walking along here. Did someone stop and offer her a lift? Would Hannah have been naïve enough to accept a ride from a complete stranger?
    Would you?
    Not a chance.
    What if you were in agony? What if you believed you were all right to walk, and then, BAM! Imagine period pain and multiply it by a gazillion.
    Maddie still didn’t think she’d get into a car with a complete stranger.
    You might trust someone like Crowley if you were in agony. If you worked with him. The mask of familiarity. Particularly if your natural defence mechanism was out of action.
    She imagined Crowley pulling up at the side of the road