The Man in the Buff Breeches by Susan Lodge Read Free Book Online Page B

eyes. “I didn’t know what he was after, and I didn’t know he was going to hurt you. You should have told me you were police.”
    I want him to say, I believe you. Everything is all right. But he doesn’t. He is suddenly looking very serious.
    Another officer puts his head around the door, and DS Salter gets to his feet and gives me a hand up. I sway a little as I stand, and he curls an arm around my waist to steady me. We wince in unison.
    “Why was Nick down in the shed?” he asks.
    “He thinks the elephant is there, the one everyone is looking for.”
    “So you knew what he was after.” Suddenly the warmth in his voice has vanished.
    “No!” Oh hell! He doesn’t believe me .
    “He was torturing me and asking about one of my elephants. I told him it was in the shed, because I needed to get him away from me…” I shudder at my own words. DS Salter gives me a long assessing stare. Oh, I wish his irritating smirk was back again. I want him back to casual annoying security man—not serious “I am going to read you your rights” detective.
    Ten minutes later, my lounge is bursting with activity. DS Salter has moved me to the settee, and a paramedic is trying to persuade him to leave for the hospital.
    His comforting embrace still burns around my shoulders, but he hasn’t actually said he believes my story, and looking back on the evidence I cannot blame him as I can hardly convince myself of my innocence. Where is that elephant? If I could account for that then I could maybe make it more convincing that I was duped.
    My flat is being searched, and my elephants and other belongings are all being intimately examined. Oh, I deserve to be arrested for the offence of being a complete gullible idiot.
    A face appears around the door, and to my amazement Bo Peep strides across the room and looks sternly at DS Salter. “Hospital. Now! What the hell were you thinking, Sam, going in early?” I think she is going to get her whip out, but then she puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. Strangely I want to slap it away and put mine there instead.
    DS Salter is looking deathly pale but manages a small smirk as he introduces us. “This is DS Shepherd from the drug squad. She has been tracking your boyfriend for some time.”
    “DS Shepherd!” I let out a snort of laughter despite my world caving in.
    She glares at me, and I instantly return to terrified mode. Her blonde hair is scraped back into a ponytail, and the absence of makeup does nothing to distract from her fine-boned attractiveness. She is dressed in black tailored trousers and a tan, fitted jacket.
    “Shona Turner—you do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence…” My heart tightens as she delivers her caution. They are going to arrest me. Oh, this is so unfair! She leaves me for a moment, herds the police officers into a gaggle, and talks to them out of my ear shot. The officers leave except for a young female who takes a seat beside me and a burly male who positions himself, like a Buddha, by the doorway. Well there goes my escape route. I shudder as I watch Bo Peep take out her notebook and sit down opposite me. All of a sudden I want DS Salter back and turn just in time to see him disappear out the door on a stretcher.
    I look back at Bo Peep. “He will be okay, won’t he?”
    “Concussion and a staved rib or two I suspect,” she says, fixing me with an ice blue stare.
    “Staved ribs?” I frown. But he was knocked on the head . The bastard must have kicked him after he had tied him up! Oh, what I would give for a few minutes with that Nick. I would stuff his linen hanky down his throat, stake him out on the floor, and shove a few elephants up his orifices.
    I cannot believe I have been duped, not once but twice. My three years gaining a degree in psychology was clearly a waste of time. I might as well have studied Klingon. I must be the most stupid person in the world.
    I reel off the answers to Detective Shepherd’s questions