The Order of Things by Graham Hurley Read Free Book Online

recently.’
    ‘Like where?’
    ‘The States, earlier this year. March they were in Oregon. Nothing but bloody trees.’
    ‘They?’
    ‘Reilly and Bentner.’
    ‘You’re sure it’s him?’
    ‘Positive. She calls him Ali in the captions. Same face we saw on the ID. Lots of selfies, just the pair of them, mainly in the same diner.’
    ‘Close? Affectionate?’
    ‘Very. And often Bentner looks pissed. He obviously liked a drink.’
    ‘We can’t do him for that.’
    The thought made Wallace laugh. He said he’d found a stack of wine at the back of the cupboard that served as Reilly’s cellar. Spirits too. Mainly gin.
    Golding reminded Suttle about the image on Reilly’s desktop at the practice.
    ‘What about it?’
    ‘There were lots of trees. That could be Oregon too. Plus there were mountains in the background, with snow on the peaks. The Rockies go through the state.’
    ‘Right.’ Suttle was still looking at Wallace. ‘So where else did they go?’
    ‘Brazil last year. The Amazon basin. They seemed to have started in Manaus and headed upriver. If you’re thinking some kind of recce for the World Cup, you’d be wrong. This is serious travel. Dugout canoes. Blokes with bamboo through their noses. Women with dangly tits. Not a pool or a beach to be seen.’
    ‘And Bentner?’
    ‘In pretty much every shot. Remember what you were telling us this morning? At the brief? About the guy being a solitary? A loner? She obviously saw another side of him. Good-looking woman too. Lucky old Ali, eh?’
    ‘Letters?’
    ‘No. But she kept a diary on these trips. I haven’t had a chance to read the thing properly but it’s bagged and ready. You want to take it now? Only you’ll need to sign the log.’
    Suttle nodded, and Wallace stepped back into the house, reappearing with the diary. Through the plastic bag, it looked like an A4 ring binder, travel-stained.
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Not yet.’ Wallace was putting his gloves back on. ‘But you’ll be the first to know.’
    The Weatheralls, Reilly’s closest neighbours, lived two hundred metres up the lane, a modern bungalow with carefully tended flower beds and a square of newly mown lawn. A woman in her early sixties was bent over a rose bush beside the garden gate, carefully pruning the lower stems.
    ‘Darcey Bussell,’ Golding said softly.
    ‘How did you know that?’ Suttle was staring at him. Golding’s breadth of knowledge never failed to amaze him.
    ‘My mum’s got some. If you can keep the blackfly off they go on for ever.’
    ‘Greenfly’s worse.’ The woman was smiling. ‘My name’s Molly.’
    She shook hands and said she was appalled by what had happened to Harriet. She used ‘unthinkable’ twice, and when Suttle told her that so far the inquiry had drawn a blank she looked briefly despairing.
    ‘This should never have happened,’ she said, ‘especially in this neck of the woods.’
    She took them into the bungalow. A man of similar age was watching a DIY programme on the TV. The way he struggled to his feet spoke of a lower back problem, and the sag of his face on one side told Suttle he’d probably had a stroke. A thin trickle of saliva leaked from a corner of his mouth, and he kept dabbing at it with a tissue from the pocket of his cardigan. There were more tissues in the basket beside the armchair.
    ‘My husband, Gerald.’
    Gerald extended a hand. He seemed confused by Suttle’s sudden appearance in his life.
    ‘The policemen, darling. About poor Harriet.’
    ‘Ah … yes, of course.’ He sank back into the armchair. A spaniel had appeared from the garden. It jumped into his lap and tried to lick his face as he fondled it. ‘Poor Harriet,’ he said. ‘Poor bloody woman.’
    Molly disappeared to make a pot of tea. Suttle asked whether he might put the sound down on the TV. Weatherall gestured towards the set. Help yourself.
    Golding turned the set off. Suttle asked how long the couple had been living in the