The Other Woman by Jill McGown Read Free Book Online

it again, and he didn’t try to stop her leaving. The more precious his time with Judy became, the more he wasted it. Neither working nor living with her, he hardly saw her in view of their ridiculously unsociable hours.
    But no hours at work had ever been as unsociable as the last one had been. He heard the door slam, and closed his eyes. He didn’t know what made him say things like that, but he always did. And he couldn’t stop. He would try to; he would try to calm down, to discuss their situation rationally. But when he opened his mouth, what came out was just another grievance. She was leaving before it got any worse, and he wouldn’t try to stop her. Once, she wouldn’t have gone, not wanting to leave before they’d made it up. Once, he would have asked her to stay. But they both knew now that all that happened was that his wounding tongue would run away with him.
    Judy’s divisional DO had taken it into his head to advise her – or order her, depending on how you looked at it – to find accommodation in Malworth rather than Stansfield; there wasn’t much to be done about that, given their less than official domestic setup, so she had, with considerable misgiving, moved out of the flat and into one of her own in Malworth. It wasn’t her fault – she could hardly have objected to the move on the grounds that she was living over the brush with Stansfield’s DCI, a fact that she had failed to mention to her superiors.
    So why was he blaming her? Why did he do this to her? He’d done it when she was living with Michael, and he was doing it again. There had to be a reason. He wanted to be with her more than he had ever wanted anything, and perhaps, he thought bleakly, that was the problem. He couldn’t be sure that she felt the same.
    He heard her car finally agree to take her home, and moved the curtain aside a little, intending to watch the little green mini make its way out of the garage area. But all he saw was a blanket of thick fog, worse even than it had been.
    Get home safe, he said silently. Whatever you do, get home safe.
    Whitworth wasn’t as useless as he looked, thought Jake, bailed to appear at Stansfield Magistrates’ Court on a charge of disturbing the peace, for which he would be bound over. He hadn’t even let the news about Sharon shake his professional composure, which said something for him. But now that he was running Jake back to his car, he obviously felt that the circumstances had altered, because the subject was broached.
    â€˜What really happened?’ he asked.
    â€˜On my life, Simon, it was an accident,’ said Jake, his hand cheekily on his heart, deliberately misunderstanding the question.
    â€˜Not that,’ said Simon. ‘With Sharon.’
    â€˜Oh, Sharon,’ Jake said, glancing at Simon as the car crept along through dense fog. ‘She was with this bloke, chatting him up. I just said hello and all hell broke loose.’ He couldn’t see Simon’s face. He didn’t suppose he believed him. Which was, he thought, probably fair enough.
    He wasn’t, after all, telling the truth.

Chapter Three
    Driving gingerly through the outskirts of Malworth, Judy slowed down to a near-stop as she came up to a tableau of police car and motorbike on the dual carriageway, and signalled right to overtake them. That must have been the siren that she had heard, she thought, a little puzzled that the incident still seemed to be in progress. It had to have been well over an hour ago now. The bike wasn’t damaged, and neither was the rider.
    She found herself, as she always did in these circumstances, feeling for the offender. She wondered if this was a basic flaw in her character – surely she should be sympathising with her colleagues, who had had to get out of their nice warm car to deal with him? But then, she thought with a sigh, there were apparently a great many flaws in her character.
    She had