Under Suspicion by The Mulgray Twins Read Free Book Online Page A

was banking on the fact that the intruder would want to make a quick escape instead of wasting precious time picking the secure lock on the back door. Anyone leaving would pass into my field of vision.
    I waited… I pictured the intruder listening, listening, then slowly, slowly pushing open the bathroom door. Just when I’d decided I must have got it all wrong, I saw my front door open. Someonewalked confidently past Jesús’s window, a thin-faced man, beard and moustache trimmed to a neat O round his lips, hair cropped so short as to be a mere shadow on his scalp. He didn’t draw attention to himself by moving quickly. A professional. I lost sight of him as he turned in the direction of the harbour. But I’d know him again.
    ‘He’s gone, Jesús,’ I called, ‘but I got a good look at him. It’s safe for me to go back now.’
    There was a loud clang from the kitchen, and my neighbour appeared in the doorway brandishing an enormous fire-blackened paella pan.
    ‘I will come with you, señora. Perhaps you have another ladrón in the cocina .’
    I didn’t think it likely that there’d be anyone else still lurking in the kitchen, but it was somehow reassuring to have moral support from the paella pan and its wiry owner.
    ‘If there is anyone there, Señora Smith,’ he flourished the pan, ‘I will seek him out and deal with him. Have no fear. I will save you.’
    I hid a smile. I owed him his moment of glory.
    Together we entered my house and moved along the hall. The kitchen door was closed, indicating that the clandestine visitor had been there too. Like the bathroom door, that door was always left open so that Gorgonzola could make her way to the cool bathroom for her siesta if the kitchen became too hot. G should be all right, I told myself. She knew to make a quickexit through the barred pantry window if there were any unauthorised callers.
    ‘I go first, señora.’ Slowly, slowly, he turned the handle. Then he flung the door open.’ Te pillé, gotcha!’
    BOING . The flat of the pan crashed down on the wooden table.
    ‘If you hiding in here, you better come out,’ he quavered, ‘or it be the worse for you!’
    ‘No one’s here now,’ I said to forestall another deafening assault on the kitchen furniture.
    With some reluctance, he let his arm drop to his side. ‘I have frighten the trouser off him!’ He showed his two remaining teeth in a gummy grin of triumph.
    ‘You are a hero, Jesús,’ I said putting an arm round his bony shoulders. ‘ Muchas gracias .’ I planted a kiss on his leathery cheek.
    ‘ De nada, señora .’ His thin chest swelled with pride. ‘You have more trouble, I come again and—’ The paella pan scythed through the air, narrowly missing the overhead light.
    He shuffled briskly down the hall to the front door. A farewell flourish of the culinary anti-burglar device gouged a large chip out of the woodwork. The paella pan had notched up its first victory against crime.
    The back door was still securely locked. I inserted the key and went out onto the patio. A break-in is an occupational hazard in my line of work, but I alwaysfind it disturbing because I have the secret fear of coming home to find Gorgonzola brutally battered. This time, though, there was no nightmare scenario, no bloodied ginger body lying on the kitchen floor. The odds were that this had been a routine security check on a new employee. I wasn’t too worried. The intruder wouldn’t have found anything to connect me to my undercover work. That was kept safely behind the white door in the Extreme Travel office. And G’s working collar with its radio transmitter didn’t look anything out of the ordinary. I stretched out on the bench beneath my pergola. Gorgonzola would show up soon. When she saw me, she would know it was safe to return. Now I had time to relax.

Chapter Five
    The palms of the Café Bar Oasis soared five metres up towards a green-tinted cupola. As the rays of the sun angled through the