In for the Kill by Pauline Rowson Page B

was set back from the road, squatting very nicely in its own ground and reached by a sweeping gravel driveway.
    I left the car in a country lane that bordered the northern side of the new golden-stone manor house and walked the two hundred yards or so around the corner to the east-facing entrance.
    After gazing right and left like some furtive detective in an old black and white movie I slipped up the driveway and ran across the damp grass until I skirted the back of the house, praying that whoever owned it didn’t also own large dogs, or any dogs come to that, which would alert the occupants. But everything remained silent.
    I had seen an expensive Range Rover parked at the front of the house by the double garage, beside Emma Brookes’ Saab, and as she was nowhere to be seen and hadn’t come out of the house, I guessed that whoever lived here was at home.
    I walked around the house peering in at the windows. I didn’t know what reason I would give for following Emma here, if she challenged me, but I’d find one. I’d tell her the truth if I needed to.
    She was in the sitting room, at the back of the house, talking to a younger version of herself.
    Neither woman seemed remotely interested in what was happening in the garden. I pressed myself against the wall with my head peering around the edge of the French windows like Philip Marlowe on a job, hoping to pick up some of their conversation. The day was still warm and the French door was slightly ajar. I couldn’t quite catch everything they said but snatches of it were enough to make my heart quicken.
    ‘No one knows,’ hissed the younger woman, a tall, leggy blonde in her mid twenties, not unattractive but not my type.
    ‘If this Bob Morley is right, he could be out of prison and coming back for more.’
    ‘Then we must stop him.’
    ‘How?’
    The next bit I missed as they walked away from the window. Damn. I eased myself round a little more to see what they were doing, hoping perhaps to lip-read. It was a foolish hope, but when you’re desperate hope is sometimes all you’ve got, as I knew only too well. I took a chance. They might see me but I didn’t give a toss.
    ‘Don’t be daft, Joanne, we can’t do that.’
    ‘Jamie could. Do you want to lose all this and see me in prison too?’ the daughter retorted, anger turning her fair face ugly.
    Emma Brookes’ body slumped. ‘God, what a mess.’
    ‘Mum, it’ll be all right.’
    But the look her mother gave her was one of irritation and anger.
    ‘That’s what you said last time and look where it’s got us. For goodness sake, Joanne, isn’t it enough that your father killed himself?’
    ‘You can’t blame me for that,’ Joanne said hotly.
    Emma looked as if she’d like to. ‘If you hadn’t got mixed up with Jamie in the first place then none of this would have happened.’
    ‘Well, it did and it’s over now.’
    Emma looked sceptical. ‘Is it, Joanne?’ she said quietly.
    Her daughter frowned and turned away.
    I leaned forward eagerly only to find my arm twisted up behind my back. With a sinking heart I was spun round expecting to find myself looking directly into the face of a uniformed police constable. Instead I was facing a man in his early thirties with a broad face, cropped fair hair, cool blue-grey eyes and very expensive designer clothes rather spoilt by his obvious colour blindness and lack of style.
    ‘And who the fuck are you?’ he declared hotly.
    ‘I rather think that ought to be my line,’ I said boldly, my gaze unwavering and hoping that my expression showed mild interest when really my mind was racing to find a way out of this and get him to relax his grip on my aching body.
    ‘Not when you’re trespassing on my land, it isn’t.’ He tightened his grip. Judging by the look of him he could and would add another bruise or two to my face and torso, if he thought it was required.
    ‘I’m Bob Morley. I followed Emma Brookes here.’ That shook him. The truth usually