Death at Rainbow Cottage by Jo Allen (book club books txt) 📗

to bring the interview to an end, folding the cover of his notebook down and disentangling his long legs from the cramped space beneath the desk. ‘Thanks, Mrs Skinner. That was very helpful.’

‘Aye, that’ll be right,’ she said with scorn. ‘I can’t tell you what he didn’t tell me. Just find out who did it.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

He followed her into the shop, nodded at the customers and went out into the street.

Chapter 5

‘Nat! Where the hell are you?’

Natalie had stopped in the darkness of the underpass, on the riverside path. At the sound of Claud’s voice she turned, and the light from her head torch bounced off the concrete and sent the shadows stretching and contorted around her. The rumbling of lorries on the A66 overhead throbbed like a pulse in a mother’s womb.

She shivered, aware of her weaknesses and her strengths. She was anxious about everything, afraid of most things, but as long as she was running she wasn’t afraid of the dark. Now Claud had appeared to throw her routine out of kilter and with it her moment of calm.

She checked her tracker. A minute to go of the ten she made herself spend on stretches. Bracing her hands against the wall she stretched her left leg out behind her. Go away, Claud. Let me be calm. Just for a minute.

‘Nat.’ The beam of his torch came ahead of him round the bend, spearing through the new growth of the bramble bushes, raising ripples from the river. With another light, the fusion of light and dark became even more frenzied. Fascinated, Natalie watched her own shadow appear, leaner than reality and twisted like a skeleton on the wall in front of her. ‘Why the hell did you go out?’

‘I told you. I needed a run. To calm me down.’

‘I didn’t hear you.’

‘But I always run.’ She stretched the other calf. The minute ticked away and the stretching was complete, but with Claud present she wouldn’t be able to jog along the final stretch alone. She shook her head in frustration.

‘Yes, but I didn’t think you’d want to—’ A shrug. ‘For Christ’s sake, Nat. It’s barely twenty-four hours. The police are only just out of the place.’

But you couldn’t let fear dominate you. The memory of the dead man’s face was vague like a fading bad dream. Sometimes it surged back at her, sometimes she couldn’t even bear to look out of the window towards the scene of his death, but if she was going to run she had to do it straight away. Claud wouldn’t understand. Even as she thought it, the fear came back to her. After all it was a good thing that he’d come to find her and she wouldn’t have to run past the end of the lane alone so soon after the man’s death. ‘It’s fine. Really. I’m fine.’

‘For God’s sake.’ Claud was an impatient man, though not normally with her. Today the mask had slipped a little. ‘Are you mad? There’s a knifeman running around out there somewhere. He could kill anybody.’

‘Yes, but in the village they’re saying the poor man was gay and I’m not. So whoever killed him isn’t going to kill me.’

Even in the darkness Claud twitched, as though this statement of the obvious had offended him. ‘We don’t know that was why he was killed. It may have been nothing to do with his sexuality. Robbery, maybe. A madman.’

Oh God, Claud. No. Think before you say things like that. ‘The police haven't said but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the reason.’ She finished her stretching, checked her fitness tracker as the backlit figures glowed in the dark. Forty thousand steps. It was her second long run of the day. The numbers, representing the security of achievement, comforted her. Her breathing was calm and controlled. Tomorrow, she’d do more.

‘It could be for any reason.’ He came forward into the pool of light from her torch and smiled at her. ‘Come on. Let’s get back. I don’t like being out here any more than you do.’

‘I don’t mind,’ she said, and as they emerged from the tunnel onto the muddy path the sleet chilled her. ‘Shall I run on ahead?’

‘I think we’d better stick together, don’t you?’

If you want, Claud. If you want. ‘Yes.’ And she slipped her hand in his like a trusting child.

Chapter 6

‘I’ve brought you a present.’ Curling her feet up underneath her on the sofa, Ashleigh watched through the open door to the kitchen as Jude slid the used plates into the dishwasher and turned his attention to opening a bottle of wine.

‘Oh?’ He turned his head towards her, initially with a quizzical expression, but he caught her eye and the raised eyebrow gave way to a smile.

In the three weeks they’d been apart she’d experienced a niggling sense of incompleteness, something she hadn’t expected. Nor was she entirely sure she welcomed it. But what the hell? It was easier to live in the moment.

‘You’ll laugh.’ She uncurled her legs again and reached for her bag, stirring among the debris of an intercontinental flight — passport, boarding pass, flight socks, an empty packet of paracetamol. The brown paper bag she’d nurtured across continents smelt faintly of incense.

‘I never laugh at you.’ He slid onto the sofa beside her and placed a glass in her hand. ‘Here. I know it’s a work night, but you probably need it after all the traumas of the last couple of days.’

She curled her hand around the chilled bowl of her glass, turning it round, considering how the rest of the evening might go and finding the answer acceptable. ‘If I drink it I won't be able to drive home.’

‘Damn.’ He brushed aside her fake protest, raising his glass in salute to a mutually satisfying solution. ‘Then you’ll have to