Death on the Lake by Jo Allen (early reader books TXT) 📗

That shake of the hand. He doesn’t want to do it. Jude’s training kicked in. ‘Put the gun down, Mr Neilson.’

Robert ignored him. ‘Move out of the way, Sergeant. Let me treat my wife with the respect she deserves. Let me blow her brains out the way her friend beat my friend Drew to death.’

‘This isn’t doing any good to anyone.’ Jude made his voice sound crisp and confident. Robert Neilson was a man who paid others to kill and the only thing Jude could do until he got closer was play on his weakness. ‘Don’t make things any worse for yourself.’

‘You’re a lying bitch, Miranda.’ Neilson ignored him. ‘You lied in court about Drew. It was your evidence that got that woman off. Well, she’s paid for killing him and you’re going to pay for protecting her. Sergeant O’Halloran. Stand aside or take the consequences.’

Ashleigh backed away from him and still Miranda clutched at her. She couldn’t move if she’d wanted to. He bit back the command he knew he couldn’t make, to tell her to stand aside and save herself. His heart raced. Hours before he’d cradled her in his arms in the warmth and security of his bed and now death stared her in the face.

But that failure to fire the second shot hinted at hope. If Robert was squeamish enough only to kill when he had no option, Jude had to make sure he thought he had a choice.

‘Robert,’ whimpered Miranda. ‘What are you saying? What do you mean?’

‘Drew was one of my best friends. You know me, Miranda. I’m like you. I’m loyal to my friends, to the death. You stood up for Elizabeth Bell. I’m here to stand up for the man she killed. You were warned.’

‘I thought you understood,’ she wailed. ‘I told you the truth because I trusted you. And I lied to them, to protect you. I didn’t tell them it was you who killed Ryan.’

‘Your mistake, then. Sergeant O’Halloran. Move.’ His tone had unmistakably sharpened.

Ashleigh took a step sideways and Miranda, still digging her fingers into her for grim death, moved, too. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Neilson.’ Even in the drama she kept her voice steady. ‘As you see. I can’t.’

Every second spent talking weakened Robert’s resolve. Jude edged away from the others, trying to draw Robert’s nervous gaze towards him and give Ashleigh a chance to get Miranda to some kind of safety. He’d have to deal with the gun himself but that was better than seeing one or both of them slaughtered in front of him. ‘Let this go, Mr Neilson. Robert. It’s done. Your wife has been punished enough.’

‘We disagree. Miranda, you lying bitch. For the last time. Let go of Sergeant O’Halloran, or you’ll have someone else’s death on your conscience.’

‘Drop the gun!’ Jude was a step closer now, but still too far away. And now Aida — oh God, not her, too — was leaning forward with a look of determination on her face.

An upstairs window crashed open and a twin’s voice cried out, incredulous: ‘Dad?’

In that second of distraction, both Jude and Aida moved.

The second bullet exploded from the gun.

‘Get down!’ Ashleigh shouted but Aida had already sent the gun spinning across the gravel. In appalled horror, Robert turned on her and Jude, lunging forward, sent him crashing to the floor.

The man was easily subdued. Whatever his many qualities, he was no fighter. Jude had the cuffs on him in a moment and was back on his feet, looking around to see Miranda’s face, grey and appalled, to make sure Ashleigh was safe. Only then did he turn his attention to Aida, standing over her employer in shock.

‘I’m so sorry!’ she wept. ‘So sorry! But I couldn’t do it, Robert. I couldn’t let you kill Mrs Neilson.’

Twenty-Nine

‘All right.’ Faye bounced into the incident room, and all eyes were on her. Ruefully, Jude reminded himself that she wasn’t someone who cared too much about sparing someone else’s public humiliation. She’d been out of the office all day and he was mightily grateful for that. ‘As if I don’t have enough to do. I get back in after a long day and find you’ve got yourself and another officer involved in a firearms incident. Explain yourself.’

‘Read the debrief note.’ He was tired and wound up, and he’d been proved right, though not in the way he’d expected. Faye’s irritation was unjustified. ‘It’s all in there. We went to talk to Miranda and she confessed. And we know who wanted to kill her and why. I expect you know people who’ll find that interesting reading.’

She stared at him with narrowed eyes, looked around her at Ashleigh’s apprehensive gaze and Doddsy’s intrigued one, and must have decided that private was better after all. ‘All right. I take your point. Come along to my office and we’ll discuss it in private.’

He followed her down the corridor, still simmering at her lack of respect for his professional dignity. ‘Miranda Neilson killed someone, and allowed someone else to die. Okay, I hadn’t guessed about Robert, but I’d got to the point where I felt I had to haul her in. Sorry if that’s upset your standing with people more important than I am.’

‘That’s dangerously close to insubordination.’ She slammed the door behind them. ‘At least you’re both unhurt. That’s something.’

‘There would have been a hell of a lot of paperwork if one of us had been killed, eh?’

Faye let that pass. High-handed behaviour on her part, backchat on his. Stress made the calmest of adults bicker like kids in a playground. ‘Sit down. And tell me about Robert.’

‘He was at school with Drew Anderson. The man Elizabeth Bell killed. The two of them were very close.’

‘Did you know that when you went to Waterside Lodge this morning?’

‘No. Chris just looked it up for me. If you’d allowed me to dig into Robert’s background before, I might have found out earlier, and we could have saved a whole