A Match Made for Murder by Iona Whishaw (top 10 best books of all time txt) 📗

the side of his neck and glanced at Terrell, who was looking studiously down at his notebook. “Of course. I can get Constable Terrell to prepare it. Can you just clarify how you killed him? It’s best to get the whole thing down.”

Van Eyck looked up, pursed his lips, and then nodded. “Yes, of course. He had his window rolled down, and I reached in, and I guess I just got overcome with it all and I strangled him before I knew what I was doing.”

“And you did what with the window?”

“The window?” Van Eyck paused, looking puzzled. “Oh, yes. I see what you mean. “I . . . I went around the passenger side and rolled it up.”

“And did you do anything else? Take anything?”

“I just got out of there. I thought the ferry might come over and someone getting off might see me.”

Ames stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Van Eyck. I’ll have you sit downstairs while Constable Terrell types up your statement.”

Frowning, Van Eyck said, “Aren’t you going to lock me up?”

“Mr. Van Eyck, unless you’ve been parading around town in a blond wig, then probably not.”

Having deposited Marcus Van Eyck, protesting volubly about not being locked up, onto a chair in the waiting area before the front desk, Terrell returned. “Well, well. What was all that about?”

“It could only be that he thinks Tina did it, and he’s trying to protect her. It’s certainly what Darling would call a cliché. He’s got exactly enough details from the newspaper to put together his story, but he clearly does not know how Watts really died,” Ames said.

“You’re most certainly right. What I wonder is why he thinks Tina did it? Wasn’t she in the garage with him at the time it must have happened? She must have done something that aroused his fear. He claims they’ve never talked about the assault, but he obviously saw her in action giving Watts what-for when he came in. And we have our question answered about whether this is the first time since before the war that he came to the garage. But something must have convinced him that she did it. I guess I’d best go type this up.”

It was only after Ames, left alone in his office, had put his feet on his desk, a position that usually expressed nonchalance and a relaxed view of the world, but now gave no pleasure at all, that he thought, “Oh, my God! That’s it!”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Lane was quietly grateful when she finally began to feel sleep steal over her. The dark was not as absolute as she thought it might be, as somewhere out of her view from the window, the moon was waxing and throwing a cool luminescence across the landscape. It obliterated colour, and the parts of the hilly folds that caught the light highlighted the inky sinister blackness of what lay in shadow. What was absolute was the cold. She had taken her sandwich to bed, praying it was only what appeared to be roast beef and not laced with something lethal—if they’d wanted to kill her they could have done it outright any number of times, she reasoned—and piled the covers around her while she ate, contemplating who “they” could be.

It was ridiculous to try to sleep when it was only eight thirty at night, but she lay, trying to hold all the warmth she could until—perhaps from the tension of trying desperately to imagine which of her provocations, as outlined by Darling, had got her into this mess—she began to feel exhaustion replace the alert trepidation she’d been in the grip of. She settled on the mob boss because of the men who kidnapped her. They seemed like mob henchmen from fiction. But knowing about Meg Holden’s movements seemed the least of her sins. Surely this reaction was more in keeping with a man whose wife has been helped to escape. She discounted her involvement with the Renwicks in any way. The law had dealt with both of them. It was with these thoughts becoming more entangled and fantastical in her head that she finally drifted off.

When the noise penetrated, she woke slowly into complete blackness. The moon had disappeared somewhere, and now only darkness prevailed. She lay stock still, waiting to understand what had woken her. She pulled her hand out from under the covers and tried to see the time, but it was impossible. There was more noise. A door closing. Something being dumped on the floor. She sat up now, alert, reluctant to move from the warmth of her covers, but looking desperately around in the darkness to find a defensive weapon. The glass was beside her on the bedside table. A good solid model with a heavy base. If need be, she could use it. She drank down the rest of the water and waited. Again more noise and then from under the door an intermittent light. Someone with a flashlight.

Lane nearly jumped out of her own skin when whoever it was tried to open the bedroom door, rattling it angrily. And then through the pounding of her own fear, she heard an oath, loudly uttered by a woman’s voice.

“Who’s there?” Lane called loudly.

“What?” The woman on the other side of the door sounded irritated.

“I’m locked in here! Can you open the door?” Lane called. If the woman, whoever she was, attacked her, she felt more comfortable about being able to fend her off with the water glass.

“Who the hell are you?” The door handle rattled again. “Just wait.” Lane could see the light of the flashlight dancing away from where it had shone through the crack at the bottom of the door. More noise. Drawers, cupboards. Finally, the sound of a skeleton key going into a lock, and a flashlight shining full on her face, causing her to throw her arms across her eyes.

“Hey, are you that lady from the hotel? Number 26?”

“Yes,” Lane offered. “Could you turn the flashlight