A Time For Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

nicotine-stained finger at Hinksman.
    ‘ Help yourself,’ she said. ‘He’s all yours.’
    Paglia went over to the bed and shook Hinksman. ‘Wake up, come
on.’
    He was lifeless. A sustained effort was needed before he was
finally roused; it was a fair while after that before he knew what
was happening.
    The woman kicked herself. Had she suspected he was this hard
to wake when drunk, she would have been long gone.
    ‘ Phone call,’ said Paglia. ‘It’s. . .’ he glanced at Jane,
turned back to Hinksman and whispered, ‘Miami.’
    ‘ Jeez, what does he want?’
    ‘ Dunno. I said you were asleep but he told me I had to get
you.’
    ‘ Right.’ He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with the base of
his thumbs, pulled on his dressing-gown and padded barefoot out of
the room, ignoring the woman.
    Paglia was left with Jane. He dawdled, peered closely at her.
‘Given you a belting, has he?’ he said. ‘If you want looking after
properly you can always come to me. Great Italian
lover.’
    His face contorted into what could only be described as a
leer. He thrust his hips forward with a jerk.
    ‘ God forbid,’ she said. She wafted away his halitosic
breath.
    ‘ Suit yourself,’ he shrugged, and left the room, looking
pleased with himself.
    ‘ Yuk,’ she said when he’d gone, and shivered at the thought of
him.
    She dressed quickly.
    Prior to leaving, she picked up Hinksman’s wallet and quickly
went through it. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was the first
stroke of luck she’d had that night - or that year, come to think
of it. Apart from credit cards, six of them, and driver’s licence
which she intended to sell on, there was about £1,000 in mixed Bank
of England notes, and a thick wad of dollar traveller’s cheques.
And he’d only paid her twenty-five quid, the tight
bastard.
    ‘ Criminal injuries compensation,’ she muttered, pocketing the
money.
    She tiptoed onto the landing above the entrance hall where
Hinksman was taking the phone call. She backed into the dark recess
of an alcove and waited.
    ‘ Unfortunate,’ she could hear Hinksman saying. ‘But it’s the
name of the game ... innocents do die occasionally ... so where
will he be? Who? Say that again. . . Right, got that; I speak to
him. Right, OK. I’ll take care of it, don’t you worry, boss. Take
it as read. It’s as good as done ... OK, OK, so long.’
    In the shadows Jane’s stomach tightened with fear. She prayed
to a God she didn’t really believe in: Please, don’t let him spot me hiding here. She closed her eyes.
    She heard him coming up the stairs.
    She steeled herself to open her eyes again.
    She almost let out a yelp. There he was. Less than three feet
away from her! She could reach out and tap his shoulder. Surely out
of the corner of his eye he must see her. Surely then he would kill
her.
    But Hinksman walked straight past her, yawning, massaging his
neck muscles. His mind and senses were far away. She was
undiscovered.
    Still holding her breath, Jane gave him time to get round the
corner before emerging like a ghost from the darkness and bolting
down the stairs, along the hall and out through the front door -
away from a man she never wanted to see again.
    Sadly for her, this was not to be the case.

Chapter Four
     
    The phone in the bedroom rang for a long, long time. Slowly it
insinuated itself into Henry’s brain cells and forced him into
wakefulness. It was a fight against whisky, analgesic and a crack
on the head. He lay listening to the shrill noise, not knowing what
it was at first. Eventually he threw off the duvet and went over to
pick it up. ‘Yeah?’ he croaked.
    ‘ DS Christie?’
    ‘ Yeah.’
    ‘ This is Linda in control room. If you’re fit, you’re
requested to be at the murder incident room which has been set up
at Preston police station at eleven o’clock for a
briefing.’
    ‘ What time is it now?’
    ‘ Nine-o-five.’
    ‘ Right. I’ll be there.’
    ‘ Are you OK for