American Crow Read Online Free PDF Page B

me...’
    She turned, looking bewildered.
    ‘Look, I’m married, okay…’ I lied. 
    ‘I didn’t see the ring,’ she said
sounding annoyed.
    ‘We’re not the traditional sort.’
    ‘It doesn’t stop most men...’ she said
softly, moving in for the kiss again.
    ‘I’m not most men,’ I said, edging away.
‘Trust me, Izzy, I want to...’
    ‘Tea then?’ she said exasperated.
    I looked at her flushed face as she
picked up the tin, then thought about Laura again and felt nauseous.
    ‘Milk…sugar?’
    ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go,’ I said swishing
the curtain to one side.
    ‘Did I do something wrong?’ she said, calling
out after me.
    ‘No, Izzy...you didn’t,’ I replied,
heading out onto the street.
     I jumped on my bike feeling
unnerved, then after a few seconds turned the key. The girl had been roughly
the same build and height as Laura, her eyes just as inquisitive and
bright. 
    I shook my head and pulled out into the
busy Camberwell traffic then drove up to the lights and waited on the red. At
least I’d got a result. A name. I just felt bad about working the girl that was
all. It had been a while since I’d done that, and with someone so young, but
you had to play people. It opened them up, and opened doors that would normally
have remain closed. And sometimes that was all there was between finding
someone alive at the end of the trail, or in pieces.
    The lights turned green and I sped off
sharply, weaving in and out of the cars ahead as I chewed over the case, then
my life at the same speed. I’d find this Olivia Deacon wherever she was, and
maybe that in itself would make me feel a little bit more human again, make me
feel better about failing Laura at a time when we should have been celebrating
a new start together.
    I thought about the trash can of empty
bottles outside the trailer for a moment and felt angry at letting myself go.
Things had to change or I was going to end up following Laura to the grave
pretty damned quickly.
    Perhaps the case was just what I needed
to clean the slate and Lenny had intuited that before he’d offered it to me. Or
maybe, I thought cynically, it was going to be a bitch of a job and Lenny knew
that to, knew that I was the only one on the firm who was prepared to get their
hands dirty, who’d place themselves in extreme danger, just to get the right
result...

 
    Chapter Five
    'the photo'
     
    Chelsea. West London.
    Late Afternoon.
     
    H enry Deacon’s home was a four-floor terraced building with a
classic black and white tiled porch, black scrollwork railings set above a
basement, which was serviced by two small rectangular windows situated either
side of a half-dozen steps.
    It looked clean and well-maintained and
just like all the other expensive houses skirting the tree-lined square, where
a sprinkling of residents were reading newspapers in the sun or exercising
their well-manicured dogs.
    I took a deep breath and knocked on the
door feeling out of place, wondering what sort of welcome someone like me would
receive in this sort of neighbourhood.
    A well-dressed housekeeper opened the
door before I had a chance to pull my hand away. I took a step back and she
offered me a wary smile, creasing the thick make-up around her eyes.
    ‘The name’s Blake, I...’
    ‘Oh yes...’
    She beckoned me in with a deft gesture of
the hand, then guided me straight upstairs to Olivia’s room without saying
another word. I say room, it was more like a self-contained flat in truth, and
reasonably organized too for a teenager, though I’m sure that was down to the
hired help and not her own efforts.
    The housekeeper forced another polite
smile then slowly made her way downstairs, as if she was reluctant to leave me
up there alone. I scanned the contents inside…
    Before me was a freshly made king-sized
bed and an expensive-looking dresser to my right with a mass of hair and beauty
products on show. To my left were a row of built-in cupboards faced with