Ann Granger Read Online Free PDF Page A

won’t fancy the day-to-day responsibility for this being given to a woman.’
    Markby’s returning smile was tigerish. ‘Old Jeremy, as you call him, is going to have to accept that if I run this investigation, then I call the shots!’
     
    ‘Stand still!’ ordered Jess Campbell. ‘You’re shifting about.’
    ‘Then hurry up! The light’s fading.’

    The camera clicked and at the same time the flash exploded. ‘There you are!’ said Jess.
    ‘At last!’ The young man climbed down from the stile and watched her pack away the camera in her canvas bag and then sling the bag over her shoulder. ‘Send me a copy?’ he asked.
    ‘Of course I will. I’ll send one to Mum and Dad as well.’
    The setting sun touched their heads and made their hair glow with the same deep red fire. They’d always been alike. No one took them for anything other than what they were. ‘What’s it like, being a twin?’ people had asked them since infancy.
    Jess had often replied, ‘I don’t know what it’s like not being a twin, so I can’t tell you.’
    But sometimes being a twin was quite a painful business. They fell into step now, walking down the rough track towards the spot where they’d parked Jess’s car.
    ‘I’m glad you were able to come and spend a couple of days,’ she said. ‘Before you go away again.’
    The words ‘go away’ hung in the quiet evening air. In the bushes to their right, something rustled and then, almost at their feet, a small rabbit bounced up and fled before them, leaping over hillocks, its white tail disappearing at last into a ditch.
    ‘There were no rabbits in England before the Norman Conquest,’ said Simon. ‘Did you know that?’
    ‘It sounds like one of those facts people bring out when there’s a lull in a dinner-party conversation,’ she said. ‘Did the rabbits stow away on William the Conqueror’s ships?’
    ‘They were brought over to be bred for the table. The Norman knights fancied a bit of rabbit stew. They were a rich man’s meat. There were severe penalties for stealing them.’ Simon grinned. ‘I’m full of useless information like that.’
    ‘You never know,’ his sister said. ‘You never know when it might come in handy.’
    ‘Not when you’re sitting in a sweltering tent, swatting flies and trying your best to inoculate howling babies,’ he said. The silence fell again.

    ‘I’m not going to say I wish you weren’t going,’ Jess said at last. ‘Because I know what a necessary job you do and how difficult it is to do it. I see harrowing sights as a police officer. You, dealing with refugees, you see every sight multiplied by hundreds.’
    ‘Of course it’s distressing,’ he agreed. ‘I hope I never cease to find it distressing. But I don’t have time to worry about how I feel, when I’m there. I’ve too much to do and emergencies take place every few minutes so that you’re constantly having to make decisions or improvise. I’ve never wished myself somewhere else or not doing it. I feel guilty when I grab a couple of weeks’ leave. But it gives me a chance to talk to people here, explain to them what we’re up against.’
    ‘I saw you on that television breakfast show. You made a good job of that.’
    He grinned wryly. ‘Thanks. I think I’m more afraid of the TV cameras than I am that a bunch of machete-wielding so-called soldiers will come bursting out of the undergrowth, demanding we give them our drugs.’
    She shivered. ‘That’s one of the many things I’m afraid will happen to you.’
    ‘Look,’ he said. ‘If I really spent my time thinking about that, I wouldn’t be able to work.You must feel the same way.’He grinned. ‘Especially when you’re stuck in a police car on a Saturday night, watching yobs smash windows and beat one another up!’
    ‘That’s not what I do. Not now, anyway. I did my turn at that when I joined up.’
    ‘I know! You’re after the big boys now, the real criminals. Mum and Dad are really proud