Deception Read Online Free PDF

number.
    â€˜Are you having me shadowed?’
    â€˜Not me. I don’t have the personnel. Why?’
    â€˜No reason. Must be getting paranoid.’ He rang off feeling mildly embarrassed. This job was already starting to get to him.
    The street in Clapham where Pike had been staying was quiet, with only an occasional vehicle and a scattering of pedestrians. Harry found a space and climbed out of the car. As he approached the house, he passed a woman putting out a pile of bound newspapers on the front step. It was the same woman he’d seen looking over the fence at the rear while waiting for Pike to emerge. She looked the confrontational kind, and he wasn’t disappointed.
    â€˜I saw you earlier,’ she said, brushing back a stray lock of hair. ‘You were out back with that chap. You know we’ve got Neighbourhood Watch in the street?’ She blinked furiously and he wondered at the fragile state of mind which allowed her to face a total stranger like this.
    â€˜Glad to hear it,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Do you have a bin collection, too?’
    â€˜Of course, we do,’ she muttered. ‘Cheeky bugger. You think we’re a third world country or something?’
    Mad, he thought. Beyond seeing danger. ‘When do they come? The bin men?’
    â€˜Tomorrow.’ She moved back to her front door. ‘It’s papers today. School collection. I should call the police!’
    He thanked her and smiled, which finally seemed to unnerve her, and she disappeared inside, slamming the door.
    He walked up the steps to Pike’s house and pressed the cleanest button.
    â€˜Yeah?’ A male smoker’s voice, dry as sandpaper.
    â€˜Tenant come to see the empty flat on three. The agent’s parking his car.’
    A buzzer sounded and Harry pushed the door, thankful for people who probably didn’t even know there was a Neighbourhood Watch. He climbed the stairs and stopped outside No. 11. It was still open.
    He stepped inside and saw that the scavengers had beaten him to it. The coffee table had gone, the magazines and newspapers tossed on the floor, and the blankets had been turned inside out. He opened the overhead cupboard. No bottle of wine.
    He checked the window, which overlooked a corner of the rear garden. It explained why Pike had been surprised to see him. What it didn’t explain was why he’d come out armed and ready for a fight.
    The place was clean, he already knew that, but he had another look, anyway. Then he closed the door and went back downstairs. Turned right at the bottom and walked down a short passageway to a rear door, and out to the service alley. Two bins were out ready for collection. They contained standard household rubbish: bottles, pre-packed food bags, supermarket packaging and other discards. Nothing indicating a bachelor lifestyle in hiding. Alongside them were two plastic bags, one secured with a wire tie. He opened the first one, which contained vegetable peelings, a hair conditioner bottle, coffee grounds and a craft magazine. Quilting and sewing. Definitely not Pike’s rubbish, then, unless he had a secret hobby. And he was no cook; he’d preferred his food ready made and full of fat.
    The second bag held a scrunched kitchen roll, an old T-shirt with a torn sleeve, an empty milk carton and two crushed beer cans  . . . and three flattened pizza cartons.
    And down at the bottom, a torn ticket stub from Eurostar, Brussels to London.
    He thought about letting Ballatyne put his people on to it, but that would take too long. He rang Rik Ferris and read out the ticket number. ‘Find out who it was issued to and where from, can you?’
    â€˜Thank God for that,’ breathed Rik. ‘I’m going stir crazy, my shoulder’s itching and my mum’s driving me nuts with all the phone calls. I was just about to go out and stab some car tyres.’

SIX
    â€˜ Y ou want a tab?’ Sergeant Wallace