DECOY (Kindle Single) Read Online Free PDF

‘It was Wednesday before last. Geoffrey came down with one of those twenty-four-hour viruses the day before, and was in bed. My car was having new tyres put on and I needed to pop out to the shops. I don’t like to drive his Mercedes. It’s too big and long and I’m afraid to park it, so I borrowed his van. It’s quite easy to drive.’
    ‘The black van in the garage?’
    ‘Geoffrey’s work van. He goes all over the country, picking up pieces.’
    Kate looked at her, then understood she meant pieces of furniture.
    ‘Anyway, that’s where I found that .’ Julie motioned disgustedly at the lipstick.
    ‘I take it you haven’t mentioned it to Mr Hawkins?’
    ‘No. I have not.’
    ‘Is it possible it might belong to someone he gave a lift to? A neighbour? A friend?’
    ‘I’m afraid Geoffrey doesn’t do friends. He isn’t on speaking terms with any of the neighbours. Not since the thing with the cockerel.’
    Kate wasn’t going to ask about the thing with the cockerel. ‘Then a hitch-hiker, maybe?’ The professional decoy doing a thorough job of not looking like she’s just in it for the money.
    ‘No,’ Julie Hawkins said emphatically. ‘He wouldn’t do that. And anyway, then wouldn’t the lipstick have been in the front, in the foot well or in the gap next to the passenger seat? This was rolling about in the back, not in the cab. I found it when I was putting the shopping bags in there.’
    Kate was thinking that the lipstick might have fallen out of some piece of furniture, like a bedroom cabinet or chest of drawers that Geoffrey was transporting. The evidence for adultery didn’t seem overwhelming. But hey, she wanted this job, didn’t she? Enough of the devil’s advocate stuff. Think of Charlie.
    ‘So you suspect—?’
    ‘There’s only one way to put it, isn’t there?’ Julie Hawkins said, tight-lipped. ‘They must have been doing it in the back. He probably rolled out a camping mattress or something. The dirty bastard.’ It sounded incongruous, coming from her lips. ‘And you can tell what kind of filthy slut that must belong to.’ She’d obviously thought about this a lot. ‘And there’s more,’ she added.
    ‘There’s more?’
    ‘A few days after I found the lipstick – it was last Monday – Geoffrey told me he had to drive up to London early the next day for an antiques symposium. He said it wouldn’t be finishing until late, and he might be going out to dinner with another dealer afterwards to talk about a Rococo Chippendale sideboard this chap had for sale. That’s why he said he was going in the van, in case he bought it and was bringing it back. Anyway, he said he’d be staying overnight in a hotel, and coming back next morning.’
    ‘Does he often spend the night away on business?’
    ‘Oh yes, several times a month. That’s always been the way. But this time I was suspicious.’
    ‘Because of the lipstick.’
    ‘Exactly. So before he left on the Tuesday morning, while he was in the shower, I sneaked out to the garage and checked the mileage on the van. Then I checked it again when he came home on Wednesday morning.’ Julie Hawkins paused and looked expectantly at Kate.
    Kate felt as if she was being required to say something. ‘So … let me guess. The mileage was wrong?’
    ‘We’re only a little over fifty miles from London. Double that for the return journey, add a few miles for trekking about wherever he needed to go in the city. It couldn’t be more than, say, a hundred and thirty miles? But Geoffrey had driven over three hundred miles in the twenty-four hours between Tuesday and Wednesday morning. He could have gone all the way to Manchester and back. And of course, he didn’t bring anything home with him. The van was still empty when he got back.’
    ‘Okay,’ Kate said, listening.
    ‘Then when I asked him how the antiques symposium went, he said it had gone well, but the London traffic was awful and it turned out that the Chippendale piece