Faraday 01 The Gigabyte Detective Read Online Free PDF Page B

Torquay’s fop solicitors was drowned in a shallow pool on the River Dart. It was assumed she had slipped and knocked herself unconscious so a verdict of accidental death was recorded.
    In 2005 Stella Parsons, wife of a businessman from Nottingham was drowned on 7th July while swimming off Anstey’s Cove. Stella was a brilliant long distance swimmer who represented England in the 1984 Olympics. However the inquest assumed she had been caught out by a sudden change in the weather and a verdict of misadventure was returned.
    Are these five deaths which occurred in five successive years at about the same time each year simply a huge coincidence? Or is there a more suspicious explanation? What do you think?
    Whatever you may think about the sequence of events it would perhaps be wise, if you are a woman, for you to be very careful for the next few weeks and to make sure that you are accompanied if you go out at night or if you visit a remote location.
    Of course Stafford had spent Saturday morning looking out copies of the coroner’s findings and the evidence submitted to the inquest on each occasion. He had carefully read all the papers and could find nothing that might suggest the findings were incorrect.
    Nevertheless there was a deep worry dragging at him as he drove into the city.
    * * * * * * * *
    Susannah Blake walked into the Harbourside Cafe and took a seat near the window. She removed her dark glasses, closed her eyes, leaned against the high seat back and let the sun soak into the pores of her still exquisite skin. It was this which had always been her greatest asset. It was the texture and colour of her flesh, rather than the beauty of her features or the slimness of her figure - or even, she had to admit, the quality of her acting, which had once had producers fighting each other to sign her for their television series.
    That had been quite a few years ago, before she had turned forty. That sort of thing no longer happened. Now they only wanted youngsters with willowy figures and boobs the size of hens’ eggs. She and her generation had been consigned to the rubbish bin.
    She didn’t open her eyes to acknowledge the usual cup of black, unsugared coffee which was placed before her by the waitress. She just laid her head back and thought of the past, a leisure activity in which she now often indulged. She wasn’t foolish enough to wish she was back there. She much preferred the isolated existence of being wife to Stephen Holdsworth, multi-millionaire businessman, friend of government ministers, seventy year-old seven day-a-week workaholic.
    In her present life she was spared the traumas, the doubts, the terror before each performance, the catty reviews, the fearful self-doubt. She enjoyed the life she now had of pampered leisure, only asked every now and again to perform the role of adoring wife at some of the public appearances he made.
    “Mind if I sit here?”
    Her eyes opened to observe a man with dark curly hair in the act of occupying the chair across the table from her.
    “All the other window seats are taken,” he explained with a sweep of his white, shirt-sleeved arm in the opposite direction.
    Her elegant hand made a gesture of acquiescence.
    “It’s such a beautiful morning.” He leaned forward in conspiratorial fashion. “You want to be able to take advantage of the sun on the few days you get it. Don’t you agree?”
    She reached for her coffee cup, lifted it to her lips and took a sip. Then she closed her eyes again. Perhaps he would take the hint and move to another table.
    But he wasn’t so easily dismissed. “This is my favourite harbourside restaurant,” he volunteered. “I don’t get down to Torquay very often these days, and I like to take my coffee here whenever I can.”
    She tried to ignore him, to forget the people round her and let her mind slip back to her carefully nurtured and gilded memories. She liked to sit and think of the past and what might have been, if she had