Follow the Leader Read Online Free PDF

sister. I knew her before . . . She was a lovely person.’
    Allied smiled briefly, not willing to let Karen enter her thoughts when the job in hand was so tough.
    A phone rang from another room and Kath looked at her mother desperately. ‘Would you get that?’ she asked.
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll try not to be too long.’
    ‘It’s hardly stopped ringing,’ Kath explained. ‘People can’t believe it so they’re ringing to check, I suppose. They mean well but I don’t believe it yet.’ She cleared her throat, pulled another tissue from the box beside her and dabbed at her eyes. ‘I don’t want to.’
    Allie’s heart went out to her. She knew she’d be the same if anything happened to Mark.
    ‘Are you able to answer a few questions?’ Nick asked.
    ‘I – yes,’ said Kath.
    Allie pulled her notebook from her coat pocket.
    ‘Can you tell me when you last saw Mickey, Mrs Taylor?’
    ‘It was about six thirty this morning. Mickey took Harry out for his usual walk. That’s our dog, Harry. He’s a spaniel.’
    ‘Did Mickey always go along that particular part of the canal towpath?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And always at the same times?’
    ‘More or less. I was in the shower when he left the house today.’ Kath’s eyes brimmed with tears again. ‘We’d been bickering . I never got to say goodbye.’
    ‘Bickering?’ said Nick.
    ‘I wanted to redecorate the hall again and he wasn’t having it. That kind of bickering.’
    ‘What time did you come downstairs?’
    ‘It was less than half an hour later. I heard the seven o’clock news on the radio as I came into the kitchen. I saw Harry appear at the patio doors about fifteen minutes later. I let him in and assumed Mickey was messing about in the garage. It was only later that I looked and he wasn’t there.’
    ‘So the dog came home alone? No one brought him back?’
    ‘As far as I know. I just saw him and assumed that Mickey had come home too.’
    ‘Can you remember how much time had lapsed between you seeing Harry and checking on Mickey?’
    ‘Twenty minutes at the most.’ Kath looked up at them both in turn. ‘I made coffee, you see, and took one out to him. But he wasn’t in the garage when I got there. I tried his phone but there was no answer. That’s when I began to panic.’ Kath wiped away more tears. ‘We were going away this afternoon. Manchester for the night – Mickey has a meeting there in the morning. I was going to do a bit of shopping while I waited for him. We were supposed to be staying at the MalMaison . I . . . I need to let them know that we won’t be coming.’
    ‘I can do that for you, duck.’ Mrs Clamortie came back in and sat down again. ‘That was your Aunty Judith. She sends her condolences .’
    ‘Once you’d tried him on his mobile phone,’ Nick continued, ‘and there was no answer, what did you do then?’
    ‘I called a few people to see if they had seen him. That was when I saw the police car pull into our driveway. I ran to the door, but he wasn’t . . .’ Kath sobbed, ‘. . . he wasn’t with them.’
    Allie was glad when Nick let her take a moment of comfort in her mother’s embrace before continuing. She sensed they were almost done anyway.
    ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Taylor, just a couple more questions,’ Nick started again. ‘How long have you known Mickey?’
    ‘We’ve been together since high school.’
    ‘What was he like back then?’
    ‘Mickey was gorgeous.’ Kath smiled a little at the memory. ‘Mind, he thought he was God’s gift with his Goth-punk look. He told me years later that somehow he’d managed to throw it together and it came out good by accident. Luckily the girls seemed to like it.’
    ‘So he was popular then?’
    ‘Yes, he was. Back then he could have had his pick of any girl at Reginald High.’
    ‘Do you know if he’d been in any kind of trouble lately? Fallen out with anyone?’
    Kath shook her head. ‘He nearly ended up in prison just after we