Gone to Ground Read Online Free PDF

we've nothing else to talk about, I need to get ready. You can let yourself out."
    "Which leaves McKusick fuming."
    "Exactly. And instead of letting himself out, he follows Bryan into the bathroom." Will brought the back of his clenched fist down into the palm of his other hand with a slap.
    "There's just one thing wrong with that," Helen said.
    "Only one?"
    "The weapon."
    "What about it?"
    "Either it was something Bryan had left conveniently around in the house, in which case what? Or was it something the murderer had brought with him..."
    "Which argues against a sudden loss of temper..."
    "And suggests premeditation."
    "Exactly."
    For several moments, neither of them spoke.
    "You're not thinking of charging him?" Helen said. "McKusick?"
    "Not yet," Will said. "We're not even close."
    "But we'll talk to him again?"
    "Oh, yes. I think so, don't you?"
     
    That evening, while Will, to Jake's rowdy delight, was sinking half his fleet of bath toys with a mixture of plastic darts and ping-pong balls, Lorraine was downstairs on the settee, trying to keep her eyes open through another episode of
EastEnders.
    Helen, meantime, back home in her small terraced house, was running a bath of her own, opening a bottle of wine, glancing at the paper, getting undressed. A few weeks before she had spotted a CD by a singer-songwriter she liked, Dar Williams, bought it and brought it home and there it had sat, beside the stereo, still in its wrapping, unplayed. When she opened it, the cellophane, as it always did, stuck to her hand and it took her several attempts before she could pry it clear and set the recording to play.
    Upstairs in the bathroom, she tested the water with her elbow and then her toes, dribbled in a little more Weleda bath essence, a present from her ecologically minded elder sister, splashed it around and then slowly lowered herself in.
    Gorgeous!
    One of the greatest pleasures in life and, unlike a number of others, with any luck and a little judicious scrubbing, you got out cleaner than you went in.
    She closed her eyes and went over the day.
    Mark McKusick punching himself in the face in a display of grief.
    We were in a relationship. A serious relationship. For years.
    Living together?
    Not exactly.
    What had Will said?
You everfeel, no matter howfar you go, you're not really getting anywhere?
    Just a little, Will, Helen thought, just a touch.
    Eyes still closed, she slid lower in the bath till most of her body was immersed; comfortable, music just audible from below, she remained in that position, more or less, until she felt the water beginning to grow cold around her. Then it was a quick wash and a brisk rub dry before she pulled on sweatpants and an oversize T-shirt and carried her empty glass back downstairs. The CD had finished and, volume lowered, she set it to play again. In the mirror, hair unkempt and still wet, face free of makeup, she could read all too clearly the lines around her eyes. Though she hadn't dialed the number in a long time, she still knew it by heart. She got as far as the final digit before stopping.
    You idiot, she thought, you fool, and, lighting a cigarette, she poured herself another glass of wine.
     
    Will stood outside on the low wooden porch, hands in the pockets of his winter coat, scarf wound tight. When Lorraine had finally fallen asleep in front of the TV, the kids already fast off upstairs, he had taken a brisk walk to the edge of the fen and now, back at the house, he stood quite still, staring out across the dark expanse of fields toward the town, some eight or nine miles off. It was silent in a way the city had never been; more stars overhead than he had ever seen. Their first six months here had been hell.
    Will had complained endlessly about the drive, the time it took to and from work, the idiot drivers on the road; when finally he arrived back at the end of a grueling day, his son, more often than not, was already in his bed, asleep. And Lorraine, still breast-feeding Jake,