Grave Stones Read Online Free PDF Page B

their shoes at the security check to not taking liquids on board, putting lip-glosses in their suitcases and spending three fruitless hours at an airport. People stuck to the rules.
    Joanna looked up reluctantly from Second Shot . ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I don’t mind the hanging around. At least you can’t drag me off to the sea for a swim and I can read my story in peace.’ She waved the book around. ‘In fact,’ she said, ‘I quite welcome the interlude once I’m holed up in a nice little corner with a good book.’ She bent her head then lifted it. ‘Why don’t you go to the bookshop and find yourself something to read?’ she said pointedly.
    ‘I’ve got my sudoku.’ He pulled the book out and licked his pencil with intent.
    Joanna bent back over her novel.
    Minutes later Matthew stood up again. ‘Want a coffee, Jo?’
    She almost threw the paperback at him until she read the glow in his eyes, pleading. Reluctantly she inserted a bookmark, tucked the novel inside her bag and stood up.
    Shit – she’d just been at the point where Charlie Fox was walking right into the enemy’s house. The book was as hot as a roasted chestnut.
    Together they sauntered towards the coffee shop. Joanna tucked her arm in Matthew’s, gave him an amused kiss on the cheek. ‘You can buy,’ she said. ‘Make mine a large cappuccino.’
    He bent his head and kissed her.
     
    Finally it was Kathleen Weston who investigated – alone. The thought of an animal suffering or even dead haunted her so she couldn’t concentrate on anything else. It was no use expecting Steven to accompany her. He’d suddenly remembered ‘an important appointment’ for which he needed to go to the office, urgently.
    She walked slowly down the garden, making each step count, listening to the silence that wrapped her in the cold, damp day and seemed all the more sinister under the heavy sky. Now Steven had voiced his opinion she was apprehensive. What if a cow was slowly rotting in the September sunshine – or a pig? What if it was Ratchet, the dog. She smiled. Ratchet was a hound with a snappy foul temper; it was difficult to feel any affection for him. It had always amused her and once Steven too that old Grimshaw had probably named his dog after the scary Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest without even knowing it. This was just one of the casualties of the broken relationship. Since his affections had shifted towards Faria, nothing amused them both, at least – not at the same time.
    She’d reached the wall. And now she was so close she could not think how she could ever have wondered what the smell was. It was so obvious. She remembered seeing people on the TV covering their noses and mouths with scarves after 9/11. At the time she had wondered why then assumed it was because of the dust thrown up by the collapsing towers. Now she knew. It wasn’t only the dust. It was the scent of rotting body parts.
    It was then that she noticed something else; one of the copestones was missing from the top of the wall. And now she wondered why she had not noticed it before. It drew the eye as surely as a missing front incisor.
     
    Dry stone walls are not made for climbing, which is why all through the Staffordshire moorlands the farmers are careful to maintain the stiles for the ramblers, discouraging them from clambering on the stone walls and destroying the environment. Once a dry stone wall starts to crumble it soon dissolves back into its natural state – a pile of stones; as Kathleen was quickly realising. She put her foot in a crevice between two stones only to feel her foothold immediately start to rock. She put her hands on the top, clambered up and watched the stones scatter behind her. She had started a small avalanche. Even when she was astride the wall she could both feel and hear the stones shifting. And the smell was overpowering.
    She glanced across at the farmhouse, only partially visible behind a huge oak tree the roots