Kennedy 01 - Into the Shadows Read Online Free PDF

incredibly attractive, though/ she went on.
    ‘No make-up, no expensive haircut, no showy clothes and yet she was stunning. An incredible figure, and long, shapely legs.’
    Dead.
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘The vicar arrived home shortly after two o’clock this afternoon to find his son holding her. She was naked, his clothes were covered in blood, and he was holding the knife.’
    ‘Michael?’
    ‘Yes, we’re questioning him at the moment.’
    ‘You think Michael killed his mother? Never in a month of Sundays.’ Something else occurred to her. ‘How old is he?’
    ‘Eighteen. He had his birthday six weeks ago.’
    He’d looked younger, but Jill knew that was merely a sign of her own age. When you hit thirty, and she’d done that four years ago, everyone else started looking younger.
    “I thought I’d have a chat with you,’ he said, ‘and see what you knew about the family’
    She wasn’t convinced. With a murder inquiry only seven hours old, it would be action stations. There would be no time to waste. By now they would have spoken to dozens of people who knew Alice better than she had, people who had known her for years.
    ‘You’re wasting your time then, Max.’
    ‘Hm. There’s something else,’ he said, and Jill wasn’t surprised. “I thought I ought to warn you that Meredith’s planning to coax you back.’
    ‘Ha! He’ll be wasting his time, too.’ Although she was grateful for the warning. ‘I’ve given all that up, Max.
    I write. It’s what I enjoy.’
    ‘He’s not asking you to give that up. He’s simply asking ‘
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why not, for God’s sake?’
    She stared back at him, heart pounding with a mixture of emotions, uppermost of which was anger. They were no closer to catching Valentine, the serial killer, and every two months or so, despite being off the case, Max tried to persuade her to return to her job. Now, it seemed, he had the backing of his boss. It was easier for them; having Rodney Hill’s blood on their hands didn’t seem to bother them as much.
    She’d enjoyed her work, but offender profiling was still met with a huge degree of scepticism. It was often a last resort, something to try in desperation. It was over, though. She was happier writing. So long as the public was crying out for self-help books, she was guaranteed an income.
    ‘Why not? How long have you got? Firstly, I’m no longer employed - I gave it up, my choice. Secondly, I don’t know how Meredith has the cheek. What does he call my work?
    Psychology bollocks!’
    Max was still eating, still looking infuriatingly calm.
    ‘OK, so if you don’t want to get involved with Valentine again, how about helping me with Michael Trueman?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Just like that?’
    ‘Just like that. I couldn’t work with you, Max.’
    ‘You used to enjoy spending time with me/ he pointed out mildly.
    ‘You used to enjoy spending time with me,’ she snapped back, ‘until something better, something younger and more attractive, came along.’
    ‘Oh, for ‘
    ‘Ah, I forgot. We brush the past under the carpet. You screw around, you come crawling back to me, you expect me to congratulate you on your pulling power, and then forget it ever happened.’ She could feel her voice rising hysterically, but she felt hysterical. It hurt like hell. Even now.
    ‘My head was fucked at the time/ he reminded her.
    ‘What with pressure at work, you threatening to leave me every fortnight because of your stupid guilt trip -‘ He took a calming breath. ‘We’ve done this to death and I refuse to go over the same old ground. It happened, I’ve apologized till I’m blue in the face, and I wish to God I’d never met the bloody woman. But that’s it. Case closed.’
    Forget it, he was saying. Your problem, Jill, you deal with it.
    But she couldn’t forget it. She still had moments of frightening fury at his betrayal. Just as she still had sudden painful visions of him and that woman together. Forget it, she instructed