Mondays are Murder Read Online Free PDF

Screaming. Running to where Mike was standing on the ledge.
    Not knowing what else to do, we ran after her.
    “I have to get to him!” Mike yelled. “I can abseil down!” His face had gone a ghastly yellow and beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. He was adjusting ropes frantically, fiddling with knots and clasps, but panic made his fingers clumsy and he kept dropping things.
    “You can’t!” Cathy clutched his arm, but Mike didn’t seem to hear. He shrugged her off but she didn’t give in.
    “Mike!” Cathy took his face in both her hands, digging her nails into his cheeks to force him to look at her. “It’s too late. He’s already been pulled out to sea. We need to get a message to the coastguard – see if they can reach him. There’s nothing more you can do.”
    Mike’s shoulders dropped. “Right,” he said. “I’ll go and radio them. You look after the kids.”
    With that, he was ripping off his harness and sprinting down the cliff path towards the centre. Cathy swallowed hard once or twice, and with a lopsided smile that was her attempt at reassurance said, “I think we’d better gather up the gear and go back. Is everyone OK?”
    We nodded, one after the other, because there wasn’t anything any of us could say. We were stunned.
    With shaking hands, Cathy started stuffing clips and hooks into a rucksack. Desperate to do something – anything – to help, I picked up Mike’s harness and unclipped the rope. I was coiling it in the way we’d been shown when my throat tightened with shock.
    The end wasn’t frayed or worn like I’d expected. The rope that Bruce had been attached to hadn’t snapped by accident.
    It had been deliberately cut through with something sharp. A pair of scissors. Or a knife.

cut off
    The coastguard couldn’t search for Bruce. A severe weather warning had been issued – a big storm was on its way. No helicopter was safe to fly; no boat was safe to sail. So the police couldn’t make their way across from the mainland to investigate. We were cut off from outside help: stuck miles from anywhere in a gothic mansion with a murderer on the loose.
    I didn’t say a word about the rope. Not there on the cliffs. I just coiled it and stuffed it in the rucksack with the rest of the gear. Because I thought that whoever had cut it would probably do something nasty to me if they thought I knew. So I kept my head down and my mouth shut, and pretended I hadn’t noticed. But when I got a chance to talk to Graham alone, I grabbed it.
    The grown-ups were busy. Mike and Cathy were in the office dealing with the emergency. Isabella had apparently gone to lie down. Donald was cooking lunch. The kids were confined to the sitting room and everyone seemed too upset to talk. I announced I needed the toilet and disappeared out through the door with the smallest of glances in Graham’s direction. He took the hint.
    Two minutes later, I met him on the first floor landing.
    “It looks like my information was correct,” he said. “I did warn everyone that climbing is a dangerous sport.”
    “Especially when your rope gets cut,” I replied.
    “No!” he exclaimed. “Poppy, are you sure? Couldn’t it have worn through?”
    “No,” I said. It was the only thing I was sure about. “There was no sign of fraying. The knot didn’t work loose. Nothing gave way. It was a clean cut.”
    Graham gawped silently for a few seconds, taking in the implications of what I’d said. “Are you suggesting Bruce was murdered?” he asked slowly.
    I nodded.
    “But who could have done that?” There was a slight tremble in his voice.
    My mind had been whirring frantically since it happened but the trouble was that the more I thought the more confused I got. “I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s go through the possibilities. I suppose Isabella might have. She was very upset.”
    “But when?” asked Graham. “She was in the house.”
    “She could have done it last night.”
    “Possibly,”