The Blood Whisperer Read Online Free PDF

You may not think it to look at her but she’s a very broad-minded girl.”

    Lytton continued to stare at him for a moment without comment then turned back to the window. “Just don’t let it interfere with the job.”

    “It won’t,” he assured.

    And by the time it does, my friend you won’t be in a position to do a damn thing about it.

5
    “You really should get someone in to handle the books for you Ray. Then you wouldn’t have to work late.”

    Ray McCarron’s head jerked up from the quarterly accounts to see Kelly Jacks standing in the office doorway with her hands in her pockets.

    She was in her civvies—old cargo trousers and a skinny T-shirt that showed a sliver of taut belly between the two. McCarron tried to avoid a wince. His daughter Allison was less than half Kelly’s age and he wouldn’t want her going out at night dressed like that.
     
    Mind you, Allison didn’t have the same kind of self-possession. There was something about Kelly that made trouble step off the kerb and go round her.

    “Had a bookkeeper once. Made the mistake of marrying her. When it came to the divorce she knew what I was worth better than I did,” McCarron said sourly. “Of course, it would help if I could read anything off the petty cash chits you lot put in.” He sifted through another sheaf of paperwork. “It’s like working with a bunch of retarded doctors trying to decipher this scrawl. I swear Les writes in Mandarin Chinese half the time.”

    “Yeah well,” she mocked, “they weren’t still teaching copperplate when we were at school.”

    “More’s the pity.” He leaned back in his chair, letting it rock, and regarded her over the top of his reading glasses as she headed across to the small window. There was a tension in her he saw, a restlessness he recognised of old. “Lytton job put to bed is it?” he asked, his voice casual.

    She swung away from the window as if changing her mind at the last moment, hesitated then gave a shrug. “It’s done if that’s what you mean. Whether it should have been or not is another story,” she said. “I tried to call your cellphone when I was on the way back. Leave it in your car again?”

    “Aye, probably,” he admitted cheerfully. “It’s the only way to get a bit of peace.” He paused. “But it went all right in the end?”

    She fidgeted with the papers on the corner of his desk, her concentration apparently consumed with aligning the edges. “All he has to do now is replace a few busted tiles and no-one will ever know.”

    McCarron sighed at the bitterness in her tone. “Look Kel, I had a gander at the pictures you sent over and I made some calls,” he said gently. “Several in fact. And I was told in no uncertain terms that I’m not on the job anymore and to wind me neck in.”

    Her lips twisted into a brief smile at that. She looked about to speak but stayed silent, pacing around the room. On the far wall was a line of framed photographs. She began straightening them even though McCarron kept them spirit-levelled anyway.

    One showed his younger slimmer self, spit-polished in full dress uniform, frozen in the act of shaking hands with some long-retired long-forgotten chief constable who was presenting him with some equally long-forgotten award. Kelly’s eye seemed drawn there longest.

    “I looked out the details again,” McCarron said. He twisted to face his computer and peered at the screen. “Veronica Lytton. Suicide. Found fully clothed in the bath with one of her husband’s guns—an RPA Interceptor if you’re interested—alongside her. Fatal gunshot to the head. No other visible trauma. No note, but her fingerprints on the weapon and discharge residue on her hands and clothing. Alone in the house with no sign of forced entry. Husband out of the country. Scene officially released this morning.” He sat up and removed his glasses flinging them onto the desktop. “Far as the police are concerned it’s an open-and-shut case.