The Celibate Mouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

and ended with the director charging the tape to get into COW, with John dragging her away and threatening to take her into custody. Jason Hardgreaves, emboldened by John Glenwood’s presence, escorted the shell-shocked director to the office where he plied her with tea. A decision was made to wait until morning to advise the Robinson relatives of the tragedy.
    At first light, Director Eams phoned her own daughter, who ran screaming to tell her husband. By the time she’d spoken to her best friend, who telephoned her mother, who advised the formidable president of the Women’s Guild, the grapevine was buzzing. But no one thought to tell Edna’s granddaughter, Libby, who visited on the way to work to leave flowers. Her stereophonic reaction to the news reverberated throughout the hospital. Mrs Eams grabbed Libby and hauled her into Accident and Emergency, where she was told to pull herself together.
    The team of blue-clad figures carrying cases of equipment to the crime scene paused momentarily, glanced at each other then at John Glenwood and shrugged before continuing on their cumbersome way. Day staff tried to coax hysterical patients back into the wards, waving their arms like demented sheepdogs.
    John briefed the two CIB officers, before posting a junior constable to prevent anyone from coming near that end of the corridor and signed over the crime scene log. All too soon, he would be back on duty in a town already rocked by the Dog Trial Murder. He shuddered, recalling Jack’s widow, Penelope, kneeling by his body in the centre of the arena, ashen-faced, with a ring of faces gazing down like cows in a paddock. ‘I didn’t think she’d be so cut up about it,’ he thought, ‘I expect it was the shock.’
    A memory flicked through his mind, something he should recall. He pulled into his garage, turned off the engine and sat for a few minutes. He knew it was very important, but if he didn’t force it, eventually he would remember.

CHAPTER 5
     
    One-Upwomanship
    Daniella Winslow
    Monday: early morning.
    ‘M um! Mum?’ Carissa, Daniella Winslow’s scruffy seventeen-year-old daughter sauntered into the kitchen, dropped on to a chair, crashed her elbows on the table and stared at her mother’s back. ‘Has Brendan rung yet?’
    Daniella Winslow’s position in society was under threat. The church ladies guild, the golf club, book club group and businesswoman’s club, not to mention the hospital auxiliary would be on the one hand, wildly excited over the scandal and on the other, intolerant of a President whose relative managed to ‘get himself murdered.
    Daniella gazed over the escarpment, trying not to cry, barely aware of her daughter’s presence. Introspection was not something in which she normally indulged, but the death of Jack Harlow brought back far too many memories than were comfortable. Even at thirty-eight years of age, she kept her secrets lest her friends despise the shameful person lurking inside of her. Jack had a lot to answer for.
    ‘Mum!’ The carping insistence of teenage angst finally penetrated her mental fog.
    ‘I wouldn’t know because I took the phone off the hook last night. Damned journalists,’ Daniella snapped, a solitary mackerel surrounded by sharks. ‘Do sit up straight, Carissa. What time did you get in last night?’
    ‘Why? What’s it got to do with you?’ Her daughter yawned and stretched. ‘Get off my back. And how do you expect me to get any calls? Brendan’s supposed to phone.’
    ‘What’s wrong with your mobile, then?’
    ‘I left it in Brendan’s car,’ snarled Carissa. A king-sized hangover was doing nothing for her temper. She sensed Brendan was using her as a stopgap until someone prettier or sexier came along. ‘He hasn’t even made a pass yet, for God’s sake and we’ve been going out for two weeks!’ She pouted, remembering the numerous times she’d stuck her boobs in his face, to no avail. Perhaps he batted for the “other side?” Or both