The House Sitter Read Online Free PDF

Not on a south coast beach on a Sunday afternoon.”
    They found the lifeguard sitting outside his hut. His duties had ended two hours ago, but he’d been told to wait, and at this end of the day he was looking less macho than a young man of his occupation should, with goose-pimpled legs and a tan steadily turning as blue as his tattooed biceps. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was massaging the backs of them.
    Hen asked him his name. It was Emerson. He was Australian. Almost certainly didn’t have a work permit, which may have accounted for his guarded manner.
    “You were here keeping watch, Mr Emerson,” she said to him, making it sound like dereliction of duty. “Didn’t you see what happened?”
    “Sorry.”
    “You lads have little else to do all day except study the women. Didn’t you notice this one?”
    “She was some way off.”
    “But you don’t sit on your backside all day. You’re responsible for the whole beach, aren’t you?”
    “That’s true in theory, but—”
    “You didn’t notice her?”
    “There were a couple of thousand people here, easy.”
    “Have you seen her before, on other days?”
    A shake of the head.
    “Do you remember anyone who was on the stretch where she was found?”
    “The guy who told us about her.”
    “This was when?”
    “Getting on for high tide. Around four thirty.”
    “Describe him. What age?”
    “About thirty.”
    “Go on.”
    “Tall and thin, with short, brown hair. Skin going red. Do you want his name?”
    Hen said with more approval, “You got his name?”
    “Smith.”
    A sigh and an ironic, “Oh, thanks.”
    “But he has a kid called Haley.”
    An interested tilt of the head. “How do you know this?”
    “Earlier in the afternoon she was lost. Smith came up here and reported it. I told him kids often get lost and I’d spread the word. He told me where they were sitting and I said he should try the beach café, where the ices are sold. Kids stand in line for a long time there and sometimes the parents get worried. But I found the kid myself, looking lost, only a short way from here.”
    “Waiting for an ice cream?”
    “No. She’d come to our hut with some friends for first aid and then got separated from them.”
    “Was she hurt?”
    He shook his head. “It was one of the other kids who needed the first aid. Hit in the face with a Frisbee. Haley was OK. I handed her back to her mother.”
    “The mother?” Hen said, interested. “You met her mother as well?”
    “Right.”
    “Smith’s wife?”
    “I guess. The kid called her mummy for sure. A bottle blonde, short, a bit overweight. Red two-piece. She was in tears when I turned up with Haley.”
    “So you saw exactly where these people were on the beach?”
    “I didn’t go right over. The mother ran up when she saw me with the kid.”
    “The woman who was murdered must have been somewhere near them.”
    “If you say so. It was really crowded.”
    “Where was Haley’s father at this time?”
    “Don’t know. Still searching, I guess.”
    “And he was definitely the same man who told you about the dead woman?”
    “That’s for sure.”
    “Did he give his first name?”
    “No. He just said his missing child was called Haley Smith, aged five, and he described her.”
    “Did he have an accent?”
    “Accent?”
    “Where was he from? Round here?”
    “Couldn’t say. You poms all sound the same to me. He wasn’t foreign, far as I could tell.”
    “So Haley was returned to her mother?”
    “That’s what I said.”
    “Then Mr Smith comes back and tells you he’s found a dead woman?”
    “That was a good half-hour after. I went back with him to look and it was true. The tide was already washing over her.”
    “How was she lying?”
    “Face down, stretched out. You could easily think she was asleep.”
    “I understand she was behind a windbreak.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Did you see any other property? A bag?”
    “Only the towel she was lying on. I got