The Shining Skull Read Online Free PDF Page A

when we saw them, they didn’t,’ said Wesley and immediately regretted his flippancy. ‘Yes, I think they did.’
    ‘And they were all blondes?’
    ‘You think he has a thing about long blond hair?’
    ‘If he has, we could use our Rach as bait. The tethered goat idea.’
    Wesley was about to open his mouth to object but thought better of it. The thought of Rachel Tracey in danger made him uncomfortable.
     But he knew that she was more than capable of taking care of herself.
    His musings were interrupted by a knock at the door. Gerry Heffernan shouted ‘Come in’ and the door opened to reveal a puzzled
     Trish Walton standing on the threshold.
    ‘Sir. There’s a man at the front desk wants to see you. He says it’s important. It’s about a kidnapping.’
    Heffernan looked at Wesley and they both stood up. Maybe this was the lead on the Barber they needed at last.
    ‘What did he say exactly?’ Wesley asked.
    Trish frowned, trying to remember the exact details. ‘He said his half brother was kidnapped back in the nineteen seventies
     and they all thought he was dead. But he turned up last night, alive and well.’
    Trish’s story grabbed Wesley’s interest. ‘Kidnapped?’
    ‘That’s what he said. His name’s Adrian Fallbrook. Why don’t you have a word with him?’
    Wesley didn’t need asking twice, even if Gerry Heffernan seemed reluctant to add to his work load. Ten minutes later they
     were both sitting in Interview Room One, face to face with a tall man, probably in his thirties, wearing a pristine white
     T-shirt and jeans with neatly ironed creases. He wasn’t fat but he had a well fed, prosperous look about him. His clothes
     looked as though they’d just come out of the packet and his wavy fair hair was longish but well cut. Wesley ordered tea. The
     man looked as if he needed it.
    ‘I believe you want to talk to us about a visit you received from a man claiming to be your brother?’ Wesley began. Heffernan
     was sitting beside him, listening intently. But he knew it would be up to him to do most of the talking.
    ‘I didn’t really know what to do but . . . ’
    Wesley gave Adrian Fallbrook an encouraging smile. ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning? Tell us what happened to your brother.’
    ‘My half-brother,’ the man said quickly. ‘Marcus was my half-brother. My father had been married before, you see, but his
     first wife – Marcus’s mother – died. My mother was a nurse and she looked after her through her illness . . . cancer. That’s
     how myparents met. They married eighteen months after his first wife’s death.’
    ‘Does your father know Marcus has turned up?’
    ‘My father died last month. A stroke.’
    ‘I see,’ said Wesley. Something, some vague memory, stirred in the back of his mind. Some mention in a newspaper perhaps,
     of the death of a wealthy retired businessman whose son had been kidnapped many years ago. It had only half registered and
     now he wished he’d taken more notice. ‘Presumably your mother knew Marcus?’
    ‘No. He’d . . . .he was abducted a year before my father’s first wife fell ill. I’ve heard it said that the stress of the
     kidnapping brought on her illness. They say it can, don’t they? Besides, my own mother died last year. She went into hospital
     for a routine operation and caught an infection. There was nothing they could do.’
    Wesley could detect a tremor in the man’s voice. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said automatically.
    ‘Aye, terrible that,’ Gerry Heffernan chipped in. It was the first time he’d spoken and Adrian Fallbrook looked up and gave
     him the ghost of a smile, acknowledging his attempt at sympathy.
    ‘You said your half-brother was kidnapped?’
    ‘Yes . . . in 1976. Of course it was long before I was born and nobody talked about it when I was young. But when I was about
     eleven, my father . . . I knew he’d been married before and . . . Well, I didn’t know anything about my half-brother. I