Too Much of Water Read Online Free PDF

of a child, you had to be coolly observant of their reactions.
    There has been a huge rise in gangland killings in the last twenty years. Yet even now, over seventy per cent of killings are committed by members of the victim’s families. Even parents may be murderers. But it is much more likely that they will have some shrewd ideas about who within the family might be responsible.
    The address they had picked up from the university files was in a quiet village, four miles from the bustling little town of Cinderford, which was one of the hubs of life in the Forest of Dean. A quiet place, closed in upon itself among the high oaks which had been planted in the nineteenth century, to replace the trees felled to construct the fleets with which Nelson had fought off the bogeyman Napoleon.
    Though the cottages and the sporadic outbreaks of modern housing now all sprouted television aerials, not much else seemed to have changed here since those trees were planted. Yet Bert Hook knew as he drove up the narrowing lanes that this was an illusion: life in the Forest had changed radically in the last half-century. Most people who lived here now worked outside the Forest and brought a different perspective home with them at nights. Nor were the families as in-bred as they had been, even in the days only a generation ago, when he had first ventured into the Forest as a fresh-faced young constable.
    About the same age then as the uncertain young woman at his side was now, he thought as he followed her up the path to the house: the thought made him feel at once protective and far too old.
    It was a high stone house, three hundred yards away from the next residence. There were extensive and well-planted gardens around it, but what had once been a cottage garden beside the oldest part of the house was now largely gravel, providing a wide turning circle for vehicles. The broad oak door was opened before he could ring the bell beside it. Bert Hook took the initiative.
    â€˜I’m Detective Sergeant Hook and this is Police Constable Lipton. I rang you earlier.’
    The woman nodded, scarcely bothering to listen. ‘You’d better come in.’ She was a well-preserved ash-blonde, probably in her late forties, with alert brown eyes and a sophisticated hairstyling that had nothing rural about it. Only a certain rigidity about the lower part of her face hinted that she might be feeling a certain strain. She led them into a surprisingly light sitting room, with windows on two sides. She said, ‘You said you might be coming here with bad news.’
    Hook hadn’t said that, but he had been evasive when she pressed him on the phone. ‘It may be, I’m afraid. I hope it isn’t.’ He meant it, even though a blank here would put them back to the beginning of a baffling investigation, without even an identification of the victim. He hastened to cloak his compassion with the routine formalities. ‘Are you the mother of Clare Mills?’
    â€˜I am. My present name is Hudson, but I was Mills when Clare was born.’
    â€˜And is Clare’s father still alive?’
    â€˜He is. Something’s happened to her, hasn’t it? Something’s wrong.’
    â€˜I’m afraid there may be, yes. When did you last hear from your daughter?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Not in over a week now. Tell me what it is that’s wrong.’
    â€˜Would that be usual, Mrs Mills? Or would you expect her to have been in contact with you over the last few days?’ It was a technique he had learned from Lambert. You fed in as many questions as you could, whilst they were nervous and uncertain. An emotionally uncertain witness was more likely to say revealing things than one who was certain of the facts. It was cruel, but this wasn’t a routine death; they knew now that this was the first stage of a murder investigation.
    â€˜I’ve been expecting her to ring for the last few days. Since the weekend. She