Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)
been in it.
He pushed away from her. ‘Give it up, Megs,’ he said. ‘It won’t work.’
‘What? Percy won’t rise to the occasion?’ She guffawed. ‘I think we’ll have Percy popping out of his pants and just gagging for—’
‘Megs.’
He had not intended to shout, but the strength of his voice made her freeze. She stood for a long second, stilled like an image trapped on film. Then he caught the movement in her eyes, the quickest of glances to the kitchen door, and realized she was not just one step ahead of him, but probably four.
‘Let me get a drink to loosen you up,’ she said, and moved towards the kitchen door with the speed of someone half her weight.
He managed to slam the door shut as she opened it.
She faced him, her back pressed against the wood. With one hand holding the door shut, they stood closer than he liked. Her breath rushed hot and hard by his face. He sensed her panic, her fear, her inability to work out how to stop it.
‘Let’s talk, Megs. Shall we?’
‘Verbal foreplay? I’m all for that.’ Her smile came off all wrong, a baring of teeth that gave him a glimpse of her dark side.
Hand still flat to the door, he nodded to the sofa. ‘Take a seat.’
With pained reluctance, Megs shuffled to the sofa and slumped down on it.
‘It took me some time to work it out,’ he said, ‘but once I did, I wonder why I never thought about it sooner.’
She patted the sofa, an invitation for him to sit beside her.
He returned to the bookshelf, stood with his back against it. From there, he felt in control. Megs stared at him as if preparing to listen. But behind her façade, he knew an active mind was trying to work out some way to trick him.
‘You phoned the office,’ he said, ‘and told them I was at Dougie’s.’
She pouted. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘How else would they have known?’ he replied. ‘They had nothing to go on, nothing to point them there. Until you told them.’
One hand played with the hem of her skirt. ‘You look shot, Andy. Come and lie down. Let me help you relax.’
‘Did jealousy make you do it?’
Her tongue slid over her lip. She shifted her skirt higher.
‘I think that’s what happened,’ he said. ‘Kelly was a young woman from another country, with a free spirit, living away from home, not afraid to sample life to the full. She was blonde, beautiful, slim. Everything you’re not.’
Her skirt flapped to her knees with a speed that startled him. Anger blazed behind dark eyes that settled into a dead gaze and seemed to focus on something miles behind him.
‘She could have had any man she wanted,’ he pressed on. ‘Even Dougie. The love of your life.’
Her gaze returned, as black and sullen as a betrayed señorita. And it struck him then, that Megs might have been the woman who had comforted Mrs McLeod at her husband’s graveside all those years ago.
‘Bitch,’ she spat.
Now they were coming down to it.
‘You travelled a lot,’ he went on. ‘South America was your favourite. You could have lived there. You said so yourself. Was it even better than Mexico?’ He kept his eyes on her as he bent down, opened his case and removed the postcards. ‘But you never went anywhere by yourself. You went to Mexico for a mid-term break with Wee Johnnie. It took me a while to work out how the flight manifesto checked out, because Kelly never flew to Mexico –
you
did, under her name.’
He waited for her reaction, but he could have been talking to a wax dummy. ‘Then later, you went to Spain,’ he went on. ‘That was when Dougie tagged along, but also where I slipped up. You see, I thought Dougie and you got together
after
Spain. But I never knew until Dougie told me that you had been out with him before.’
Not even a glimmer.
He held up the Mexican postcard. ‘Remember this?’
Her lips tightened.
‘Want me to read it?’
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Bore me.’
‘This one first.’ He flipped over the St Andrews postcard. Her eyes never wavered.
‘Going to Mexico for a short break. Will be in touch. Kelly.’
He stared at her, felt hatred stir and simmer deep within him. ‘This is clear evidence of premeditation,’ he said.
Megs eyed him with a dead stare.
‘And this one. Written after Kelly was murdered,’ he said. ‘
Staying on in Mexico a bit longer. Expect to be back at the end of April.’
He lowered the postcard, gave a dead stare of his own. ‘Still deny it?’
‘Deny what? Murdering her?
Weitere Kostenlose Bücher