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A
“And how are things in the frozen north?” asked the man, whose name was Sharpe, keeping his feet firmly on the kitchen table and the matchstick in the corner of his mouth. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved in about four days.
“Hot,” said A
Sharpe gestured to the letters. “Just nosing about a bit. Afraid there’s nothing very interesting, just bills, junk mail and bank statements, all pretty much as you’d expect. No really juicy stuff. People don’t write letters the way they used to, do they? It’s all e-mail and texting these days, ’in’it?”
Considering that Sharpe looked about twenty-one, it was odd to hear him being so critical of “these days,” as they were probably the only days he knew. But the irony in his tone wasn’t lost on A
Sharpe looked at his partner, Handy, and raised an eyebrow. The match in the corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re not our guv,” he said.
A
The moment he put it to his ear, his feet shot off the table and he sat bolt upright in his chair, almost swallowing his matchstick. His partner, who hadn’t said a word so far, frowned at him. When the call was over, Sharpe dropped the mobile on the table, scowled at A
A
While she was waiting, A
As it turned out, A
When the owner of the voice walked into the kitchen and saw A
A
“North Yorkshire?” she said. “I don’t understand. You broke into our house. How did you do that? I didn’t see any damage to the lock.”
“We’ve got keys for all occasions,” said A
“What do you want with me?”
“Are you Kate Nesbit, Je
“Yes,” she answered.
“Maybe you’d better sit down,” said A
Kate was still dazed as she lowered herself into the chair. Her eyes lighted on the saucer and her nostrils twitched. “Who’s been smoking? We don’t allow smoking in the flat.”
A
“It wasn’t me,” she said, putting the saucer on the draining board. She didn’t know where the waste bin was.
“You mean someone else has been here?”
A
“Necessary?” Kate shook her head. She was a pretty girl, in a very wholesome, no-nonsense sort of way, with her blond hair cut short, black-rimmed oval glasses and a healthy pink glow on her cheeks. She looked athletic, A
“I’m afraid not.” A
“Not for me. Tell me what it is. It’s not Daddy, is it? It can’t be. I was just there.”
“You were visiting your parents?”
“In Richmond, yes. I go every Saturday when I’m not working.”
“No,” said A
Kate put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she said, tears in her eyes. “It’s Je
“In a way. Look, do you have any idea why she was driving up to Yorkshire late last night?”
“I didn’t know that she was.”
“Did you know she’d gone out?”
“Yes. We were home last night. I mean, we don’t live in one another’s pockets, we have our own rooms, but… My God, I don’t believe this.” She put her hands to her face. A
“What happened, Kate?” A
Kate took a deep breath. It seemed to help a little. “There was nothing we wanted to watch on telly, so we were just watching a DVD. Bend It Like Beckham. Je
“What time was this?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it’d be about half past ten, a quarter to eleven.”
That was consistent with the timing, A