A Narrow Return by Faith Martin

Author:Faith Martin [Faith Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780709094760
Publisher: Robert Hale
Published: 2012-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

It was nearly lunchtime by the time she got back, and Sam and Vivienne were already back at the office, Vivienne looking damp and displeased.

‘No luck with Mark Burgess, guv,’ Sam reported, without being asked. ‘He still does the rounds there, and a lot of people have confirmed that he’s got an eye for the ladies all right, but no one’s willing to point the finger.’

‘I think it’s gross,’ Vivienne said with a shudder. ‘A middle-aged butcher, for Pete’s sake. Some women have no class.’

Hillary bit back a smile. No doubt to someone of Vivienne’s age and good looks, the thought of anyone over thirty and possessing a less than physically perfect body, having sex was the ultimate in bad taste.

Unless they looked like Steven Crayle of course, she corrected herself with an inner smile. She hadn’t missed the goo-goo eyes the youngster had been giving their boss. She wondered, briefly, if he secretly enjoyed being the object of a young and pretty girl’s desire, then abruptly cut the thought off.

He was a man. Of course he did.

‘Up for a pint at the Bull, guv?’ Jimmy asked, interrupting her suddenly sour thoughts.

‘Give me ten minutes,’ Hillary agreed readily. She went back to her stationery cupboard and picked up her bag and headed to the locker rooms. There she used the ladies next door and went to her locker. She noticed the scratches the moment she lifted the padlock into her hand and, with her own key paused a centimetre above it, blinked in surprise.

Slowly, she opened the locker and looked inside. Her spare coat was hanging just how she’d left it. Her holdhall, though still on the bottom shelf, had its flaps showing. But she had stashed it the other way around. Which meant that someone had moved it. Which meant it had almost certainly been gone through. Her eyes swept on, doing a rapid, mental inventory.

Her perfume bottle wasn’t in the same place either.

And her spare comb was gone.

She stood there for several moments, baffled.

There weren’t that many possibilities to explain it. The first and most likely, was that there was a thief about. Nothing new or surprising in that, of course. They were everywhere, just like rats. Seldom seen, but you knew they were there. And the fact that they were in a police station meant nothing at all.

She checked the padlocks on the lockers either side of hers, and then a few at random. Most of the padlocks were old and had their fair share of scratches, but none that looked new or recent.

So why would a thief target her locker specifically, and no one else’s? She’d only be on the job for a few days – if robbery had been the motive, any self-respecting light-fingered tea-leaf would know better. They’d wait a few weeks before striking, giving her plenty of time to store more stuff here – maybe a spare handbag, gear, hell, even trainers or a watch. That way they’d be far more likely to come up with something they could sell on for a reasonable profit.

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