MURDER BY THE SHORE an addictive crime thriller full of twists (Detective Inspector Siv Drummond Mystery Book 4) by GRETTA MULROONEY

Author:GRETTA MULROONEY [MULROONEY, GRETTA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime thriller and mystery
Published: 2022-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

On Monday afternoons between two and five, Belinda Hanak did a complex jigsaw while Aled was at judo classes. She enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of them and had read that they improved visual-spatial reasoning. Anything to keep her brain ticking over. She borrowed the jigsaws from the hobbies supply at BSS and set them out on the wide dining table.

Today’s was a thousand-piece puzzle of the wine regions of Italy, and she was searching for pale-green shapes to complete Reggio Calabria. Usually, she found the task absorbing but she couldn’t concentrate, feeling rattled by DI Drummond’s visit. There was no doubt that the detective was a smart woman in every sense of the word, albeit a bit on the skinny side. And there was something not quite right about her eyes, as if she was under strain. Belinda was confident that no one would be able to challenge her version of the meeting with Tom, but the questions had left her uneasy. She’d told Aled that the inspector had wanted more detail about the working of the BSS committee, and he’d made little comment. But she’d noted him glancing at her a couple of times, as if about to ask something. And she really, really didn’t need Aled to start quizzing her right now. She had enough to contend with.

She went through the green pieces again. They seemed particularly fiddly, and one she needed, with two indentations, was elusive. Maybe it was missing. Whoever received donations for the BSS hobby library was supposed to check that items were intact, but there were slip-ups. She was frustrated at the idea that she might be searching for a piece that wasn’t even there, and she couldn’t be bothered counting them all now. That in itself was unlike her. She was out of sorts.

She gave up on the puzzle and stared out at the back garden. The weather had turned, with a thin mizzle seeping from puffy grey clouds. When she was little, she’d say, The clouds are crying. She stood and walked around the table, running her finger along the raised edge. It was no good, the jigsaw wasn’t doing it for her today.

On a whim, she ran upstairs, sprayed herself with scent, dashed on lipstick, grabbed a mac and drove to Harry’s, hoping he’d be in. It took him a while to answer the door and when he did, he was scratching his ruffled hair.

‘I was having forty winks.’

‘Sorry to have disturbed your beauty sleep,’ Belinda lied. She didn’t approve of older people napping during the day. Aled might have his little quirks — eating shredded wheat with warm milk for supper and refusing ever to wear his shirt outside his jeans — but he never dozed off in his chair.

Harry straightened his sweater. ‘Come on in, I’ll put the kettle on. Cuppa?’

‘Please.’ He bought lapsang souchong just for her, a tea he’d never encountered until she’d told him she preferred it. She skipped down the three steps into his kitchen.

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