No Mercy by Robert Crouch

Author:Robert Crouch [Crouch, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-01-15T16:00:00+00:00

Thirty-Six

It takes moments to dismiss the idea of being Maddie’s next victim. If she wanted to set me up as the prime suspect for Capote’s murder, why kill me?

Either I’m a suspect or a target. I can’t be both.

Can I?

I push the question aside, still unsettled by how close I came to both. Had I opened the door and stepped inside...

I push the thought aside and walk back towards the Town Hall. Dwelling on what might have happened won’t solve the murders of Capote and Foster.

It won’t tell me why Maddie might want me dead either.

I spot Helen on the front steps of the Town Hall, looking up and down the High Street. I’m about to cross over the road when Councillor Gregory Rathbone bounds down the steps. After a quick spot of air kissing, they walk off, his hand in the small of her back, guiding her to La Floret, one of Tollingdon’s more upmarket restaurants. When they take a window seat, I nip across the road to The Grind, Tollingdon’s newest coffee shop. I buy a decaffeinated latte and perch on a stool by the window. I watch, hoping to witness some intimacy I could use against them.

No stranger to controversy, Rathbone enjoys the attention of the local media. He never misses an opportunity to get his grinning face in the Tollingdon Tribune. His main business is the Travellers, a large pub and nightclub in the countryside, favoured for weddings and hen nights. The venue subsidises his other failed ventures, many of which I have inspected and condemned. He always bounces back, his Teflon personality ensuring nothing sticks or tarnishes his reputation.

Why women want to be with him remains a mystery I won’t solve, certainly not from a coffee shop across the road.

Then again, what do I know? I’m hardly a roaring success when it comes to love and romance. My mistakes and indecision with Gemma prove that. Now I’m getting twitchy about Freya. She wants more than passion, more than the moment.

Didn’t she say we were lost souls, destined to find each other?

When we first met her in Pristine Pooches, she was a lost soul, reeling from a third failed marriage. Defined by an ill-fitting bra and a ceremonial bonfire to burn her clothes, she was a gorgeous bundle of nervous energy. After my failures with Gemma, Freya lifted my spirits. She enchanted her way through my defences and mesmerised me in bed. She knew what I wanted and how to give it to me. It was effortless.

It’s still effortless. Whatever I do, I seem to please her.

I take a sip of cold latte. She’s not going to be pleased when I tell her about Saturday night.

It’s nearly eight o’clock. While Rathbone and Helen tuck into their main course, I’m sitting in a coffee bar when I should be with Freya. Sliding off the stool, I pick up my phone and head for the door, exchanging smiles with a young barista with cheeky eyes.

Old habits die hard.

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