The Creek: A Summer Suspense Mystery (The Summer Suspense Mysteries Book 2) by LJ Ross

Author:LJ Ross [Ross, LJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-07-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

When he’d been in the Police Force, Andrew Charlton had always known who’d make a good informant, or who he could tap up for hush money. Reading people was a skill he’d developed as a child growing up with a conman for a father, who’d taught him all about how to play people; how to manipulate and cheat and lie and steal and not have anyone realise you’d done it, until it was too late.

Some fathers passed on pocket watches…

He’d built a lucrative business on the back of his father’s early teachings, and one of his greatest lessons had been how to don a cloak of invisibility and move around unnoticed, unseen, never drawing attention to himself.

Such as when he’d witnessed Bill Hicks’ murder, the previous evening.

Andrew shivered, just thinking of it.

He hadn’t expected to see what he’d seen. In fact, he’d stumbled across the pair of them by chance, on his way back from snooping around Ben Carew’s boathouse, under cover of darkness. There’d been nothing of interest, there—nothing he could lay his hands upon easily, in any event, and he’d concluded that anything of value or importance must be within the cottage.

So, he’d picked his way back towards the village where he’d parked his car, hurrying for cover when he heard Hicks’ heavy footsteps approaching further along the pathway. He’d watched the man weaving and stumbling, and wondered what had brought him that way, so far from home. Drunkenness was the obvious answer, of course, but Charlton had learned early doors that the most obvious answer wasn’t necessarily the right answer.

What did Bill Hicks want with Kate and her family?

It was an interesting question, one he’d ruminated on as he’d waited for the man to continue along the pathway, and one he’d still been thinking about when he spotted another movement in the trees, seconds before a figure emerged like some terrible apparition.

He’d watched in mute horror as the newcomer shoved Bill off a precipice, without a second thought. No long goodbyes, no explanations or apologies.

He’d waited with his heart in his throat for endless minutes, expecting them to move on, to retreat the way they’d come, but things hadn’t worked out that way.

Bill hadn’t died, straight away, you see.

They’d sworn violently, cursing the man who lay somewhere far below hovering between life and death, before making their way down into the cove where he’d fallen, presumably to finish the job.

Andy hadn’t stuck around to see, and had taken the chance to scuttle away, running full pelt through the trees towards the road, avoiding the route the killer had taken.

Safety, first.

It occurred to him that he should probably have made an anonymous call to the police, or ambulance service.

Ah, well.

The man didn’t have much to live for, anyhow, and besides, thanks to Bill Hicks, Andy had another fish to hook, now. Somebody out there didn’t want anybody else to know what he knew, and they’d pay to keep his mouth shut.

There was nothing quite so satisfying as a double payday.

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