The Pick, The Spade and The Crow (The National Crime Agency Series Book 1) by Bill Rogers

Author:Bill Rogers [Rogers, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781503938304
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2016-09-26T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

Lorna’s Garden Transformations, Dorsey informed her, were working on a garden in Worsley, less than three miles away. She’d spoken to the owner. Jo was expected. Despite a hiccup on the East Lancs Road because of the guided busway roadworks, it took her less than ten minutes to get there.

The house was down a metalled lane, lined with tall bare trees. Signs made it clear that this was a private road with no access for unauthorised vehicles. She had glimpses of several properties through the beech and horse chestnut trees, and beyond the identical high fences that surrounded them. It began to rain as she pulled up outside the electronic gate that guarded Edgerton Hall.

The speakerphone was too high for Jo to reach from inside the car, and she was forced to reach for her brand-new black-hooded cagoule with NCA emblazoned across the back in fifteen-centimetre-high white letters. Before she had time to walk to the speaker console, the gates began to open. She jumped back in the Audi, and set off.

The drive wound its way between perfectly manicured lawns strewn with leaves to a large Victorian mansion, its lower storey redbrick, above which everything was in the black-and-white Tudor Revival Style so prevalent around Worsley Village. The walls were rendered white, with black carved bargeboards, pegged timber joints, and quatrefoil panels.

A scruffy-looking man in a green pullover, green work pants and heavy-duty wellington boots, stood at the foot of the stone steps leading to the front door. Jo pulled up alongside him, and lowered the window. He leaned towards her and muttered something.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t catch that?’

‘Police?’ he mumbled.

‘That’s correct,’ she said. ‘I’m Joanne Stuart from the National . . .’

He was already walking away towards the west end of the house. She decided to follow in the car. The drive curved around the side of the building all the way to the rear of the west wing. She pulled up beside a Range Rover, beyond which were parked a Porsche and a Transit van. Jo switched off the engine and got out.

Her guide set off across the lawn towards a tennis court surrounded by flower beds. Jo opened the trunk of the car, changed into her boots and followed him. He was over a hundred yards away now, turning right towards a half-size football pitch.

Suddenly the man disappeared from sight. It was only when she was closer that she realised that the lawn fell steeply away. In the long, broad hollow below was a pitch-and-putt golf course. To the east lay something like a sports pavilion to which her guide was heading. In front of the pavilion knelt a woman, putting the final touches to a large semicircle of Yorkstone flags. Jo started gingerly down the slope.

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