The Secrets Between Us by Louise Douglas

Author:Louise Douglas [Douglas, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Fiction, Romance, Suspense
ISBN: 9781445859170
Google: WmSzD-nb-_8C
Amazon: 1445859173
Publisher: Paragon
Published: 2012-05-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

DI TWYFORD DROVE me back to Burrington Stoke. I asked him to drop me at the crossroads. I felt like I needed the walk back to Avalon to clear my mind. A mizzle had settled in the cold air and the dull afternoon suited my mood. The lunch and the city and the alcohol had picked me up temporarily, but now the anxiety about Genevieve was back again, several times worse than before. She was a missing person. I was certain the police believed some kind of crime had been committed, and although none, so far, had been specified, crimes against missing people were always terrible, weren’t they?

Was Alexander a suspect? Was I?

I kicked at leaves on the pavement, swung my bag and turned these thoughts over in my mind, and as I did so a car pulled up beside me. I looked up. It was the Land Rover. Alexander leaned across and opened the door. He didn’t say anything, so I climbed in.

He drove past Avalon and out through country lanes until we reached a narrow road with a cattle grid at the end that wound up through a steep gorge. White goats stood precariously on the sides of the grey cliffs as if they were paper cut-outs that had been pinned there.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘For a walk,’ he said.

‘My shoes …’

‘Your boots are in the back.’

‘What about Jamie?’

‘Claudia’s giving him tea.’

He parked close to the top of the hill and I changed into my walking boots. He passed me one of his old waxed jackets.

‘Thanks,’ I said, as he helped me into it and its weight settled on my shoulders.

I followed him over the road, up a stony path that led to the side of a huge hill, moorland really, fashioned into a beautiful big curve like the hip of a sleeping woman. The hillside was covered in purple-brown, dead bracken, and the ground underfoot was damp.

‘This way,’ he said.

We walked for several miles, heading around the side of the hill, and we didn’t say anything. I followed his back, and every now and then we stopped to look at the view. He paused to help me cross a galloping stream. He held my eye for a second and then turned and set off again.

It was a steep tramp up a wet, rocky path between flanks of heather and scrubby little wind-blown trees. Several times I had to stop to catch my breath, but Alexander ploughed on. He took off his jacket and tied it by the sleeves around his waist. There were sweat patches under each arm, in the centre of his back and at the neck of his shirt. I saw a deer leaping through the bracken and we startled some noisy hen-pheasants. I wanted to tell Alexander to slow down, but I couldn’t. I didn’t. I pushed myself to keep up with him.

At the top of the hill, he made me turn.

‘Look,’ he said.

I looked.

Beyond the black, pointed treetops of a managed

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