Truly Madly Deadly by Alex Smith

Author:Alex Smith [Smith, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Relentless Media
Published: 2024-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Tuesday

It was after five in the morning by the time Kett managed to get away from St Margaret’s, and his exhaustion made the world burn like a fever dream. Darcey DeCarlo was long gone, taken by ambulance back to the city. So was Savage, although she’d been given the all-clear to go home. Kett had let Duke go with her, mainly because the big PC had pulled such a convincing puppy dog face that he hadn’t really had a choice.

Father Odling had left the scene in the back of a police car a few hours ago, a portrait of despair. Kett was pretty sure the priest didn’t know anything about what had happened to Darcey, but the fact remained he should have called the police. Any chance they’d had of following the killer’s trail from the second lorry was long gone, and Father Odling was one of two people who could be blamed for that.

The other was dead.

Valerie had taken her last ride in the second ambulance, and no matter how much Kett asked, nobody could tell him what had happened to her. There were no witnesses, no passersby, and none of the shops at this end of the street had cameras. Valerie had gone from being inside the church and safely under police custody to being dead on the street in less than ten minutes, and he couldn’t figure out how it had happened.

Only DI Dawson seemed amused about the affair, but Chuckles—as he insisted everyone call him—had left to buy cigarettes just after one and hadn’t come back. Kett would have summoned him, but his phone had died, and none of Dawson’s constables seemed to know how to get hold of him.

All in all, it was a mess.

He drove home fast, because his eyes kept closing and he needed the adrenaline to stop him dozing off. The day was waking up by the time he arrived at his house, but it was still dark enough that he didn’t see the car parked in his driveway until he almost drove into it.

“Nope,” he said as he squeezed the Volvo in next to the ugly brown Mercedes. “Nope, nope, nope.”

He got out, closing the door as quietly as he could so as not to wake the girls—although he could see that the front bedroom light was on, a warm glow seeping through the closed curtains. The birds were celebrating the morning like it was their first, but the sound of them only made Kett feel his exhaustion more. He yawned so hard he felt his jaw crack, hearing the sound of a car window rolling down.

“Quit your bloody yawning, Kett,” said Clare from inside the Mercedes.

Kett snapped his mouth shut, walking to the Super’s car.

“What are you doing here, sir?”

“Well since you couldn’t be arsed to answer your phone, I thought I’d pay a house call. What the bloody hell is going on?”

“It’s… complicated, sir,” said Kett. “Let me freshen up and I’ll come straight in. I just need a cup of tea and maybe a five-minute nap.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.