Never Let Her Slip Away by Kay Christopher

Author:Kay Christopher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: women's fiction, suspense, stalker, 1980s, antiques
ISBN: 9781909183995
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2015-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

Winter

Gilbert decided that a spade would be the best implement. He’d gone to the big hardware shop on Shirley Road, the one where they put most of the goods outside on the pavement - galvanised buckets, brooms, rope and chain sold by the yard, and garden troughs. He’d looked at the hammers for a while and held one in his hand to feel its heft, tapping the end of it lightly against his palm. He put it back on the rack and moved over to the garden tools, turning his face away from the forks when an unbidden image of a body with the tines embedded in their chest came to his mind. Weren’t pitchforks what the villagers carried aloft when they were pursuing Boris Karloff in Frankenstein? A mediaeval implement, bloody, horrifying. The row of black metal spades looked more promising. Businesslike. Practical. As Gilbert was eyeing them, a small man in a brown cotton overall approached him and asked if there was anything he could help with.

“Just browsing,” said Gilbert and hurried out of the shop.

He realised that where he bought the spade was crucial - it needed to be somewhere big, somewhere anonymous, where he would not draw attention to himself. He’d already eliminated knives as a possible tool - too visceral, too bloody. He started to sweat at the very thought. He could buy a gun, of course, but where on earth from? In the pictures, they made it look so easy - you just hung around on a street corner and the local gangsters showed up almost at once. Money changed hands and suddenly you owned a gun. No, a spade was the right thing, easy to acquire, not attracting suspicion. He decided he would go out to the garden centre in Eastleigh, just far way enough for no-one to recognise him. He’d pay by cash, not cheque. He’d buy a few seed packets at the same time, to make it look like he was just another Sunday gardener. Did gardeners buy seeds in the winter, though? Gilbert knew little about gardening. Their own postage-stamp sized back garden was given over to a patio and a square of lawn which Myra made him mow every week throughout most of the year. There was little in the way of plants or flowers: Myra said they were more trouble than they were worth.

* * *

When Barbara got to the Gallery at the School of Art, the finishing touches were being put to the displays. She was amazed to see Cass there: the woman was clearly going to work right up to the very day she produced the baby. Barbara’s sculpture was on a white plinth, alongside a large installation made out of rusty old bicycle parts, but before she could admire her own work, Cass came over with a pile of printed cards and a roll of double-sided tape.

“Thanks for coming early. Could you be an angel and stick all the cards alongside the relevant pieces? They are all numbered, so don’t have to worry about getting them muddled up.

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.