The Hunted Hare by Fay Sampson

Author:Fay Sampson [Sampson, Fay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lion Hudson
Published: 2012-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

He grasped Melangell’s thin wrist, hardly conscious that he was doing so.

“Croquet’s over. Come on. We’re going.”

“Where?”

“Never mind.”

He hauled her indoors, nearly upsetting a surprised Sian on her stepladder. Through the foyer, pounding up the stairs. He should have gone back and told Jenny to lock the door.

“Daddy!” Melangell wailed. “You’re going too fast. You’re hurting me.”

Conscience-stricken, he let go of her wrist. “Sorry, love. But we have to hurry.”

“Why?”

He burst into the double bedroom.

Jenny lay curled up in the big bed, asleep. His heart ached to see how thin her face was, the smudges round her eyes. She had taken off her scarf. There was a sheen of tiny fair hairs just starting to cover her scalp again. Every instinct of compassion made him want to leave her there, undisturbed, wrapped in the arms of healing sleep.

But a more imperative voice was telling him he had to snatch her up and carry her away. Now, before whoever was stalking this valley with murderous intent could realize that Jenny alone might hold the clue to the killer’s identity.

He seized their suitcases from the corner where he had stacked them. He threw one on the bed.

Jenny stirred. She opened bruised-looking eyelids, then gave a cat-like yawn. She rubbed the backs of her hands over her eyes.

“Is it time to get up?”

Then she focused on Aidan, on Melangell hovering in the doorway, on the suitcase weighing down the other half of the bedclothes. She struggled to sit up.

“What’s going on?”

Aidan was rapidly emptying the drawers on his side of the bed, and piling the contents into the suitcase.

“We’re leaving.”

“Now? But it’s only Thursday.”

“I know. But I’m not letting you stay here a moment longer. I should have taken you away as soon as the police had questioned us. When Harry and Debbie went.”

She reached a hand towards him, but he did not stay still long enough for her to hold him. The hangers in the wardrobe rattled as he slid the clothes off.

“Love, we went over all this. Whether to go or stay. We decided it was safer here, with the police all over the place, than heading off on our own, and not knowing who might be following us.”

“I was wrong. When I got downstairs, Melangell was gone. Euan Jones found her looking for a ball in the shrubbery. Where were the police then? How do either we or the police know it wasn’t Euan? Or anybody else? They can’t be everywhere.”

Obediently, Jenny started to ease her feet out from under the duvet. She looked drawn and tired, but he must not let short-term sympathy cloud his brain.

Then she checked, her bare feet not yet on the floor. She turned her serious grey-blue eyes on him. “I can’t go.”

“Oh, yes, you can. I’ve made my mind up.”

“No. I’ve been lying in bed, thinking about what that newspaper headline said. How I might be the only one who saw or heard something just before Thaddaeus was killed, or straight after.”

“That’s why we’re going.

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.