The Karen Cady Mysteries by Penny Kline

Author:Penny Kline [Kline, Penny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2019-11-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Sylvia Challacombe, who had gone crazy when she found out Paul knew the truth: could she really have killed Barbara Preston? She would have to have done it in cold blood, two weeks after Paul’s disappearance. Wouldn’t she have calmed down by then? But Karen had heard of people who waited years before taking revenge.

Why was Paul so convinced it had been Sylvia, rather than the man he had thought of as his father? Colin Challacombe was more controlled than his wife, but that meant nothing, not at a time of extreme stress.

Paul was staying with Will. He had refused to go home until he knew the truth. All the way back from London he had begged Karen not to go to the police. Not yet, not for twenty-four hours. But in the space of a single day it would be impossible to find out anything that would reassure Paul the people he had thought of as his parents were innocent, that Barbara Preston had been killed by a nut case, who just happened to be walking through the park at that particular time.

Coming back in the coach he had explained how he had survived since arriving in London in January.

‘It didn’t take long to use up my savings. Then I lived rough for a bit. It wasn’t so bad but I hated being so dirty. Later a guy I met told me about the room in Japonica Road. Actually, it wasn’t much more than a broom cupboard.’

‘What were you planning to do?’ Karen was intrigued.

Paul shrugged. ‘Finish the training course. Who knows? I suppose I just lived from day to day.’

‘You could have got in touch with Viv again.’

‘No, I promised. She said she was going to try and work something out, but I managed to persuade her I was all right. At least I thought I had.’

‘How many times had you seen each other?’

‘Twice. Richard found she’d left Rachel with a friend and suspected she was meeting some man.’

So that explained why Richard had followed Karen in the street. Imagine living with someone who was so possessive he checked up on you wherever you went.

Then Paul had started talking about how Colin and Sylvia had lived in Cheshire, and how Viv – she had told him all about it during their first meeting – had stayed with her grandmother in Wales during the last four months of her pregnancy. Soon after his birth the family had left Cheshire, Paul having been registered as Sylvia and Colin’s baby.

‘Wasn’t that illegal?’ Karen asked.

Paul shrugged. ‘I suppose things were different sixteen years ago. People covered up more. Viv said they put a lot of pressure on her to hand me over to them. I think she was trying to convince me she would have liked to look after me herself.’

Karen had wanted to say that Viv probably thought she was acting for the best, that she had agreed to a set-up where she could see her son but he would have a stable family home.

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