In the Shadow of Evil (A Neil Paget Mystery)
Frank Smith
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 0727881523
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A gruesome discovery sets DCI Neil Paget on a collison course with his superiors . . . When Antonia Halliday is found dead in a barn, her head and neck slashed with an old-fashioned sickle, Paget and Tregalles attend the scene. The victim is from Bromley Manor, the country home of a highly respected family with links to the chief constable, and Chief Superintendent Brock warns Paget to tread carefully. With all the evidence drawing Paget back to the manor, he soon finds himself at odds with his superiors – and the killer is not quite finished yet . .
sneaking around and spying on her.’ ‘What did she say, exactly, Gwyneth? Her words as near as you can remember them.’ ‘Like I said, sir, she told me to stop spying on—’ ‘Her actual words, if you don’t mind, Gwyneth,’ Paget said firmly. The girl glanced around the room as if afraid of being overheard and lowered her voice. ‘It’s just that I wouldn’t want Mrs B to know I told you,’ she said, ’specially now her daughter’s dead.’ ‘She won’t hear it from us,’ Paget assured her, ‘so, please,
Paul.’ The smell of freshly turned earth hung in the air as Molly walked up the lane. She paused at the beginning of the track leading to the barn where Toni Halliday had been killed. She had not visited the crime scene itself before, although she’d driven past the track leading to it several times in the past few days. With the sound of birds chunnering softly in the background, and the distant thrum of a tractor going about its work, the place was so peaceful and serene, it was hard to believe
the same goes for the maid. I was telling you the truth when I said I fell asleep in the car around the time Toni was killed.’ He slid forward to the very edge of his chair as he tried to make his point. ‘Good God, man, don’t you think I’d come up with a better alibi than that if I had killed her?’ Paget shrugged. ‘I don’t think you had a choice,’ he said bluntly. ‘You had to account for your absence while you were killing Toni Halliday, which, I suspect, was done on the spur of the moment, and
for the night.’ Or someone could have been returning to the manor after killing Gwyneth. Perhaps, in their haste to get back inside undetected, they had failed to make sure the gate was securely latched. But the question still remained: how did Gwyneth get back to the barn from where she was last seen at the bottom end of Manor Lane? And what would draw her back there? Was there something in the barn she needed to retrieve? Something she’d hidden, perhaps? Paget dismissed that idea. Gwyneth had
as if expecting it to produce his breakfast. Suddenly, all the pent up anger and frustration came rushing to the surface and spilled over. ‘Then perhaps you should get it yourself for a change,’ she snapped. Startled by her own temerity, a tremor of fear ran through her, but she’d started now and there was no going back. ‘I know this is a bad time,’ she said, trying to calm the tremor in her voice, ‘and I shouldn’t have said that, and I’m sorry about your brother, but I can’t go on like this,