Bad Press Read Free Page A

distance a dog barked, a car backfired. Hawkins’s gaze never left the reporter’s face. Maybe the guy was trying to place him? Could be he’d seen Matt’s photo in the paper.
    “Know me now?” Snow gave an encouraging smile.
    “David Beckham?” Hawkins muttered.
    Matt bristled. The body behind him was cooling, as was the killer’s trail, and Clouseau was cracking one-liners. The reporter laid down the knife and the torch. “Matt Snow. Crime correspondent? Evening News?” He reached into a breast pocket. “The desk got a tip. I was checking it out.” The cop didn’t even glance at the proffered NUJ card. He was too busy snapping cuffs round Matt’s skinny wrists.
    “This is a crime scene,” the reporter shrieked. “You should be calling it in, pal.”
    “I have.” Gibson showed Matt the radio. “And you’re in it. Up to your neck. Pal.”

3
    The zip wouldn’t budge over Bev’s bump. Red-faced, blue eyes brimming with tears, she breathed in so hard it was a miracle her rib cage didn’t snap. Frankie tugged from behind. “Breathe in, my friend. It’s stuck like a stuck thing from stuck land.”
    They were in Bev’s bedroom at Baldwin Street. Frankie’s face in the cheval glass was cool and unruffled as ever. But something wasn’t right. And it wasn’t just the wedding dress – that was an unmitigated disaster. Puffy mutton sleeves and myriad layers of ivory flounce, it resembled one of Bo Peep’s cast-offs. Or a meringue on legs. And it didn’t even fit.
    “Shoulda got a bigger size, Bevy.” Frankie smirked at Bev’s V-sign. “OK. Two sizes.”
    Bev clenched teeth, then fists. Frankie had been her best mate since God was an embryo, but right now the girl was looking at a slap.
    “Mum!” Bev wailed, wrung her hands. Emmy Morriss lolled on the bed, in a pastel blue two-piece and a hat the size and shape of a satellite dish. When she wasn’t swigging Bristol Cream she was slurring, Get Me to the Church on Time .
    “Mum!” The wail’s volume increased. “You’re not helping.”
    Emmy emitted a discreet belch. “No one’s holding a gun to your head, sweetheart.”
    No. Just a Kalashnikov. The church was packed. A zillion prawn vol-au-vents were on standby at the reception. Not to mention the bun in the oven. Well, a chapatti.
    “Bollocks.” Slinky in a scarlet sheath, Frankie clapped a hand to ruby lips. “Got a safety pin, Mrs M?”
    Bev peeked through fingers wet with tears. Her mascara was doing a runner, lippie bled all over the place. Her face looked like Jackson Pollock’s palette. And now the freaking frock was history. Everyone was waiting. The Chief Constable would be there. Highgate CID was forming a guard of honour. This could not be happening. Bev groaned from the soles of her pink satin pumps, jumped a mile when the doorbell rang. Frankie sashayed to the window, peeped through the curtain. “Who booked the hearse?”
    And that was it. Bev screamed, shot up. The dream panned out the same every time. And this was its fifth or sixth screening. Now wide awake, she hugged her knees, shivered as cold sweat trickled down her spine. She’d shared the nightmare with Frankie, tried making light of it, but impending motherhood obviously weighed heavily on her mind.
    And elsewhere. Mouth turned down, she stroked her bump with trembling fingers. She was only three months gone, but her stomach had always been more pannini than pancake. No one had noticed, or at least commented. Yet. She sighed, shook her head. It was impossible to imagine Oz Khan’s baby swimming around in there. Impossible to imagine anyone’s. Christ almighty. Detective Sergeant Bev Morriss? Kick-ass cop? Maternal instincts of a sterilised cuckoo? Up the duff?
    So why not terminate it? She lay back with her hands behind her head, stared at a lace doily cobweb on the cornice. Why had she kept it quiet? Why were her mum, Frankie and the guv the only people in the know? Was she in denial and talking about it