Rachel's Coming Home Read Free Page A

completely flat. It might actually have been better if the thief had taken this and left his wallet behind. There hadn’t been much money in the wallet after paying his ticket to the concert, and then a few beers afterwards, but there must have been something.
    He fingered the change in his pocket. Eighty-three pence. Either he could try and find a very cheap coffee or he could use it to phone home. He knew his mother would be worrying, she always made a fuss about every little thing, she was sure to panic about his being missing for a whole twelve hours. That thought decided him. He wasn’t a child any longer, was he?
    He headed for the station where he knew he would find one of those awful vending machines. He used seventy-five pence for a watery but warm chocolate drink. Now he had eight pence left.
    He sat down on one of the hard plastic chairs and closed his eyes. He was completely knackered. By the time they’d got back to James’ room in the halls of residence there hadn’t been much of the night left. And sleeping on the floor hadn’t been exactly comfortable.. He wished he’d thought to ask James for a loan but at the time he had been too intent on showing he wasn’t worried about a thing.
    He’d just sit here for a while and see if any bright ideas occurred to him.
    When Philip Milligan bought Courockglen House he had known he had found a gem. He had finally moved in on April 1 st , but it had been no April Fool. This was the place he was going to settle, to review the one or two successes he’d had recently, and to work on a book to follow on from his last television series. He had been determined to brook no interruptions to this schedule so he really didn’t know how it was he found himself on a visit to his sister.
    His sister! Philip and Alison had never got along. She was twelve years his elder and had always seemed more like a second extra-fussy mother than a sibling. Or perhaps it had been that she had been the perfect child in every way whereas he, until he had broken into television, had never seemed to do anything right.
    He almost groaned as he pulled his Freelander into the beautifully-paved driveway of his sister’s house. It was on one of those exclusive little housing estates that had sprung up around Manchester: perfect, expensive, five-bedroomed detached houses with the tiniest of gardens. Everything was manicured and tidy and looked like something out of a magazine. For Philip, a professional historian, the fake Corinthian pillars and the pseudo-leaded windows were painful to behold.
    Alison appeared at the door before he had even climbed out of the car. Her brown, bobbed hair was as neat as ever and her slacks and shirt were pristine. The carefully applied make-up did not, however, hide the fact that her face was pale and pinched.
    He air-kissed her cheek and said brightly, ‘You’re looking well.’
    â€˜Thank you for coming. I was expecting you half an hour ago but I expect the traffic was bad …?’
    Philip immediately felt defensive. He could have phoned her on his mobile, but it hadn’t occurred to him. He didn’t think they had agreed on an exact time. He bit back an apology and followed her into the shiny white kitchen.
    â€˜I’ll call Amelia down to say hello in a moment,’ she said, reminding Philip of the existence of his niece. She was such a quiet little thing, it was easy to forget her. ‘But I thought we should have a little chat first.’
    It was then that the first real feeling of foreboding touched Philip.
    â€˜You have done this kitchen nicely,’ he said at random. He had only visited this house a couple of times before but he was fairly sure she had redecorated. He remembered that Alison liked to redecorate.
    â€˜It works well, doesn’t it?’ she agreed with a small, pleased smile. ‘I wanted somewhere calm and I think the different shades of white are just what I