Silent Scream Read Free

the bed. She picked up her late father’s photograph from her bedside table and kissed it.
    ‘Daddy, I’m going up for promotion. Detective Chief Inspector . . .’ Then she laughed and flopped down onto her bed, holding the photograph frame to her chest. He would have been so proud, her father, the late Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Travis. She was determined that she would work her butt off to fill in the application to the very best of her ability.
    As Anna showered and washed her hair, humming, she felt so good and so positive. It had been a tedious investigation, and although the guilty verdict had been the one the team had hoped for, she was glad the case was over. Hunting down the evidence had involved painstaking enquiries and lengthy conversations with the nurse. It had never ceased to amaze Anna how complicated people’s lives were. A jealous wife, a sickly husband and a homely middle-aged woman in a tragic triangle. At first Anna had not suspected that the nurse could have been anything other than a dedicated carer. Dilys was a widow in her mid-forties, rather overweight, with greying hair, and only when she spoke of the victim’s kindness to her, did Anna begin to suspect there existed anything other than a professional relationship. When she eventually asked if there had been something more, the floodgates had opened. Dilys had explained how fond she had become of her patient, how admiring of the way he never complained and was at all times so charming.
    Lady Halesbury, possibly suspecting something was going on, had asked Dilys to leave. It had been a terrible wrench, but the nurse had packed up her suitcase and returned to her council flat in Paddington.
    ‘I loved him,’ she told Anna. ‘We loved each other. I have never known such kindness and such sweetness from a man . . .’
    Anna had listened as the woman seemed to shine, her eyes bright as she explained that they had become lovers. Lord Halesbury had asked her to marry him as soon as he could get a divorce. She knew he would be an invalid, but to be in his company no matter what, would have given her the best years of her life.
    Lying on her bed thinking about the case and the outcome, Anna sighed. The stout little nurse, her face shining with adoration for the dead man, and the bitter, vicious wife, who couldn’t bear to lose her sick husband or his fortune; both women middle-aged and yet caught up in heated passion. The real passion in Anna’s life had been with James Langton; she wondered if she would ever know or feel that passion for someone else.
    Wanting a last glass of wine before bed, she uncorked a bottle of wine and sipped from her glass as she stood by the open window, looking out onto the Thames and Tower Bridge. She had not seen Langton for over eight months, though she had heard news of him and read about him in the police journals. She drained her glass and refilled it. She was suddenly depressed. Even thinking about the last time they had been together made her flush with embarrassment.
    The murder enquiry they had both worked on involved tracking down an infamous drug dealer, Alexander Fitzpatrick. During the enquiry, Anna had met Damien Nolan, husband of a woman who eventually became a major part of the investigation. Anna had found Damien attractive from the moment she had met him, and when he was excluded from the case, she had foolishly agreed to see him. She knew at the time that she was being unprofessional, that Damien would possibly be called as a witness for his wife’s defence, yet she had ignored her own doubts and agreed to meet him. They had met on three different occasions before they went back to her flat and slept together. He was sexy, he was attractive and he was a very experienced lover. In some ways Anna felt her relationship with him freed her from the hold Langton had over her. Even in part knowing she was being foolish made their illicit dates exciting.
    Damien was intelligent, amusing and she