With a Narrow Blade Read Free Page A

Well, maybe here,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Someone in the “Oxfordshire area” had the winning ticket a while back, but never claimed it.’
    ‘Nearly 180 days ago, to be exact,’ Sandra corrected. ‘Apparently, Camelot give you exactly 187 days to claim it, the stingy sods. The Oxford Mail came out with a piece about it yesterday. You really not seen it? You know, “Do you have the three million pound ticket in your coat pocket?” sort of thing.’
    ‘Yeah. Here, Hill, you checked your old tickets lately?’ Sam asked. ‘The missus has had the drawers out at our house, I can tell you. Driving me barmy. Even looking in flower vases and everything. I mean, who’d put it there, even if we had it? The numbers you want are,’ he picked up yesterday’s edition of the paper, which had run the numbers, ‘2, 9, 12, 14, 30 and 49.’
    ‘Yeah, do those numbers ring a bell, Hill?’ Sandra said.
    ‘Nope,’ Hillary grunted, glancing across to her nest of desks near the side wall. She could see Janine Tyler’s blonde head bent over some paperwork, and, sitting beside her in Tommy Lynch’s old place, an unfamiliar, red head. Her new DC.
    The one who liked to beat up his superior officers.
    ‘Just think, if whoever it is knows it’s their numbers but can’t find the ticket …’ Sandra was saying. ‘I’d feel as sick as a dog.’
    ‘Don’t bear thinking about,’ Sam agreed. ‘Hey, Hill, you sure you ain’t got an old ticket lurking about? If it’s yours, you can treat us all to a holiday in Bali.’
    ‘Yeah, Hill, what about it? Wouldn’t you be surprised if you went back to that boat of yours and found the winning ticket tucked up in a letter rack or something?’ Sandra teased.
    ‘Surprised? I’d be bloody astounded,’ Hillary said, beginning to walk off, then saying over her shoulder with perfect timing, ‘I don’t play.’
    The wave of laughter that shot across the office lifted Keith Barrington’s head. The woman he saw walking towards him was dressed in a plain dark-grey skirt and blazer, with a white blouse and flat black shoes. She carried a large, black leather handbag, and her chestnut-tinted brown hair was cut in a long, bell-shaped bob. She had a surprisingly lush, hourglass figure. The fact that she was headed straight for their group of desks, and hadn’t taken her eyes off him, told him that he was about to meet his new boss. The one who’d recently been awarded a medal for bravery after being shot during the take-down of Oxford’s most notorious drug dealer. The one who could make his life hell, or give him a second chance.
    He rose carefully to his feet and waited for her to make the first move.
    *
    The house was totally quiet, and Caroline Weekes paused in the hall at the bottom of the stairs. She didn’t go up them, but instead walked a short way down the little hall and pushed open the first door on the right, which, she knew, would take her into the lounge.
    The curtains were drawn and the electric lights were on. The telly was turned down low, showing a couple sitting on a sofa as breakfast telly in all its glory was beamed into the living room. Facing the telly was an old but comfortable armchair. On it, sat a grey-haired woman. Her feet were encased in comfortable carpet slippers, her nylon tights a little wrinkled and baggy around the calf. She was wearing a dress of some heavy, rather itchy-looking material that was probably very warm, and a hand-knitted cardigan in the same colour as the flowers on her dress. She seemed to be watching the television. But Caroline Weekes knew that she wasn’t. Her eyes didn’t move, her chest didn’t rise and fall. She sat in her chair so incredibly still.
    A gas fire burned in the grate, and the room felt hot and stuffy. She was finding it hard to breath. Caroline stepped a little further into the room and stared down at her old friend. She seemed to be wearing what looked like some strange, large, ornamental metal pin, right in the