BooksBarbecue
Back Blue Lightning Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. AnnCleeves
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-one
  23. Chapter Twenty-two
  24. Chapter Twenty-three
  25. Chapter Twenty-four
  26. Chapter Twenty-five
  27. Chapter Twenty-six
  28. Chapter Twenty-seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-one
  33. Chapter Thirty-two
  34. Chapter Thirty-three
  35. Chapter Thirty-four
  36. Chapter Thirty-five
  37. Chapter Thirty-six
  38. Chapter Thirty-seven
  39. Chapter Thirty-eight
  40. Chapter Thirty-nine
  41. Chapter Forty
  42. BLUE LIGHTNING

‘I hope they’ve got some heating on in the lighthouse,’ Vicki was saying. ‘What’s the accommodation like, Jimmy? OK?’

‘Fine.’

What stuff? She didn’t repeat the question again. And he didn’t remind her.

They decided then to call it a day soon. Vicki said she just wanted to have a quick look for footwear prints on the muddy track outside the Pund. If the weather changed overnight they might lose them. ‘And shouldn’t one of us stay here to keep an eye on the scene?’

‘We’ll tape it,’ Sandy said. ‘And I’ll be back here before it gets light. Surely it’ll be safe enough if I have a couple of hours’ sleep. Jimmy?’

And Perez, distracted, only nodded. While Vicki and Sandy were busy, he went into the ruined house. He opened the shiny wooden box himself and saw that it was empty.

By then Sandy had the engine running. Perez turned off his torch, ran outside and climbed into the back of the van. Still he didn’t speak of the empty box. He paused before he got out at Springfield, and he might have said something then, but Sandy shouted from the driver’s seat: ‘Come on, man, I want my bed.’

Perez let himself into the silent house. When he pushed open the bedroom door, Fran turned on the light. There was nothing to say to her, so he remained quiet. She wrapped him around with her body to warm him, but long after he heard the regular breathing that meant she was asleep, he stayed as cold and stiff as if he were lying outside on the frozen ground.

Chapter Twenty-six

Perez stood on the bank above the Pund and looked down on it. He thought the building was crumbling back into the hill. The stone that had once formed the surrounding wall had been scattered and was indistinguishable now from the rocky outcrops that grew out of the bog. The building itself sagged at one end. There was a pool of mist covering the low land from Setter to the Pund, so in the dawn the house looked almost romantic. An ideal place for lovers to meet.

Perez hadn’t slept, had turned occasionally during the early hours to look at the alarm clock, surprised at how slowly time was passing. The implication of the empty wooden box had struck him as soon as Vicki had given the puzzled frown, had turned to him in the stinking van and murmured: ‘What stuff?’ It had stayed with him all night, going round and round in his mind.