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Back Harbour Street Save as PDF
Chapters (47)
  1. Contents
  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. Chapter Forty-One
  43. Chapter Forty-Two
  44. Chapter Forty-Three
  45. Chapter Forty-Four
  46. Chapter Forty-Five
  47. About the Author

Back in her car Holly phoned Joe Ashworth and Vera, but neither of them was picking up. She felt a stab of the usual paranoia about Joe and Vera – that they were a team and she was deliberately excluded – but tried to ignore it. She left a message for each, saying that she thought she’d traced the identity of the person who’d dropped Margaret at the Haven on the day before her death. Even inside the car she could smell food cooking in an Italian restaurant nearby and felt suddenly hungry, but refused to give in to temptation. It was easy to put on weight during a major inquiry – most detectives lived on a diet of takeaway pizzas and chocolate – and soon she’d be home for Christmas, and her mother would feed her up too.

She drove back to Kimmerston. In the police station colleagues were in a meeting room gathered around a television set, waiting to see the coverage of the press briefing. She arrived just in time for the opening titles and there was a cheer when there was a shot of her at the top of the programme, plus lots of ribald comments when it was over. Holly thought she’d handled it well. She’d come over as professional and hadn’t given anything away. As soon as the piece on the press conference was over, the phones began to ring.

Chapter Fifteen

Vera and Joe stood in the entrance of the flats in Percy Street waiting for a shower to pass. Across the road someone was playing a CD of Christmas songs, so loud that the music spilled out onto the street. The Pogues followed by Slade. Vera wondered what Dee Robson would do on Christmas Day, and if Father Gruskin would be a good Christian and invite her into his home. The notion was so unlikely, so incongruous, that it made her laugh out loud. She shook her head to dismiss it and then decided that the old ladies in the congregation would be fighting among themselves to give their priest Christmas dinner.

‘What do you think?’ Joe stamped his feet and put his hands in his coat pocket.

‘I’m not sure our Dee will manage on her own without Margaret to support her.’ Vera knew that wasn’t what he’d meant. ‘Poor lass. Perhaps the Haven would take her back. We should give social services a ring.’

Joe looked impatient. Perhaps he thought her sympathy for Dee misplaced; the woman had disgusted him. ‘What should we do now?’