A Violent End
A Kesley and Lambert novel.A 16-year-old girl is found beaten and suffocated in the woods. Her name was Karen Boland and her short life had been secretive and unhappy.The police find plenty of suspects: Karen’s middle-aged lover, her stepfather, her classmates… As they dig deeper, they discover that the teenager’s life had been surprisingly complicated.
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Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in 1990 by Collins Crime
Copyright © Emma Page 1990
Emma Page asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008175801
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008175818
Version [2016-02-18]
CONTENTS
On this Friday morning in mid-November the long spell of golden autumn weather showed signs of coming to an end. Swirls of cloud, gunmetal grey, slipped along through the lower sky, the freshening wind held a threat of rain.
In the scattered hamlet of Overmead, a mile or two to the east of Cannonbridge, lights shone out from isolated homesteads. Three-quarters of a mile beyond the silent, shadowy expanses of Overmead Wood, a neglected stretch of open woodland, a side road, scarcely more than a glorified lane, branched northwards from the main thoroughfare running out of Cannonbridge. Some five hundred yards along the side road stood Jubilee Cottage, the home of Ian and Christine Wilmot, in a sizable garden still bright with Michaelmas daisies, chrysanthemums, yellow poppies.
The cottage had been converted a few years ago from a pair of semi-detached Edwardian dwellings set at right-angles to each other. It was now a handsome, substantial, many-gabled residence with ornamental windows and ornate chimneystacks, its mellow, rosy brick elegantly set off by cream-coloured paintwork, brilliant swags of scarlet pyracantha berries round the doors and windows.
In her comfortable bedroom on the first floor, furnished, like the rest of the house, with carefully chosen Edwardian furniture bought from auctions and salerooms, Karen Boland, a cousin of Christine Wilmot, was up and dressed, washed and groomed, ready for her day’s studies at the Cannonbridge College of Further Education. She had been a student at the college since September, following a full-time course in general education.
Karen was sixteen years old, slightly built, delicately pretty, with small, soft features and a smooth, rounded forehead that gave her a lingering look of childhood innocence, a little at variance with the veiled expression of her wide hazel eyes; they held a suggestion of wary containment, the look of one who has already learned some of the harsher lessons of life.
She was dressed in a sweater and slacks, ankle boots. She wore no make-up; her fine, clear skin had a peachy bloom. Her wavy, shoulder-length hair, a shining golden brown, was taken back and secured with a fashionable clip on the crown of her head.
Across the landing she heard her cousin Christine leave the bedroom she shared with her husband, Ian, and go downstairs. Karen crossed to the door of her own room and opened it a fraction. She could hear the muted tones of the kitchen radio giving out the morning’s information and opinions, the sounds of Christine preparing breakfast. Along the corridor she could hear Ian splashing in the bathroom.
She closed her door quietly and went to her desk. On a shelf above her books were neatly ranged. She took down an old maths textbook and opened it. The last few pages had been pasted to the back cover along the outside and bottom edges, forming a concealed pocket.
She fingered a snapshot out from the pocket and sat down at the desk, gazing intently at the likeness. After some moments she opened a desk drawer and took out a magnifying-glass. She sat closely studying the photograph.
Along the corridor the bathroom door opened, she heard Ian’s footsteps going back to the bedroom. Karen at once replaced the photograph, restored the book to the shelf and put the magnifying-glass away in the drawer.
