Hard Evidence
A Kelsey and Lambert novel.A chance meeting with the attractive Julie Dawson should have been no more than a pleasant interlude for DS Lambert.When she is reported missing two months later however, Lambert decides to look into the matter himself.He discovers that Dawson may be conducting her own private investigation, and starts to follow in her footsteps - but will the trail, which has already unearthed suspicious deaths from the past, lead to a present-day murder?
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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.
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in 1996 by Collins Crime
Copyright © Emma Page 1996
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: 9780008171841
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008171858
Version [2016-02-18]
CONTENTS
The thriving, bustling town of Millbourne looked its best on this sunny Tuesday afternoon in the third week of April. In his first-floor office overlooking the main street, Donald Fielding closed the file on which he had been working. He stood up from his desk and returned the file to its cabinet. He was a tall, lean man, thirty-seven years old, with thick, dark hair and sharp grey eyes. He was the proprietor of the Millbourne Advertiser, a highly successful freesheet, one of a number of such newspapers he owned in this part of the county.
He glanced at the phone, looked at his watch, expelled an impatient breath and crossed to the window. The top sash stood open to the soft air, laced with traffic fumes and the scents of spring.
After a few moments he turned from the window and went back to his desk; he began to work again. All his movements were quick and decisive. He glanced frequently at his watch. Whenever the phone rang he snatched up the receiver on the instant.
It was almost four when the call he had been waiting for, the call from George Gresham, head of Gresham Enterprises, at last came through.
Fielding sat leaning forward, rigid, listening, then his expression began to lighten, his shoulders relaxed. By the end of the call he was smiling broadly.
His tone was now briskly cheerful. ‘Right, then. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll be there.’
He drew a deep breath of relief. He felt exuberant, charged with energy. He had the look of a man long resigned to old hindrances and restrictions, who sees all at once exciting challenges opening out before him.
Then his expression altered. Before those new opportunities could be grasped an existing association must be ended. He was foolish to have let it continue so long when it was plain weeks ago that the time had come to cut loose.
He rested an elbow on the desk, cupped his chin in his hand. He remained for some time frowning, pondering, calculating.
Wednesday dawned chilly and overcast but by lunch time the sun had broken through.
In the walled garden of Honeysuckle Cottage, in a secluded spot three miles from Millbourne, Audrey Tysoe spent the afternoon as she had spent many other afternoons since her retirement a few months ago at the age of fifty-five: working in her garden.
The cottage stood on its own at the end of a lane, some distance from the nearest village but within easy walking distance of a bus route into town. The garden was a fair size but she managed it herself.
Today she was busy clearing a tangled corner; the wheelbarrow beside her was now full. She wheeled it across the garden and emptied it onto the compost heap.
She was a dumpy woman, strongly built, with a slight, habitual limp. A shrewd, weathered face that no one had ever thought pretty; hair taken back without artifice into a scanty bun. Neat and tidy, even in her old gardening clothes; the air of a woman who has never bothered overmuch about her appearance and certainly doesn’t intend to start bothering about it at this stage of her life.
