In the Still of the Night

‘Might be a good idea, at that. Do you know one?’

‘Guy, who did my divorce, he’ll come, or send someone else to sit in on the interview.’ Marty looked up at Sean, her orange hair dishevelled, her eyes smeared with tears and mascara. ‘They don’t really think I did it, do they, Sean?’

‘I don’t know what they think.’

She didn’t believe him, her eyes wild. ‘Oh, come on – you’re one of them, they talk to you, you were a policeman.’

He gave her a dry smile. ‘Once. No more. And when you’re out, you are out, as far as the force is concerned, believe me. Oh, I still have friends there, but the guy in charge here isn’t one of them. Chorley probably suspects me more than he suspects you, but then Chorley suspects everyone.’

‘So long as he doesn’t suspect me,’ Marty said with a smothered sob.

‘He may suspect your ex-husband,’ Sean softly said, watching her intently.

‘Roger?’ She blinked at him, rubbed a hand over her wet, black-ringed eyes. ‘Oh, my God … I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘Was he capable of murder?’

‘Roger was a sadistic bastard, he was capable of anything; he once stubbed a cigarette out on my arm because I laughed at him at the wrong moment.’

Sean drove straight to Annie’s flat and found Harriet sitting outside in her car. She got out to meet him, her sheepskin coat wrapped round her, shivering in the cold wind, her face pale and her eyes anxious.

‘She still isn’t back. Sean, what on earth is going on? Derek murdered, Annie vanished God knows where. I’m worried. I’ve got a bad feeling about all this.’

‘So have I. Join the club. Marty is petrified they’ll suspect her.’

‘Well, she was seeing Derek, wasn’t she?’

‘But was she the only one? He was out every night at clubs around town, drinking and gambling – there must have been other women in his life besides Marty. Maybe men, too.’

Harriet stared. ‘Men? Derek wasn’t ambi, was he?’

‘Could be. The way he was killed could easily be.’ Sean broke off as a taxi drew up on the other side of the road. ‘Hang on, I think this is Annie … yes, it is.’

He strode across the road with Harriet on his heels. The taxi drove off just as they got there and Annie turned to face them, flushed and contrite.

‘Oh, hello – were you waiting for me?’

‘And worrying ourselves sick!’ Harriet indignantly told her.

Sean’s narrowed eyes were searching Annie’s face. She looked different. Something had happened to her, something so powerful it showed even at a casual glance. Her colour was high, her eyes fever-bright. Sean felt the clutch of jealousy, and was shaken by it. He had never felt like that before about anyone. He had always been a loner, a man who walked by himself and didn’t need anybody else. What was the matter with him? Was she beginning to matter that much?

‘Where have you been?’ he broke out hoarsely and she turned to look at him, the glance betraying her mood even more. Annie was walking on the wind, high as a kite. She had been making love, his first i

nstinctive awareness of it backed by the evidence of his searching eyes – her pink mouth faintly swollen, a small love-bite on her throat, under her ear. He could almost smell sex on her, and his stomach clenched. He felt almost as sick as he had when he saw Derek Fenn’s body.

‘I was with someone,’ she admitted, defiance in her face.

Harriet was instantly distracted, her brows going up. ‘A man? Annie! Who? Is this someone new? Or do we know him?’

Annie laughed, excitement glittering over her. Both Harriet and Sean were taken aback by the change in her. They had never seen her look like this.

‘I’ve known him for years, but we’d lost touch – I met him again yesterday, he came to interview me. He works for the real-life crime magazine, remember that interview? And this morning he rang me and we met up at the hospital, after I’d seen my mother.’

‘Who is this guy?’ demanded Sean curtly.

She gave him another defiant look. ‘I just told you. A journalist, a reporter, someone I knew years ago.’

Sean drew a sharp breath. ‘This is him, isn’t it? The old flame who got you pregnant?’