A Nice Place to Die

by Jane Mcloughlin

  ‘I suppose an estate agent could use that as part of the sales pitch,’ Rachel said, ‘but I think I’ll pass.’ She added, ‘Poor Kevin, he wasn’t all bad, you know. He never had a chance, though.’

  Reid remembered the first of the many visits he and Rachel Moody had made to Forester Close, way back last winter when they were investigating the death of the vicar from Old Catcombe. He’d said something about it being a nice place to live and she’d sounded almost frightened when she said it was spooky. She’d actually said it was spooky, as though it was going to be haunted some day. And he remembered now that at the time he hadn’t dismissed what she said as the whimsicality of a woman of a certain age, he’d known what she meant. And then later, when he’d learned that a witch had been burned there four or five hundred years before, he’d told himself he’d better be careful in future how he mocked talk of women’s intuition, because maybe there was something in it after all.

  So he didn’t even try to tell Rachel Moody that Three Forester Close was the investment opportunity of a lifetime. He understood how she felt. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s not the only house for sale, is it?’

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure I am cut out for suburban life. I’d forgotten what it was like, how all those people we talked to seemed to be frightened of their own shadows. I mean, can you see me living in a place like that?’

  ‘Well, in the circumstances . . .’ Reid said.

  ‘No,’ Rachel Moody said, ‘it was more than that; it was part of the way of life. All those awful things happened and it was as though those people weren’t surprised, they’d been expecting the worst but at the same time they couldn’t believe any of it was real, as though it was just something they’d seen on television, so they didn’t think there was anything they could do to change it.’

  ‘That’s part of the normal way of life for most of us now,’ Reid said, and thought of his teenaged daughter Kate. One of the reasons he was glad his work made it hard to spend much time at home was because he was frightened enough himself of the future Kate was going to face without having to confront his wife being worried about her too, and neither of them with a word of real comfort for the other about it.

  ‘Boss?’ he started to say.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ DCI Moody said. ‘And yes, you can have next week off to take your wife to Paris. As long as you don’t bring me any more coffee.’

  Jack Reid laughed. ‘Thanks Boss,’ he said, ‘but how did you know?’

  ‘Your wife rang up and asked me yesterday,’ Rachel Moody said. ‘But she made me promise I wouldn’t tell you.’

  Rachel Moody picked up the prospectus for the house in Forester Close and tore it up before she threw the pieces of paper into the waste bin.

  ‘Well, that’s the end of that,’ she said, and they grinned at one another.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Fiction Titles from Jane McLoughlin

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five