by Jill McGown
He had thrown the gun into the bushes, had got back into his wife’s car, and had driven through Malworth’s deserted streets back to Stansfield, back to the street close to Epstein Drive, and had left the car. He had watched from a safe distance, then had made himself known to the constable attending the burglary, got into his cab, and driven away. Sooner or later, they would get him for the burglary.
And, as far as Jarvis ever knew, it had worked. He didn’t know that Keith had been recording something; he didn’t know that Lloyd’s taste in television programs had found him out. When he had shut himself up in that garage to end it all, it was in the belief that he had been successful, that he had done what he had had to do. But it hadn’t made him well again.
Judy was glad they had got there too late; sometimes, you just had to let sick people take their own way out.
Lloyd touched her glass with his; she smiled. The candlelight flickered, casting dancing light in Lloyd’s blue eyes.
He put his glass down. “Sooner or later,” he said, marginally adjusting the position of the pepper grinder, “they’re going to drop the Chief from Chief Supers and Chief Inspectors.”
“I know,” said Judy.
“So Case will be a superintendent, and you and I will both be inspectors.” She nodded.
“And they probably won’t need two CID inspectors. And Bell’s a long way off retiring, so they won’t be needing any other kind of inspector, either. And … chances are, I’ll have to take early retirement.”
“Yes,” she said. “You’ll get a lump sum as well as your pension, won’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh,” she said. “I was just thinking that it would be just what you’d want, really. To start married life.”
He took her hand and kissed it. “How much of that wine have you had?” he asked, his lips brushing her skin as he spoke.
“One sip.”
He clasped his fingers in hers, and they held hands tightly for a long moment before he let her go, his face grave.
“Your handcuffs or mine?” he asked.
Wish you had another novel by Jill McGown to read?
Don’t miss
PICTURE OF
INNOCENCE
The next novel featuring detectives
Lloyd and Hill
by Jill McGown
Now available in hardcover from Fawcett Books.
East Midlands farmer Bernard Bailey, a violent man with a brutal temper, stands to pocket a hefty inheritance if he fathers a male child. After destroying one wife to achieve this end, Bailey turns his next marriage into a twisted business arrangement. If his new spouse produces a son, she will be paid handsomely for her trouble.
But the real trouble is just beginning.
PICTURE OF INNOCENCE
After six months of receiving highly publicized death threats and having a state-of-the-art security system installed on his property, Bailey is viciously murdered. This gruesome homicide launches Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd and Detective Inspector Judy Hill into one of the most unusual investigations of their careers.
The question is not
“Who stands to gain from his death?” but
“Why wasn’t the monster killed sooner?”
by JILL McGOWN
Published by Fawcett Books.
Available in your local bookstore.
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A Fawcett Crest Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 1997 by Jill McGown
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain by Macmillan Publishers Limited in 1997.
http://www.randomhouse.com
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-95022
eISBN: 978-0-307-56098-8
v3.0