Letting out the Worms: Guilty or not? If not then the alternative is terrifying (Kitty Thomas Book 1 Sue Nicholls (best short books to read TXT) 📖

‘Allege? Are you calling me a liar now?’ Paul’s heart thumped.

‘Please answer the question, Mr Thomas.’

Paul stared Poulton in the eye and said, ‘I’m guessing it would have been about twenty metres. I was running towards them, trying to stop him.’ His voice wavered, and he clamped his teeth together for strength.

The D.I. said, ‘You were running towards Mr and Mrs Owen, trying to stop Mr Owen from pushing Mrs Owen off the cliff?’

‘Course I bloody was.’

‘And why would Mr Owen want to do that?’

‘I think that’s clear from his trial. He wanted the money, didn’t he?’

‘So, just to be clear. You were twenty metres away, at the bottom of the rise, and Mr Owen was at the top, where his wife was… standing?’

‘Sitting. She was sitting on the top with her feet hanging over the edge.’

‘I see.’ DI Poulton paused then said, ‘So how do you explain, Mr Thomas, the fact that a fisherman in the bay, witnessed you pushing your ex-wife over the edge, while Max Rutherford, or Will Owen as he was known, was nowhere in his sight?’

The tape recorder whirred in the silent room and Paul gaped at the two officers. Then his jaw snapped closed. Between gritted teeth, he said, ‘No comment.’

‘Very well.’ Poulton nodded at Jennifer Mann, and she ended the recording.

58 ANWEN

In her hurry, Anwen did not stop to admire the dearth of cobwebs in Maurice’s porch or the glossy black paint on the front door. She let herself in, and the smell of fried eggs and bacon assaulted her senses. ‘Hello-o-o-o,’ she sang.

‘Hello, Dear,’ Maurice said when he saw her. His knife scraped on a plate, and Anwen could not stop her mouth from watering. She had eaten nothing since the muffin.

‘Are you having a late breakfast?’ she asked, taking off her coat and hanging it on a kitchen chair.

‘No. This is lunch. I had cereal for breakfast.’

In her old life bacon and eggs were a breakfast dish, prepared by her and eaten by her father to give him energy for his work on the farm. Here, mealtimes had no rules. Pizza for breakfast or salad for dinner it did not seem to matter, and she tried not to judge.

Maurice wiped his plate with his last piece of bread and pushed it into his mouth, then he wiped his lips with his palm, and used the same hand to push out his chair. No wonder the kitchen got so disgusting. Anwen watched him rinse his hands in the sink and dry them, still greasy, on a clean tea towel. She grabbed the cloth from his fingers and threw it into the washing machine, then she wiped the table and chair while Maurice stood and watched, oblivious to her irritation. Rinsing the cloth at the sink, she asked, ‘How was your week?’

‘’Oh, you know. Not too bad. Did you see I painted the front door?’

She had not noticed but replied, ‘It looks much better.’

‘How about you?’ Maurice said. ‘Have you had a nice week?’

‘Interesting,’ she glanced over her shoulder. ‘Paul, Cerys and I went to see Kitty.’

‘Oh?’ Maurice’s smile morphed into an expression of concern. ‘How is she?’

‘Improving.’ Anwen pulled out dusters and polish and turned to watch him. ‘Paul’s been arrested. The police say he murdered Fiona.’

Maurice looked blank for a heartbeat then said, calmly, ‘You mean Fee.’

‘Yes. Fee. Kitty’s mother.’

Maurice sat back down with a bump, muttering, ‘Why would they do that? They must have found something new?’

‘Sorry?’ Anwen pounced on his words, ‘What do you mean, Maurice? What could they have found?’

Maurice stared at her for a moment, then snapped, ‘Who knows what they found out? I meant something must have emerged to make them suspect Paul again. I can’t imagine what. That’s all.’ He glared at Anwen. ‘I thought you were here to clean.’

She scuttled out and began her work, keeping well out of Maurice’s way. While she buffed glass and polished woodwork, she tried to imagine Kitty as a child. She’d had a dog, Topsy, and rode in a sidecar with her dad driving his bike. That sounded fun… but she lost her mum, whom she loved. After Anwen’s experience in the hospital, imagining she might lose Cerys, she felt some empathy in that respect.

An hour later, Anwen noticed Maurice from the bedroom window. He was pacing back and forth over the tufted lawn with his phone pressed to one ear and his free arm doing semaphore. She stood for a while, watching him and wiping her duster from side to side on the windowsill, wondering who was on the other end of the call.

By the time she humped the hoover down the stairs and loaded it into the cupboard, the pleasant scent of ‘Sea Breeze’ overpowered the smell of Maurice’s greasy lunch. She re-entered the kitchen and peeked out of the window, but Maurice had disappeared. Outside, she scanned the hidden corners and went along the side path to the front. No sign here either, and his car was missing from the drive. Frustrated, she slouched back inside and gave the taps and kettle one last buff, before letting herself out.

By now, construction across the road had finished, and people already lived in several of the flats. As she walked past on her way to Kitty’s to pick up the post for Sam, Anwen regarded the curtained windows of the smart building and wondered where Josh was now.

59 LUCAS

Lunchtime service had almost ended at Churchills, on the High Street. Mick lowered a poached egg onto a pile of Rosti potatoes and spooned over Hollandaise Sauce. ‘Service,’ he called, wiping round the rim of the plate with his cloth.

‘Is that the last?’ enquired