After Ariel: It started as a game Read Online Free Page B

bedspread screaming red, the sheets black. The prints on the walls embody all that is animal and mineral; original wildlife paintings hang from the walls. The bathroom will be totally stark white and the black claw-footed bath deep and comfortable, and no doubt the towels would match the bedspread!
    Resisting the impulse to throw myself onto the queen-sized bed and stare at the ceiling, I grabbed a change of clothing and my toiletry bag.
    There was no premonition, no feeling of urgency – nothing, in fact, to warn me that a chain of events had been set in motion that would change my life forever.
     
     

 
    CHAPTER 3
    Suspicions
    Detective Inspector Susan Prescott
     
    Friday, 4.30PM
    Grant Winslow went down in a shower of Kevlar vests and testosterone with a police dog hanging off his bum. We congratulated our hairy colleague as he swung joyfully on a wad of white cotton held by his grinning handler, after which my partner, Detective Senior Sergeant Evan Taylor, and I prepared to head back to Police Headquarters. We’d been down the street talking to an informant when the excitement broke out, and stopped to admire the capture.
    Some people never learn and Grant, the shiny little Granny Smith of his wealthy parent’s eyes, is an excellent example. Having started his career in primary school roaming the streets after dark, stealing whatever he could get his hands on – car parts, hardware, from convenience stores – dear Grant graduated through partying, drunken brawling to ‘minor’ assault. No doubt he was into his fair share of drugs as well. The paramedics loaded him into an ambulance with an economy of long practice, ignoring his screaming invective, to cart him off to hospital where he would, no doubt, jump the never-ending queue of the honestly afflicted and beushered immediately into the care of emergency doctors.
    Weariness and a deep feeling of futility swept over me. It had been one of those afternoons when you know you’re middle aged. How do you convey to idiots like Winslow that the path they have chosen will haunt them for the rest of their lives? He’d been given every opportunity, including numerous interventions and a prolonged spell at boot camp for juvenile offenders. The courts sympathised when they heard how a perceived lack of love from his devoted parents had twisted his tiny mind, so with the help of their money which hired a Rottweiler of a lawyer, and Grant’s ability to melt the hearts of magistrates with his angelic face, he had gotten away with his crimes because he was still technically a juvenile. One day he would go too far and kill someone and then Grant would be my team’s problem.
    Robbery of a bottle shop was not going to be as easy to skim over. The un-sporting owner had put up a fight and in the process, fallen and hit his head on a chair. Grant grabbed as much of the money as he could and fled through a nearby park into a shopping centre. Such was his arrogance that the Dog Squad caught up with him strolling nonchalantly through the alley to the rear. Finally realising he’d been sprung he’d bolted up the side of a dumpster. Big mistake.
    ‘What do you reckon the little shit’ll get this time?’
    Apart from the TV News vans, the mêleé in the alley had attracted quite a large group of office workers and retail staff. Many had paused on the overhead bridge, from whence they had a good vantage point across the main street. Mobile phone cameras recorded the drama, texting fingers flew; life had never been so exciting.
    Evan rolled his eyes. ‘With any luck, a hundred years, but when have they ever had any success with that little drongo? A hundred days’d be better than nothing.’
    ‘Well, let’s see how Sinclair gets him off this one. Grant’ll be seventeen soon, so he won’t be able to get away with it for much longer! Let me out at the front of the shop, please Evan. I want to see Amanda before I go up.’ 
    Evan pulled into the curb at the front doors of