Behind Dead Eyes Read Online Free Page A

at her. The expression on his face told her everything she needed to know. He knew exactly what she was doing.
    McCree said something to the other men and they turned to gaze at Helen. She started to rise from her seat. This was McCree’s cue to get up, too. She knew he would reach her before she could escape. He was starting to come round the back of the table and she frantically scooped up her belongings to shovel them into her bag, but it was hopeless. He would be across that room in seconds.
    Then Helen got a lucky break. Before she could leave her seat the maître d’ swept past her with another man, who was carrying a large silver ice bucket on a stand with a bottle of champagne leaning lopsidedly in it. The waiters made a show of delivering it to the men at the table but, as they fussed and fretted about the positioning of the ice bucket and started the elaborate process of uncorking the champagne they inadvertently blocked McCree. There was frustration and anger in McCree’s eyes and there was no doubt in Helen’s mind that if they had been anywhere but a very fancy restaurant, the wine waiter would have simply been pushed to one side so he could get at her.
    As Helen swept her belongings into her bag, Alan Camfield calmly spoke to the maître d’ and indicated Helen. In her haste she dropped the borrowed phone and had to quickly bend to retrieve it. ‘Miss,’ called the maître d’, as she rose with the phone. ‘Miss,’ he called again, louder this time, somehow managing to make the word sound sinister in these genteel surroundings. She banged her head on the table as she stood and threw the phone and camera into the
handbag, while grabbing her purse. ‘Miss, could you please …’ He was heading towards her now, twisting his hips to get through a narrow gap between tables, the restaurant’s greed at packing the place with as many covers as possible working in her favour. She grabbed notes from her purse that more than covered the cost of her meal and dropped them onto the table then headed for the door, still with a head start on the maître d’.
    She had almost made it when another waiter stepped out in front of her, instantly blocking her escape, saying, ‘Excuse me, Miss,’ as he held up his hands.
    ‘It’s okay,’ she said quickly, ‘my money’s on the table but I have to go now.’ But the waiter must have taken his cue from the maître d’ and he refused to step out of her way. ‘Excuse me,’ she said firmly but he reached out a hand until it touched her arm, lightly at first, then his grip started to tighten. Helen was trapped.
    ‘Don’t touch me!’ she shouted instinctively at the waiter and all heads instantly turned towards them. ‘How dare you touch me like that!’ The waiter flushed, backing away quickly as if he’d just been slapped across the face. Seizing her opportunity, Helen marched for the door, but not without calling the single word ‘Disgusting!’ back over her shoulder.
    She pushed the door open and bolted through it. As soon as Helen was out of the door, she ran. She moved quickly across the street without glancing back then rounded a corner before losing herself amongst a crowd of shoppers on the high street.

LETTER NUMBER TWO
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    Were you alarmed by my correspondence, Tom? Was that it? There was a time when I might have been upset to receive a letter from a convicted murderer – and a famous one at that. I should probably have explained how I found you. It wasn’t difficult. People are easy enough to track down. You might want to be more careful in your line of work.
    I don’t normally trust journalists but I think that you are different. I like your work. I believe you managed to crawl your way out of the gutter and I respect that. Are you ‘the repentant sinner’ the prison chaplain keeps telling us about, Tom? You might just be.
    My appeal against conviction has been refused because there is no fresh evidence to overturn the guilty verdict and they