Honeytrap: Part 2 Read Online Free Page B

Thanks.’
    Kellston wasn’t a big station. There were only two platforms and Ellen Shaw chose the one where the line went towards Dalston. With only four other people waiting, Jess pulled up the hood on her coat and kept as much distance between them as she could. It had been years since the two of them last met, but she didn’t want to take the chance of being recognised. She stared at the board – three minutes until the next train. Damn it! Harry was never going to get here in time.
    Jess sneaked a few glances at the woman who was pacing impatiently along the length of the platform. She found herself dwelling on Len Curzon again. He had made the mistake of following Ellen Shaw once and look how that ended up. When she thought about his twisted corpse lying in a Camden gutter, a shudder ran through her.
    As the train rolled in, Jess hesitated before she climbed aboard. Was she really doing Harry a favour – or was she doing the very opposite?

10
    By the time Harry made it to Dalston, driving as fast as he dared, it was after ten o’clock. Jess had called earlier, sent a text with the address Ellen had ended up at and then caught a cab back to the Fox. He owed her one for making the journey, especially after everything else that had happened tonight. Although he remained convinced that Sylvie was safe, he knew she thought otherwise. What was Jess doing now? He preferred not to think about it. When she set her mind to something, she couldn’t be deterred. She wouldn’t stop until she’d come face to face with Sylvie again.
    And he had someone to face too. His fingers tightened around the wheel as he drove up Stoke Newington Road. It was five years since he’d last spoken to Ellen, five years since he’d watched her walk out of his old office near the Strand and … Jesus, what happened next had been imprinted on his mind for ever. He could still visualise her stopping at the kerb, waiting and watching before she stepped out in front of the traffic, could still hear the dull cruel thump of metal against flesh. An accident? That’s what everyone said, but he didn’t believe it. There was something premeditated about the act, something shockingly deliberate.
    Perhaps it was that memory that made him feel protective of her. Or maybe it had started well before that. He could still recall sitting in the flat in Camden, trying to find the right way to connect with her. She was a distant, complex kind of woman. Enigmatic, that was the word. The more he’d found out about her, the more mysterious she’d become. And yet eventually a bond had developed between the two of them. She’d grown to trust him, to like him, to … but whatever she had felt it had not been enough in the end.
    Harry counted off the streets on the left until he came to Pelham Road. It took him a while to find a parking space and as he hurried back he tried to figure out what he was going to say. After her reaction at the hotel, he guessed that she wouldn’t be overly pleased to see him. She had not asked for his help and yet he felt compelled to offer it.
    Pelham Road was a Victorian terrace of three-storey houses, most of them converted into flats. The ground floor of number nine still had a light showing behind the closed curtains of the bay window. He found the right bell, pressed it, stood back and waited. Would she even answer? Most women would be cautious at this time of night.
    But surprisingly the door opened quickly. It was as if Ellen had been expecting someone – although that someone clearly wasn’t him. Her face fell as she realised who it was. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
    ‘Hello, Ellen.’
    ‘What are you doing here? How did you … What do you want?’
    ‘Just to talk. Can I come in?’
    Ellen shook her head. ‘We’ve got nothing to talk about. And it’s late. I was about to go to bed.’
    ‘Five minutes,’ he said. It was strange to be standing in front of her again, as if the years were slipping away, taking him back to