Love Lies Bleeding Read Online Free

that he would be able to dispel his doubts. ‘And
how
did you kill him?’
    ‘A knife. With a knife.’ She shuddered again. Her eyes rounded in horror as she added, ‘There was so much blood. It was all over him, all over me. How could I do that when I loved him so much?’
    Rafferty shook his head. He had no answers for her.
    She looked down, as if she expected still to be wearing her bloodstained dress, and frowned at finding herself in a hospital gown.
    ‘My clothes,’ she began fretfully.
    ‘Don't worry about them for now. We've got them safe.’
    ‘I see. Thank you. It's just — just that my husband gave me that dress for my last birthday. I don't want anything to happen to it.’
    As Rafferty watched, the expression in her eyes turned from tragic to appalled, as it hit her that this was one dress she would never want to wear again.
    After that, a silence fell between them, broken only by Llewellyn's return. As he entered the small hospital room, his gaze met Rafferty's and he gave a brief nod.
    Llewellyn's confirmation that Felicity Raine's husband was dead made her claim that she had killed him the more believable. But as he gazed at her delicate face and the figure so slender it barely left a trace under the dark blue duvet, Rafferty was again conscious of a glimmer of doubt. For, in spite of the bloodied state of her when she had turned up at the police station, in spite of her own anguished confession, her slender figure made it difficult for him to conjure up a picture of her knifing anyone, much less the husband she professed to love. Apart from anything else, it was so unusual for a woman to use a knife as the means to kill that the number of such cases made up a tiny percentage of female killings.
    She seemed to have retreated into herself again, Rafferty noticed. He wasn't too worried about it, though. For now, he was content with just the bare facts. They could get the rest later.
    He followed Llewellyn out to the corridor. ‘So, let's hear it,’ he invited.
    ‘It's just as she told you,’ Llewellyn replied, grim-faced. ‘According to Hanks, when he and Tim Smales broke in they found Mr Raine sprawled out on his back on the living-room floor, covered in blood. The knife was still in his chest.’
    Rafferty frowned. ‘She attacked him from the
frontV
    Llewellyn nodded.
    Rafferty took a moment or two to absorb the information, then he asked, ‘Little chap, was he?’
    ‘No. Actually, I asked Hanks the same question and he said he was tall and muscular.’
    Rafferty frowned at this discovery. He gazed through the window of the small side room to the patient in the bed. This case was rapidly becoming more bizarre, more surreal with each succeeding discovery, he thought. It seemed this was a thought that Llewellyn shared. He too let his gaze settle on Felicity Raine and his next words echoed Rafferty's thoughts.
    ‘To look at her, you wouldn't think she would have the strength to kill him. Mrs Raine is slender, seven and a half stone if that, and can be no more than five foot three or four.’
    Rafferty nodded. ‘And looking as if butter wouldn't melt.’ In the face of the evidence, he pushed his doubts aside, hardened his heart and said firmly, ‘But melt it did.’
    He instructed Lizzie Green to stay with Mrs Raine and set off towards the stairs. T suppose we'd better go and find out when she's likely to be released into our custody. If she
has
killed her husband, I want no one to be able to claim later that she wasn't fit for questioning.’

Chapter Two
    The home of Felicity and Raymond Raine was situated in a quiet country lane lined with the wild flowers of an English summer: As they got out of the car, Rafferty recognised the deep red blooms of great burnet, the pretty pink of Campion and the dense white clusters of meadowsweet. Its strong perfume rose up to greet him as he brushed past.
    It was a large, attractive old house of higgledy-piggledy construction. With its ‘double pile’