Lying Dead Read Online Free

signs of being currently unoccupied: no car outside, half-lowered blinds, shutters closed on downstairs windows. By this evening, though, with a half-term holiday week ahead, it was a safe bet that the 464s would soon be arriving and this select little enclave would again leap into active social life which would become more and more frenetically social as the summer approached.
        Within easy striking distance of Glasgow, Drumbreck was much favoured by businessmen keen to adopt the sport once described as standing under a cold shower tearing up fivers. Not all of them, perhaps, were as keen on the activities which took place on the heaving deck as they were on those which went on after the sun had sunk below the yardarm, but if seasickness, along with a degree of terror, was the price of acceptance in Drumbreck society, then it must be paid.
        The Yacht Club by the marina, once a mere wooden shack for occasional sailors, had been transformed by a major fund-raising drive four years ago into a smart social centre with a swimming-pool, gym and squash courts.
        It all drove up the property prices, so that by now almost none of the houses, whether substantial villas, with a bit of ground, or two-bedroom cottages, were owned by families native to the area. And it wasn’t surprising, when Drumbreck was looking as it was this morning, with glinting water covering what lay beneath: at low tide, the boats now floating so jauntily would be stranded on the mudflats below.
        A Land Rover Discovery appeared, turning cautiously into the narrow road round the bay then pulling up in a parking area outside a pretty cottage set above the road, painted the colour of clotted cream with bright green paintwork, and with a steep flight of steps leading up to it through a terraced garden. A buxom blonde, in jeans and a green camisole top revealing ‘invisible’ plastic bra straps, jumped out and went round to open up the back. It was packed with cases, boxes and Marks and Spencer carrier bags, and she stood back, hands on curvaceous hips, looking from it to the flight of steps with some distaste. A small child, strapped into his safety-seat, began a monotonous chant, ‘Want out! Mummee, Mummee, want out!’
        Her only response was an impatient sigh. Groping in her Prada bag for house keys, she prepared to embark on her unappealing task of haulage – no fun at all in this sultry heat. She was sweating already, just looking at what she had to do. First, though, she turned to look along the shore road towards the marina, shading her eyes against the glare from the water.
        The nearest house was a charmless Victorian monstrosity, large, sprawling and run-down, an eyesore in smart Drumbreck. The litter of diseased timbers, discarded plasterboard and chipped sanitary-ware in the yard to one side suggested a renovation project, but the way the grass had grown up round about hinted at slow progress. It had a large paddock to one side where a tall man in a blue-checked shirt and moleskin trousers seemed to be working a curiously small flock of sheep with a black-and-white collie.
        The woman’s face brightened. Taking a few steps along the road, she called, ‘Niall! Niall!’
        Niall Murdoch looked round. ‘Oh, Kim,’ he said, without marked enthusiasm. ‘You’re back.’ He had very dark hair, falling forward at the moment in a comma on his brow, and with his strong features and deep brown eyes, he was a good-looking man; though there were lines about his mouth that suggested temper, they gave him a sort of edgy charm. He was looking sullen at the moment but his brooding expression could, with a certain generosity of spirit, be considered Byronic.
        Kim’s nature, when it came to men, was generous to a fault. She wasn’t easily discouraged, either. Ignoring the complaints from inside the car, becoming more insistent, she swayed along the road to lean over the dry-stone dyke separating the paddock from