Nothing but Trouble Read Online Free

‘God forbid.’
    Harry gave up and waved towards his office. ‘Okay, grab a seat and I’ll get some coffee.’
    Jess jumped up off the desk and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Harry. You’re a star.’
    ‘I’m not promising anything.’
    She gave him one of her knowing smiles. ‘Course not.’
    Harry went through to the kitchen. There was coffee in the percolator, still hot from when he’d made it earlier. He poured
     it into two mugs and carried them through to his office, along with a bowl of sugar and a spoon. He put the bowl down in front
     of her. ‘Do you take sugar? I can’t remember.’
    Jess, who’d sat down in one of the new chairs, was busily testing its swivelling abilities. Like a kid with a new toy, she
     swung left and right and left again. Then, putting her feet back on the floor, she stopped and gazed up at him. ‘Boy, you
     really know how to flatter a girl. I can see I must have made a major impact.’
    ‘It’s been what, three, four years? Do you remember if I take sugar or not?’
    ‘You could have stayed in touch.’
    ‘So could you.’
    Harry wondered why they hadn’t. He and Jess had always got on, give or take the odd disagreement, but his life back then had
     been complicated. When they’d last seen other, their paths crossing on a difficult case, he’d still been trying to come to
     terms with the fact that he’d never be a cop again. His head hadbeen all over the place, his long-term relationship with Valerie Middleton on the rocks, his emotions in freefall. ‘You want
     to tell me what this is all about?’
    ‘Take a seat,’ she said, ‘and I’ll reveal all.’
    Harry walked around his desk, sat down and peered at her over the rim of his mug.
    ‘Well?’
    Jess smiled again, but this time it was more tentative. She let a few seconds pass before she glanced down at the floor and
     then up at him again. ‘You remember the Minnie Bright case?’
    Harry’s face instantly grew serious. ‘The Kellston girl, the poor kid who was murdered.’
    ‘That’s the one.’
    The lines between his brows grew deeper. No cop, no matter how hard they tried, ever forgot a case where a kid was involved.
     And Minnie’s had been a particularly tragic one. ‘That was years ago.’
    ‘Fourteen,’ she said.
    Harry ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Jesus, is it really that long?’ He’d been a DS back then, one of the officers who’d
     gone in to search the terraced house on Morton Grove. Minnie’s lifeless ten-year-old body, found stuffed under the bed in
     the spare room, was a horrifying discovery that would never leave him. ‘That sick bastard Peck, yeah?’
    ‘That’s right, Donald Peck. He hanged himself in prison a few years after he was convicted. Always swore he was innocent.’
    ‘Don’t they all,’ Harry said.
    Jess placed her elbows on the desk and put her chin in her hands. ‘Except, I mean, Minnie wasn’t … er … interfered with in
     any way, was she? She wasn’t raped or sexually assaulted.’
    ‘He killed her,’ Harry said. ‘He broke her neck and then hid the body.’
    ‘But why leave her in the house? The body was there for over forty-eight hours, wasn’t it? He had plenty of time to move her,
     and he must have realised that someone would come looking eventually.’
    Harry’s blue eyes narrowed. ‘What’s this all about, Jess? What’s going on?’
    ‘Don’t look like that. I’m not here to screw anyone over. You know me better than that. But maybe what happened wasn’t as
     straightforward as everyone thinks.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘Meaning exactly that. This mate of mine, the one I want you to see, was one of the girls who were hanging out with Minnie
     that day. Sam Kendall. Do you remember her?’
    ‘Vaguely,’ he said. Minnie’s five friends had all been interviewed by female officers. He had an impression of a group of
     small pale-faced girls, their eyes full of panic and fear. They’d come forward after Minnie had