Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti) Read Online Free

came into Upper Castle Gully. Then he saw Jessica Navarro standing by her Royal Gibraltar Police van.

Chapter 6
     
    Jessica took off her chequered hat, pinioning it beneath her short-sleeved white shirt as Spike stooped to kiss her cheek. He still had a hand on her shoulder as she drew away; she hesitated, then moved back in for the second peck.
    ‘How’s your schedule fixed?’ Spike said.
    ‘Pickpocket. Due in the Mags at half two.’
    ‘Looked pretty busy down there.’
    ‘Thought you’d given all that up, Tax Man.’
    They both turned, looking up at the Rock, at the gulls circling and squawking as they dipped in and out of a grey discus of cloud. ‘Humid one today,’ Spike said.
    ‘ Muy mahugin .’
    Spike looked back. The smooth olive skin of Jessica’s forehead betrayed no hint of sweat. Her chestnut hair was gathered in a silky knot, the better to fit beneath her police hat. ‘So what do you think?’ she asked, managing to hold Spike’s eye. ‘Guilty?’
    ‘Solomon’s a chartered accountant, Jess. He’s capable of many things but I don’t think murder’s one of them.’
    ‘People can change.’
    ‘I’m glad you think so.’
    She looked away. ‘Maybe you’re right. He’s got that feel about him. Wrong place, wrong time.’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    She shrugged, breasts shifting beneath her black stab vest. ‘He was hysterical when we brought him in. Freaking out in case he had to share his cell. But when we stuck him in solitary, he just sat there on the bunk and bowed his head. Like he was used to life doing him over. Expected it.’
    ‘What’s the commissioner’s take?’
    ‘He’s waiting to hear from you. Seems we all are.’ She stared up again. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘when I saw your number come up, I assumed you actually wanted to talk.’
    ‘I’ve been busy.’
    He watched her beautiful eyes narrow with anger. ‘Don’t work too hard,’ she said. ‘All that paper-pushing is ageing you.’ She half reached up to touch his face, then let her hand fall as a clank came from above. The portcullis door of Her Majesty’s Prison opened to reveal a junior warder accompanied by a sullen, handcuffed youth in a tracksuit.
    Spike walked Jessica up the slope. She signed a clipboard, escorting the pickpocket back down to her van as Spike and the warder continued on to the entrance, the fifteen-yard passage that represented the thickness of the castle’s thousand-year-old walls. There’d been attempts to move the prison wholesale to a shiny new facility on the other side of town. It still hadn’t happened.
    Before going inside, Spike turned to see Jessica sharing a joke with her ward. Then she slammed the double doors behind him.

Chapter 7
     
    Alan Gaggero stood up from the front desk. Behind him rose a bank of elderly CCTV monitors. Spread before him was the Gibraltar Chronicle crossword.
    ‘Stuck?’
    Gaggero grinned. His grey comb-over and kindly eyes were unchanged. ‘What’s it been now, Spike?’ he said. ‘Two years?’
    ‘Three.’
    ‘Three years,’ Gaggero repeated as he ran Spike’s briefcase through the scanner.
    ‘Thought they were shutting this place down,’ Spike said.
    ‘Overspill.’
    They headed in single file down the side stairs. ‘How’s your old man doing?’ Gaggero asked.
    ‘ Está haleto . But he can still finish the crossword in ten minutes flat.’
    ‘I’ll have to up my game then.’
    Gaggero jangled his key fob and unbolted the steel door. ‘Back in a mo,’ he said, leaving the door ajar.
    Spike listened as Gaggero’s rubber soles squeaked away down the corridor. The off-white walls of the interview room were windowless and the strip lights hummed. The air smelled of disinfectant and was as dank as might be expected in the deepest reaches of a medieval castle. A table was nailed to the lino, carved like a school desk with initials and incomplete slogans of protest. In the corner, a black CCTV camera peered from its bracket like an