The Devil's Chair Read Online Free Page B

wouldn’t have expected to meet another car. Fact is she probably wasn’t in a state to care much. But whatever her mental state she came to an abrupt halt and started reversing madly as though she was panicked about something.’
    â€˜Perhaps the drink overwhelmed her so she changed her mind?’ Martha suggested gently, ‘and thought she’d go home after all.’
    â€˜It’s possible. The tyre marks veer all over the road so I suppose we can’t rely on her acting rationally.’
    Martha caught the doubt in his voice. ‘But?’
    â€˜It was an emergency stop. There was quite a bit of tyre left on the road. She went into a skid then reversed. That’s when and why she slipped and fell into the valley.’ He made an attempt at levity. ‘Reversing on a notoriously dangerous road when drunk as a skunk is never a good idea.’
    â€˜No.’
    He obviously felt he needed to emphasize this point. ‘The marks on the road suggest she made an emergency stop as though something was blocking her way forward.’
    â€˜Another car, perhaps?’
    â€˜There were no marks of another car. We’ve put boards out and made appeals on local radio and TV. No one’s come forward to say they were on the Burway Sunday morning around two a.m.’
    His eyes met hers. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘whatever the reason that Tracy Walsh lost control of the car it left the road, rolled over and over down into Carding Mill Valley and finally came to rest on its roof.’
    Martha was thoughtful for a moment. Then she started firing questions at him.
Rat-a-tat-tat
. ‘The child’s safety seat,’ she began.
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Was the buckle open or fastened?’
    Randall’s eyes gleamed. This was exactly why he had left the scene of the investigation and come here. ‘Open.’
    â€˜Was there blood on it?’
    â€˜No,’ he said cautiously, ‘but there was blood on the back of the seat in front and some inside the roof of the car. We’ve taken samples for DNA and will be analysing all the bloodstains.’
    â€˜Sorry, Alex.’ She apologized in advance of asking: ‘There’s no chance she’s
underneath
the car, is there?’ She didn’t really think so. Alex Randall was a thorough and intelligent officer but she had to explore all possibilities.
    â€˜No,’ he said. ‘When the fire service cut Tracy out they lifted the vehicle. Daisy wasn’t underneath.’
    â€˜Toys? Did she have a favourite toy that was always with her?’
    â€˜A Jellycat squirrel, according to Neil.’ Alex made a face. ‘If it’s the one we found at the scene it’s a horrible brown smelly thing.’ His eyes clouded with an apparent stab of a memory.
    â€˜They always are,’ Martha said, without noticing the detective’s wince. She was recalling the twins at three years old. They too had had a soft toy, sucked to bits, grubby and smelly. Baba. They could never sleep without it.
    Alex’s next words brought her back to the present. ‘We found one like it in a bush a hundred yards away from the car, but as I say, we aren’t certain it’s Daisy’s.’
    She wanted to say,
If it is,
then Daisy cannot be not far away
, but it would have seemed crass. Detective Inspector Alex Randall was a senior officer. He and his team would not have overlooked a child’s body. So, after staring at him for a few minutes, she substituted what she had wanted to say with: ‘Tell me about Neil Mansfield.’
    Randall made a face. ‘He’s not such a bad bloke. He works as a painter and decorator – quite hard – all hours. People speak well of him.’
    â€˜How old is he again?’
    â€˜Forty. He’s been married before. His marriage broke up when he started an affair with Tracy. He was doing some painting for her.’
    â€˜Tell me