The Secrets of Life and Death Read Online Free

of the window, scanning both sides of the road.
    A small figure under the bus stop bench might not have been obvious to someone walking by, but Jack’s headlights swept around and picked out a bundle of clothes. She drove the car onto the pavement and leapt out, the engine still growling. She dropped onto her knees and reached for the figure, cold water seeping into her jeans. She grabbed an arm, and dragged the teenager across the ground. The seer had said it would be a long shot.
    ‘Come on, kid, a little help would be good,’ she muttered. Jack pressed her finger to the girl’s throat, feeling a weak flicker of a pulse. Long shot or not, she couldn’t just leave her to die. Jack grabbed two good handfuls of the teenager and lifted her. She staggered under the awkward burden to the car, and managed to get a thumb onto the lock to open the boot. Jack half dropped, half rolled the body onto the dog blanket. The interior light revealed two short boots, slim ankles, pink tights and a leather band that could charitably be called a skirt. Her top half was wrapped in her coat, and as Jack uncovered her head she revealed vomit stuck to the white face and spiky black hair. She stank of cider.
    ‘Just hang on, OK?’ The girl moaned wordlessly in response. Thirty-three minutes to go. Jack slammed down the door of the boot and jumped into the battered estate. This was going to be really close.
    Driving as fast as she dared, she fumbled for her phone and dialled Maggie’s number. Please be ready, please …
    ‘Hello? Jack?’ The soft voice on the other end of the line was sharpened with alarm.
    ‘I’ve got her! The girl, she’s still alive. Shit, Maggie, what are we doing?’
    ‘Saving a life. Just focus on that. I’ve got the room ready, just get back in time.’ She hung up and Jack dropped the mobile onto the passenger seat, praying the police didn’t notice her doing fifty in the city.
    She powered through red lights, and was out of the town in eighteen minutes, down the main road to the turn off in another eight, into the village in six. She no longer had time to count, so she rattled over the cattle grid, and skidded into the yard behind the cottage. She had barely opened the boot before the girl started vomiting again, her lips going blue in the interior light. Jack wrestled her over one shoulder, and lurched towards the back door, held open by Maggie.
    The older woman restrained the dog with both arms. ‘Quick, Jack!’
    Jack staggered in and clipped the kid’s head on the door frame. That would be the least of her problems if she didn’t get her between the circles of sigils.
    The girl stopped choking and fell against Jack’s back, her breath rattling. The concealed door in the panelling that led down to the priest hole was propped open with a pile of books. With the last seconds ticking away, Jack threw the girl down the stone steps into the sanctuary of the cellar.

Chapter 4
    The package was heavy, sealed with ‘C ONFIDENTIAL – P OLICE ’ tape, and marked ‘FAO F ELIX G UICHARD ONLY’.
    ‘Professor? A police officer brought it in for you.’ The admin assistant was looking curious. ‘Rose had to sign for it.’
    ‘Thanks.’ He tucked the parcel under one arm, and kept his head down through the group of students, hoping none of them were in any of his classes. He’d only seen them a few times, and he never seemed to remember faces …
    A girl stepped in front of him. ‘Professor Guichard?’
    Damn . ‘Um … yes? Alice, isn’t it?’
    ‘Alix. Hi. I was wondering if I could talk to you about the assignments this semester.’
    He searched in his pocket for his office key, juggling the package, a briefcase full of papers and a laptop in a rucksack. The Georgian door had an original lock, with a key like a church door’s, and he fumbled it into the hole.
    ‘Sorry, I don’t have much time this morning. If you could come back after lunch …’
    ‘I have lectures this afternoon. Can I help?’