The Third Sin Read Online Free

knocked it on to the floor. This time, though, she heard the sound of a woman, a child, even, wailing desperately.
    Eleanor was no fool. There were criminals who wouldn’t hesitateto use a decoy to gain entrance, and even women who were evil themselves. But you could die of exposure on a night like this and there was no other shelter. She switched on the outside light, fixed the chain across the door then very cautiously opened it.
    The figure on the doorstep was small and slight – and alone. A woman – a child? It was hard to tell. Not threatening, anyway, and clearly distressed, with a livid bruise on the left cheekbone. She was wearing a thin jacket and jeans and she was shockingly wet, dripping as if she had come straight out of the water. Her hair, plastered to her head, was long and curling; as Eleanor released the chain to admit her she saw that her eyes, wide with distress, were as grey-green as the sea itself.
    A mermaid, she thought, like the little figurine that had sat on her mantelpiece since a visit to Copenhagen twenty years before. She waved her inside.
    ‘What on earth’s happened to you? You’d better come through to the kitchen, where it’s warm.’
    The girl glanced up at her blindly; she was shivering so much that her teeth were chattering loudly enough to be heard. There was no colour in her face and for a moment Eleanor thought she might even collapse, but she made for the Aga as if with an instinctive response to its heat, huddling against it like an animal.
    ‘I’ll get a towel,’ Eleanor said, retreating. She was glad to have a moment to collect herself.
    Had the girl really come up out of the sea, after a shipwreck, perhaps? Boats came to grief sometimes in these tricky waters – but no, if she’d waded out just now she would have been filthy with sandy mud, and she was only wet. Been walking for a long time, then, while the storm was on?
    Under the kitchen light it had been clear that she was older than she’d looked at first – late twenties, early thirties, even. It was alsoclear that she was in shock and at risk of hypothermia. She’d have to stay the night, until she was fit to contact her family or friends.
    Yes, Eleanor knew her duty but it was with a certain reluctance that she set about fetching towels and bedlinen from the airing cupboard and turning on a radiator in one of the spare bedrooms. The girl would need to get out of those wet clothes too, so she took a thick pair of pyjamas out of her chest of drawers, gave a longing glance at her own cosy bed, and switched on the immersion heater for a bath.
    When she got back to the kitchen, the girl was standing as she had left her. She didn’t seem to notice that her clothes were steaming; she was still shivering and still looking blank.
    ‘What you need is a brandy,’ Eleanor said, handing her a towel and going to the larder. There should still be brandy left from mince pies at Christmas and though it was a year or two old it shouldn’t actually have gone off. ‘I think you should get into a bath as soon as possible too but the water won’t be hot enough just yet. Sit down and drink this and I’ll make a cup of tea. I know I could be doing with one.’
    The girl was dabbing at her hair with the towel but she looked at the glass as if she had never seen one before and took a moment to grasp it. Eleanor took her by the arm to urge her into the chair beside the Aga. Her passivity was quite alarming.
    ‘Now tell me what’s happened,’ she said gently. ‘Did you have an accident?’
    She got no answer. The girl was still staring at the brandy; it was a moment or two before she put it to her lips, swallowed and shuddered, then took another sip.
    At least the convulsive shivering was subsiding. Suddenly it occurred to Eleanor that she could be foreign, failing to understand what she had been asked. There were a lot of middle Europeans in the area now; she tried German, without result, then French, then