The Third Sin Read Online Free Page B

think what it would be.
    She came to Paris as often as her work as a detective sergeant in the Galloway Division of Police Scotland allowed to see her mother, though Fleur didn’t reliably recognise her any more, slipping into a cruelly early twilight in the care of the religieuses at a convent nursing home near her sister Coralie. She seemed content enough there and calm, her moments of unhappy confusion mercifully brief.
    Louise had found it very hard to let her mother return to her homeland from Scotland; theirs had been a close and loving relationship and her sense of loss was acute. Her visits to Paris had been clouded by dread of what further deterioration she might find but over time she had learnt a sort of acceptance that allowed her totake pleasure again in the city she had always loved since childhood holidays with her mother’s family.
    Now she stretched luxuriously like a cat in the warmth of the sunshine, her eyes half-closed, then hearing her name spoken looked up to see a tall young man coming along the pavement towards her, raising his hand in greeting.
    Embarrassed, she sat up. ‘Just caught me basking,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Great to see you, Randall.’ Then, before she could help herself she blurted out, ‘Goodness, you’ve changed!’
    He laughed easily. ‘The beardy student look doesn’t go down very well in business circles.’
    Louise had seen his photo on Friends Reunited, then Facebook, but she hadn’t seen the tout ensemble. Randall Lindsay was pinkly clean-shaven now and wearing a pale-blue shirt in thick, expensive looking cotton with a coral-pink cashmere sweater knotted loosely round his shoulders.
    Oh, very BCBG, Louise thought dryly. Bon chic bon genre – good style, good class; the very uniform of the French upper-middle. Even his scruffy student look at Glasgow University, she now remembered, had been very carefully on trend, and as Randall gestured to a waiter she began to regret her impulse to contact him.
    They had known each other a little at uni having discovered they both hailed from Galloway, though he came from the smart sailing territory in the south while she came from Stranraer where the sailing was mostly done in ferry boats to Ireland. When she discovered he was working in Paris, Louise had thought meeting up sometimes might be fun; her aunt had a busy social life and her cousins had left home so she was often at a loose end on her visits.
    Having ordered his coffee, Randall was studying her. ‘Now, you haven’t changed a bit. Still the same crazy girl, I bet!’
    He said it in an admiring way, but she almost had to sit on herhand to stop it going up to smooth her dark curly hair, which had a will of its own. She knew her own student look had been casual to the point of indifference, owing a lot to Oxfam, but she would have hoped that her Diesel jeans and Karen Millen top might at least have spelt out a change of style.
    ‘So,’ he was going on, ‘what are you up to these days? You didn’t say on your page.’
    ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I’m a bit careful. Trolls get in everywhere—’
    ‘Tell me about it!’ Randall leant forward eagerly. ‘I didn’t put the merchant banking bit on mine. You in the same business?’
    Now she really was regretting her sociable impulse. ‘Not exactly. I’m in the police. Detective constable.’
    He gave a low whistle. ‘Wow – a copper eh? What the hell took you in that direction? Not much money in it – with your degree you could have been a lawyer.’
    ‘I could, yes.’ She knew she sounded frosty. ‘But when I looked into it, I realised that this seemed much more interesting and challenging. And it is – I wouldn’t give it up for anything.’ She couldn’t resist adding, ‘And I like the fact that it’s public service.’
    ‘Very laudable.’ Randall’s lips twitched in a little, patronising smile. ‘And I’m sure you’ve had a lot of fascinating cases.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said flatly. ‘And you –