Watching the Ghosts Read Online Free

and he’s waiting for funds to start the second phase of the development. When things pick up . . . Anyway, it’s one thing to delay payments to creditors, but kidnapping . . .’ He walked over to the cupboard in the corner and opened the door. ‘I need a drink,’ he said as he took a bottle of single malt and a glass from the depths of the cupboard. ‘Want one?’
    Melanie didn’t reply. She needed to keep a clear head. She watched as he poured the golden liquid into the glass and took a long sip. He was staring at the model on top of the cupboard. It had originally been in his office at the other end of the house but he’d moved it to the drawing room when he’d invited Patrick Creeny round for a celebratory drink and it had remained there ever since. On that occasion the decision had been made to change the name of the development from ‘Havenby Hall’ to ‘Boothgate House’. Jack, as a native of Eborby had managed to persuade Creeny that any mention of Havenby Hall would remind people of the building’s original function as an asylum for the insane. They needed, he said, to blot out the past. The politicians called it spin but it was really just a matter of perception.
    Melanie went to the phone and dialled 1471 but the electronic voice told her that the caller had withheld their number. This was what she’d expected but she’d convinced herself that, in the drama of the moment, there was a chance that the kidnapper would have forgotten. She stood with the receiver in her hand for a while before making a decision.
    â€˜I’m calling Paul,’ she said. ‘He has a right to know.’
    Before Jack could raise any further objection, she’d pressed the keys. Jack sat there watching and she could sense his hostility as the phone rang out at the other end.

THREE
    W hen Jack felt he couldn’t stand the strain any longer, he’d retreated to his office with the single malt. Melanie was glad of the solitude for once. She needed to think.
    Emily Thwaite had been on her mind since it had happened. She’d met her a few times at PTA meetings and school functions and, if it weren’t for this tentative acquaintance, she’d have obeyed the kidnapper’s orders about not contacting the police without question. But she needed to confide in someone. She had to know the right thing to do. She couldn’t afford to make mistakes.
    She knew Emily was a Detective Chief Inspector. When she’d found out about her job she’d been rather surprised because she seemed the motherly type, a little overweight with wavy fair hair and freckles. She had three children at the school and she looked remarkably ordinary for a woman who spent her working days investigating murder and robbery. She also looked the type of woman who could be trusted to be discreet when dealing with a sensitive matter like a kidnapping.
    She made a search of the phone directory before picking up the telephone.
    They called him The Builder.
    Emily knew how the press loved to invent names for criminals whose work followed any sort of pattern. In her opinion, this only encouraged them by giving their sordid crimes a spurious glamour. And she saw nothing glamorous about breaking into lone women’s houses and barricading the front door with piles of furniture before pinching cash and their most intimate items of underwear and escaping through a back door or window.
    She looked up and saw that DI Joe Plantagenet had just returned to the office. He’d been interviewing The Builder’s latest victim and he looked serious, as if he’d found the experience disturbing. When she’d first arrived in Eborby, she’d been struck by his black hair, blue eyes and pale, freckled complexion inherited from his Irish mother. Since that time a few grey hairs had appeared at his temples; with the cases they’d had to deal with over the past couple of years, she was