The Dark Fear Read Online Free Page B

Bill explained. ‘I don’t know about the case of Langford Hall. Some estates were used as boarding schools, like Chatsworth, and others as hospitals. A few owners relinquished their properties voluntarily and a handful had to be removed kicking and screaming.’
                  Joy smiled. ‘It was wartime and everyone had to ‘do their bit’, even the lords and ladies.’
                  Dani shivered in her thin mac. ‘Come on folks. Let’s get a coffee in Port Seton. I need to warm up.’
    *
    The weather had closed in and although the tearoom had a view of the sea, the outlook was drab and grey.               ‘It’s a lovely area,’ Joy said brightly, her enthusiasm in stark contrast to their dreary surroundings.
                  ‘I did think so,’ James replied cautiously. ‘I’m now wondering what it will be like in the old lodge when the winter comes. I’m not even sure if it can keep out the rain.’
                  ‘Those old stone buildings will be standing firm till the end of time.’ Bill spooned some sugar into his mahogany coloured tea. ‘The house will actually be fairly sheltered out there in the woods. I’m quite envious, as it happens.’
                  Bill and Joy lived in a modern detached house on an estate in Falkirk. Dani had met them on a previous case. They became unlikely friends.              
                  The detective dragged a hand through her damp hair. ‘Well, I’m surprised everyone’s so positive about this venture. The lodge looks suspiciously like a money-pit to me. As a police officer, I take a slightly different view of living in an isolated cottage in the woods. Burglars love that kind of location.’
                  ‘It is inside the grounds, though?’ Bill glanced at his friend. ‘I’m sure there’s a lovely little community thriving within the estate, people who have lived and worked on the property for decades.’
                  Dani felt she was outnumbered. There wasn’t much point in airing any further scepticism.
                  James suddenly leant forward and took her hand. ‘If you really aren’t comfortable with me buying Oak Lodge then I’ll put the brakes on the purchase right now. There isn’t any point in buying the house if you aren’t going to be happy about it.’
                  She looked into his clear blue eyes and inwardly sighed. ‘I’d never ask you to do that. I’m simply reticent by nature, that’s all.’ Dani lifted her mug and put the warm china to her lips.
                  Bill and Joy exchanged an almost imperceptible glance, the long married couple registering each other’s concern, without either having to utter a single word.
     

Chapter 5
     
     
    T he woman sitting before them was wiry and tall. Her face had the lined, pinched appearance of a long-serving police officer. Dani had noted many years back now, how her fellow female officers tended to develop a myriad of tiny lines around their mouths. This feature was the legacy of decades spent dragging on cigarettes; in the pub after work, or in one of the dingy side alleys that lay behind the old police stations.
                  Compared to her contemporaries, Bevan had always been clean living. Her own mother’s sorry fate, at the mercy of an alcohol addiction fuelled by depression, had made her careful to remain so.
                  DI Claire Collier had her hands resting in her lap. Her expression was steely. Bevan couldn’t tell if she was nervous or not.
                  ‘DI Collier, you were working undercover with DCI Lamb at Forth Logistics for a total of two months, is that correct?’
                  ‘Aye, Ma’am. But we didn’t come into contact much. I was a secretary in their office building and DCI Lamb had taken on the job of