Anna stood silent, letting him tell her everything. But she had guessed. On the last flight of stairs she had realised it wasn’t his mother he’d needed to kill. Over days all the facts had been coming together. It made sense of his reaction to this house, to the woman who served his meals, cleaned his room, who had to be avoided like the very devil. He could never meet her eyes.
And now, the last act was over. The full truth struck her the moment she reached the door of this room, saw him with the gun in his hand, smelled the cordite. He believed he had done all he must, had completed the nightmare.
But surely something could yet be retrieved. ‘Dan — ’
She broke off at the distant but persistent hee-haw of a police siren. She reached out for him. ‘They’ll find the front door locked and go round to the back. You must be quick. We haven’t long.’
‘We? What do you mean? You can’t hold them off.’ His voice was desperate. ‘There’s nowhere to go!’
He was right. Only the fire-escape. And the gravelled courtyard below.
Now a second siren joined in. In minutes the cars would be turning in from the lane. Police would pour out, covering all exits from the house. Someone would look up towards the roof, see the lit window.
One way or the other, he had to go down to them.
Inside she was all ice and flame, could barely breathe. She opened the fire-escape door on to dark night, gestured towards it. As he hesitated, she touched his hand.
‘Your edge, Daniel. The one you always had to live on. It’s out there.’
Briefly their eyes met. The shock of her meaning reached him.
He pulled his hand away, unbelieving. ‘I don’t un …’
‘You do understand.’
‘I won’t. You can’t make me.’ Momentarily the petulant child again.
‘You’re right. I can’t make you. I wouldn’t. Daniel, what else is there?’
Headlights swung up as the first police car started on the hill towards the house. Then a second. They were coming in force.
‘Shit, no. No!’
They were already here, braked with engines still racing. Gravel scattered. Doors slammed. There were voices below now, blue lights pulsing in the dark. The front doorbell shrilled through the house.
‘Oh God, I can’t.’ He blundered out on to the iron platform, gazed down at dark figures moving against the cars’ headlights.
‘Shit, no!’ He looked back at her, his eyes starting from his head. He straddled the rail, stood on the outer ledge, leapt as though he couldn’t reach out far enough.
The same shock was in DS Beaumont’s eyes as he knelt beside the body and covered the boy’s mad stare. He looked up at the eaves and saw the woman silhouetted in the attic doorway.
Anna slowly began the long journey downstairs. She would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Except for one thing: if he’d resisted, she would have thrust him bodily out there and turned the lock on him.
But at the end he’d chosen. A lifetime locked away would have destroyed what little was left of the innocent child.
Also by Clare Curzon
Available from Allison & Busby
A Meeting of Minds
Last to Leave
Body of a Woman
The Edge
Mike Yeadings Series
I Give You Five Days
Masks and Faces
The Trojan Horse
The Quest for K
Three-Core Lead
The Blue-Eyed Boy
Cat’s Cradle
First Wife, Twice Removed
Death Prone
Past Mischief
Nice People
Close Quarters
All Unwary
Cold Hands
Don’t Leave Me
A Dead Giveaway
Lucy Sedgwick Series
Guilty Knowledge
The Colour of Blood
Dangerous Practice
Novels
Leaven of Malice
Special Occasion
Shot Bolt
Trail of Fire
The Face in the Stone
Flawed Light
As Rhona Petrie
Death in Deakins Wood
Murder by Precedent
Running Deep
Dead Loss
Foreign bodies
MacLurg Goes West
Despatch of a Dove
Come Hell & High Water
CLARE CURZON began writing in the 1960s and has published over forty novels under a variety of pseudonyms. She studied French and Psychology at King’s College, London, and much of her work is concerned with the dynamics within closely-knit communities. A grandmother to seven, in her free time she enjoys travel and painting. Clare lives in Buckinghamshire.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
THE EDGE. Copyright © 2006 by Clare Curzon. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.minotaurbooks.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby Limited
eISBN 9781466822030
First eBook Edition : May 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Curzon, Clare.
The edge: a Superintendent Mike Yeadings mystery / Clare Curzon. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-34964-6
ISBN-10: 0-312-34964-5
1. Yeadings, Mike (Fictitious character) — Fiction. 2. Police — England — Thames Valley — Fiction. 3. Thames Valley (England) — Fiction. I. Title.
PR6053.U79 E34 2007
823’.914 – dc22
2007033906
First U.S. Edition: December 2007