Cold War - Jerome Preisler [16]
Ewie decided to let him go on by before resuming his walk. Probably the driver was some ass who’d fallen behind schedule making a delivery to Inverness, and meant to catch up with the clock by hurtling along this quiet stretch of blacktop with no thought of his or anyone else’s safety. Ewie had a mind to memorize his tag number and report him to the police when he got home.
By the time Ewie realized the Unimog had swerved directly toward the shoulder where he was standing, it was too close for him to get out of the way. Blinded by the headlamps, his ears filled with thunder, he reflexively cast his hands front of his face, thrusting his body back toward the wooded area lining the road.
A split second before the front end of the cab mashed into him, Ewie began to shout something that was part question, part curse, and part expression of fear and anger. But the loud roar of the engine drowned out what little of it escaped his lips, and then everything was over for him, all over, his life crushed out, the truck plunging on down the road, away toward the mainland, the blood spatters on its massive fender unnoticeable to anyone who might chance to see it pass in the semidarkness.
They were lying in bed, the husband on his back with the quilt pulled to his bare chest, his wife on her side atop the quilt, facing him, her right hand flat on his stomach. Her nightgown, a flimsy strip of lace-edged silk, revealed far more than it hid. Slung across his body, her right leg was long, toned, the flesh of its thigh smooth and creamy white.
Inspector Frank Gorrie of the Northern Constabulary, Inverness Command Area, was thinking he might be envious of the fellow she was snuggled against, if only his gaze hadn’t climbed above the generous swell where the nightie did not quite manage to cover her breasts.
She had a beautiful figure.
Gorrie did not know about the face, would not know until he saw a photograph of her as she’d appeared in life. Most of it was gone, blown away by a .38-caliber bullet, and there was blood all over the rest. The shot that killed the husband was cleaner, a single entry wound in the middle of his forehead. Probably he’d been asleep when it was fired, never knew what hit him. His face was tranquil, eyes closed. There was a dash of foam at the corner of his lips.
Gorrie could see that the pillowcases were soggy and red under their heads, under the pistol clutched in the woman’s left hand, her finger curled around the trigger, its short barrel thrust into what remained of her mouth.
Standing at the foot of the bed, Gorrie experienced a brief twinge of guilt that had nothing to do with his appreciation of the dead woman’s comely shape. In police work, you noticed what you noticed. The best and worst in people often rubbed up close, and he would not damn himself for being human. But whatever had happened to the couple, or between them, their intimate connection was a strong thing in the room, and Gorrie suspected his discomfort came from the peculiar feeling that he’d somehow intruded upon it.
He turned to the young constable at the door behind him. “What’s the crack on Drummond from the Child Protection Unit?”
“On his way. Someone from Social Work’s coming with him.”
Gorrie motioned to the left, where they’d found the couple’s infant son in his nursery adjoining the master bedroom.
“Baby’s quiet. You sure he’s okay?”
“Aye, sir. We—”
In the outer hallway, the woman who’d discovered the bodies was working up to another fit of teary hysterics. Her name was Christine Gibbon, and she’d identified herself as the best friend of the looker in the tidbit nightie, stressing in the bluntest of terms that she’d held an absolute loathing for the man of the house and gone out of her way to avoid contact with him whenever possible.
“More of a bawler than that little one, she is,” Gorrie muttered under his breath. “But let’s hear what you were saying. .