Free Road Closed by Leigh Russell

unable to give a view on whether the Cliff’s marriage was a happy one.
    ‘I assume they were happy,’ he said. ‘They’d only been married about a year or maybe two. But it’s not something I discuss with my colleagues. We don’t have time to sit around gossiping, even if we wanted to.’
    ‘Did you ever see her looking miserable?’
    ‘Only when the system crashed.’
    Geraldine spent the rest of the afternoon ploughing through reports, but they had been given the gist of the case at the morning briefing. Her afternoon reading material merely corroborated what she already knew. She read through it conscientiously, alert for some detail that didn’t fit, but nothing struck her as out of place.
    It was dark outside by the time she left. A heavy rain was falling as she crossed the car park. She shivered and walked faster. Damp and disgruntled, she pulled out into the street and caught sight of Peterson disappearing into the pub across the road. She was tempted to join him but was suddenly too tired to make the effort.
    It was half past eight by the time she reached home. She threw her coat on the hall chair, shuffled into her slippers and hurried into the bedroom where the light on her answer phone was flashing. Her spirits lifted when she heard Craig’s voice but he was calling to cancel their date for Sunday. ‘I don’t think I can make it back in time tomorrow after all. Can we make it Monday instead? I’ll assume that’s all right unless you call.’
    Geraldine wandered into the kitchen and poured herself a small glass of red wine. Then she sat down by the phone in her livingroom and hesitated. There was no reason for her to ring Craig. If he didn’t answer and she left a message he might see the missed call and think she couldn’t see him on Monday. She glanced at her watch. It was twenty to nine. She went back to the kitchen and refreshed her glass.
    Tired, and with no immediate task to distract her, Geraldine thought about her mother. When their parents divorced, Celia had been the one to comfort her, leaving Geraldine feeling excluded, as usual, from the family circle. When Celia had married and given birth to a daughter of her own, she had grown even closer to her mother. Geraldine meanwhile, single and childless, had thrown herself into her career. On occasional visits home, she had been faintly shocked to observe the intimacy that had developed between her mother and her sister, and had felt even more isolated from them. With her mother’s death, Geraldine wondered if she and Celia might forge a stronger relationship. She hoped her sister would want that too. She picked up the phone.
    ‘Who’s calling?’
    ‘It’s Geraldine. Celia’s sister. Who’s that?’
    ‘Babysitter.’
    Geraldine went in the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, she was startled to see how haggard she looked: beneath straggly black hair her eyes were like empty holes, bored into a pallid face. She had spent so long around corpses she was beginning to look like one. An uncharacteristic wave of self-pity threatened to overwhelm her. Resolutely, she set her wine glass down on the table, opened her briefcase, and pulled out her laptop. At least she had her work.

14
    Plan
    When Cal had offered to put him up, Ray had jumped at the opportunity. It was better than staying at the hostel. He could learn a lot from Cal. There wasn’t a lock Cal couldn’t open. He could tell if a house was worth breaking into just by looking at it. He only had to walk past and he’d know. He was clever like that.
    ‘How’d you do it, Cal? How do you know?’
    ‘See what wheels are in the drive,’ Cal answered, as though it was obvious. ‘And watch the people when they go in and out. Check out what they’re wearing, especially their shoes. Shoes are a dead giveaway. And whatever you do, don’t touch a house with kids. Chances are a lot of equipment’s stashed in