Free The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves

awkward conducting such a sensitive conversation in a yell.
    “I thought she was getting on better. She seems happier. And at least she’s been eating.”
    “She’s also awake for most of the night, prowling around.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’ll have a word.”
    “Where did you get her from anyway?”
    “She did a contract in Dumfries last year for a friend of Peter’s. He said she was brilliant. A real find.”
    Anne gave a snort of contempt. Grace returned, stared into her empty glass, didn’t answer when Rachael spoke to her. They left the pub early.
    Back in the cottage Anne went upstairs to move her things. They could hear her banging about. Grace went to the table in the living room which she used as a desk and began immediately to work. From the kitchen Rachael could hear her punch the buttons of a calculator. She went in. It had been a mild day and they’d not bothered to light the fire. A film of wood ash had settled on everything.
    “Isn’t it a bit late to start now?” Rachael said.
    Grace jumped round with a start. The calculator clattered to the floor. Rachael stooped to pick it up.
    “The idea was that we should all take a break. There’s still a bottle of wine left from my trip into town. Shall we open it?”
    “Why not?” The reply was unnaturally loud, artificially bright.
    “I’ll just get it. Pack that away. It’ll wait until tomorrow.” My God, she thought, I sound just like Edie telling me to take it easy before A levels. There was something about Grace’s passion for her subject, her intense desire for privacy which Rachael recognized. She poured the wine into the tumblers which were the only glasses to have survived a season of student washing-up, then waited for Grace to move into an easy chair before handing one to her.
    “How’s it going?”
    “Very well.” Grace, drinking deeply, looked warily over her glass.
    “The data much as you expected?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “I’ve been looking at the information you passed on last week. Was that typical?” Rachael, waiting for an answer, felt ridiculously anxious.
    “I don’t know. Too small a sample yet.” Grace was casual, apparently unperturbed.
    “I see.” Knowing how irritated she felt when pestered about ongoing work, Rachael let that go, though the anxiety remained. “Anne says you’re not sleeping very well.”
    Carefully, Grace set down the glass by her chair. “I don’t think Anne has the best interests of the project at heart,” she said seriously.
    “What do you mean?”
    But Grace wouldn’t say.
    “Are you sleeping?”
    The wine which she’d drunk very quickly must have taken effect because she was almost truculent. “As much as I need to.”
    “You do know you can take the weekend off. Why don’t you go home for a while? You’re the only one who hasn’t had a break from this place.”
    “I don’t need a break. I take my work seriously.” Unlike Anne Preece, she implied. “Besides, I haven’t got much of a home to go back to.”
    She stood up and went defiantly back to the table and her calculator.
    The next day Rachael had to go into Kimmerston. A meeting had been arranged sometime before with Peter and a representative from Slateburn Quarries, to inform them of the progress of the project so far. She was reluctant to leave Anne and Grace together. They were like quarrelling children who needed an adult as peacemaker, to stop things from coming to blows.
    Please be good, she wanted to say as she drove up the track.
    She was surprised to find that Neville Furness was the Slateburn representative. Although she was early he was at the office before her. He and Peter were already deep in conversation. They both looked very smart, very professional in their suits. She had expected an informal meeting and was wearing her field clothes. Nothing of consequence was decided at the encounter but it seemed to drag on. She had the impression that Peter was prolonging the explanation of