Free See How They Run by Tom Bale

woman was a bit twitchy, and once or twice seemed to be suppressing a smirk.
    After a few minutes Evie began to get restless. There was a tense moment when Alice went to rise from the sofa and Cassell blocked her path.
    ‘I can take her.’
    ‘No!’ Alice almost shrieked the word as she squeezed past the other woman. ‘She’s due a feed.’
    Warley looked as though he might object when Alice made to leave the room, but Harry caught Cassell signalling at him not to intervene.
    Feeling slightly bereft once she and Evie were gone, Harry answered their questions for another ten minutes, emphasising that they had taken seriously the threat not to report the break-in to the police.
    ‘That’s understandable,’ Warley said. ‘As I say, we’re coming at this from a different angle.’
    Finally, with a neutral glance at his colleague, he slapped his hands on his legs and declared that they were done. Harry jumped up, unable to disguise his eagerness to see them leave. He opened the front door and shivered at the rush of cold evening air.
    ‘Will we have to make formal statements?’
    Warley shrugged. ‘We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.’
    ‘And you’ll let us know if there are any developments?’
    An eyebrow went up. ‘Developments?’
    ‘If you manage to catch these men.’
    ‘Oh.’ Warley had the ghost of a smile on his face. ‘Certainly will.’
    ‘We won’t let this drop,’ Cassell added. ‘You can be sure of that.’

Thirteen
    H arry locked and bolted the door, rested his head against it and slowly exhaled. He was dimly aware of a car starting up, and knew he should be checking the make and model, perhaps taking the number if he could get it. But he lacked the will to move.
    Worse than that, he didn’t see what it would achieve.
    He turned as Alice emerged from the kitchen with Evie at her breast. She’d stopped crying but her face was still raw with emotion.
    ‘You hadn’t mentioned the patio doors, had you?’ he asked.
    ‘No. I suppose he might have noticed it was a new lock?’
    ‘More likely they were fake, which is why I didn’t push them for a contact number.’ Harry gave a sigh, before clutching at the only thread of optimism in sight. ‘At least we didn’t let on that we suspected them. And we were honest about what happened, so there’s no reason for them to doubt us.’
    ‘So why were they glaring at me as though they knew it was a pack of lies?’
    ‘I don’t think they did.’ He held her by the arms and could feel her trembling. He’d expected to come home and sit calmly while he told her about the mysterious woman who’d approached him. Now he was only going to add to her misery—
    ‘I’m sorry.’ Alice sniffed, and with a free hand brushed at a stray tear. ‘It wasn’t intentional, Harry, but I haven’t been straight with you.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I … I think there was a parcel for Renshaw.’

    H arry stepped away from her , unable to believe what he was hearing. And then he remembered.
    ‘Last night, I felt you jump when they first mentioned it.’
    ‘Did I? I’m not sure. I was so petrified.’
    ‘Jesus, Alice. If they’d realised you were lying, they could have killed us.’
    ‘I know. Please don’t say that.’ She held his gaze, pleading with him. ‘Everything happened so quickly, it wasn’t really a conscious decision.’
    ‘So where is this parcel?’
    She shook her head. Evie had finished feeding. ‘Let’s go and sit down.’
    First, Harry decided that he needed a drink. And not beer or wine, either. He rummaged in the kitchen cupboard where they kept the spirits and found a bottle of vodka. Alice was persuaded to join him – ‘A very small one’ – and took her glass in exchange for Evie and a muslin cloth to drape over his shoulder: Harry was on burping duty.
    Settling on the sofa, she took a sip of vodka and briefly wrinkled her nose, like a child forced to eat some exotic fruit.
    ‘Tuesday morning, the postman knocked