Free The Hawkshead Hostage by Rebecca Tope

Simmy said could stop her. Ben’s mother mostly worked from home, in a very well-appointed office at the top of the house.
    ‘It’s okay, Simmy,’ said the girl. ‘It’s going to be okay.’
    It was tempting to believe her. ‘Oh, well,’ she said feebly.‘I’m going to be here for ages yet. I’ll try to catch up with you this evening.’
    She was interrupted by the door to the office opening and DI Moxon coming in. His face was a mixture of briskness and solicitude. Their relationship – such as it was – went back ten months or so and she had gradually learnt more about him since then. She had shared her own painful past with him, administered urgent first aid to him, and eventually met a wife she had never suspected existed. She was still not entirely sure that she liked him. He had a strong aura of the police, with the odd lack of human understanding that seemed to go with the job. Much of what she said to him apparently came as a big surprise, although he seldom manifested disapproval or criticism. He seemed to find her instructive, she often felt, with her instinctive feeling for people’s emotional states.
    He was even more baffled and amazed by Ben Harkness. Only Melanie gave him any comfort, with her comprehensive knowledge of local networks and connection to elements with which the police were habitually familiar.
    The detective was holding a clipboard in one hand, like a charity fundraiser or somebody doing a street survey. It struck Simmy as incongruous, for some reason. ‘Hello,’ she said.
    He nodded and said, ‘I’ve just been speaking to Miss Todd,’ he told her. ‘She’s been extremely helpful. I think I’ve got it straight now.’ He tapped the clipboard. ‘Names of all the staff, who was on the premises this morning. List of guests. G5.’
    She frowned at him. She’d heard of a G5, but could notremember what it signified. And why was he reporting to her as if she was his superintendent? ‘G5?’
    ‘The form that has to be completed whenever an unexpected death occurs. Last seen by … Next of kin … Name of his GP. That sort of thing. I always like the G5,’ he finished wistfully. ‘It was a very clever invention.’
    ‘You can’t have got all that from Melanie,’ she objected. ‘She was in here only a minute ago.’
    ‘Fifteen minutes at least,’ he corrected her. ‘She’s all fixed up with dry clothes, and wanting to go home. Somebody will take her in a little while. And you’re right, of course. We’ve been talking to several others as well.’
    Simmy blinked at the strange rush of time that this implied, but forced herself to stick with the most important details. ‘So who was he last seen by? Dan, I mean.’
    ‘That’s not certain. Probably Miss Todd, but possibly Mrs Boddington-Webster. He works complicated hours.’
    ‘He lives on the premises, so I suppose that’s not too much of a problem.’
    ‘Yes, we’ve looked around his room.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Did you know that Miss Todd has been spending some nights here with him?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I don’t expect I should be telling you, but there’s no way we can stop it coming out. I imagine most of the staff are aware of it, anyway. But she told me that you didn’t know. She seems embarrassed about that. She poured it all out the moment I had her on her own.’ He preened slightly at having elicited such intimate information from a girl he knew had never entirely trusted him. The Todd family had an uneasy relationship with the police,despite Melanie’s dalliance with a constable named Joe.
    Simmy hesitated, feeling surprisingly hurt and offended. Why should Melanie tell her who she was sleeping with, anyway? However close their friendship might have been over the winter, it had effectively ended when Melanie moved on with her career. And Simmy was, as she reminded herself regularly, old enough to be Mel’s mother. She reproached herself for her excessive reaction, and fought to stifle the