Free A Narrow Return by Faith Martin

could possibly think that she’d be interested. What was up? Been caught shop-lifting or something, had she? Or had the man she was shacked up with been found out carting things off from the back of a lorry?
    And then, at the same moment that she understood, Debbie said, ‘It’s your mum’s case. They’re looking into it again.’
    Lucy opened her mouth, seemed about to say something, then closed it again. Finally she took a sip of her tea. ‘Oh. Well, I suppose it’s about time. Not that they’re likely to find out who did it after all this time, are they?’
    Debbie met her niece’s green eyes, so like her mother’s, and sighed. ‘No. I suppose not.’
    For a few moments, the two women drank in silence, Debbie fiddling with her chipped mug and glancing everywhere around the room, except at her niece.
    Finally, she nerved up the courage to speak. ‘You’re so like your mum in many ways, our Luce. You’ve got her pretty looks, and you’ve got her ways too. She was clever, our Anne, but she never made the most of it.’ She took a quick look around the sorry flat, and said grimly, ‘and you’re just the same. Why haven’t you got a job? You could work in an office, you’re good on a computer. All you youngsters seem to be, these days.’
    Lucy laughed. ‘I don’t like working, Aunt Debbie, you know that. Nine to five, same thing, day in, day out, kow-towing to a boss, waiting for a bus, fetching coffees for twits with pimples and BO who want to grope you. No thank you.’
    ‘No, you want it all handed to you on a plate I suppose, just like Anne.’
    Lucy’s eyes narrowed dangerously. She didn’t like being lectured. Or having her lifestyle choices questioned. So she was on a downer at the moment, reduced to this tatty flat, but soon she’d be on the up again. And luckily, she knew just how to teach her aunt to keep her opinions to herself.
    ‘So the police are looking at you again for it, are they, Auntie? That must be a bit of a pain. I bet you thought all of that was behind you, too?’
    Debbie paled slightly and bent her curly blonde head defensively a little further over her steaming mug. ‘I don’t like it, that’s all,’ she said quietly. ‘They’ll be raking it all up again, you’ll see. They should just leave it alone.’ Then she lifted her head and looked at her niece sharply. ‘You’ll have to be careful, our Luce. Promise me you will.’
    Lucy laughed grimly. ‘Aunt Debbie, it’s not me who has anything to worry about. We all know that.’
    Debbie swallowed a mouthful of tea, but wondered. Was Lucy right?
    She didn’t know, that was the trouble. She didn’t know anything for sure.
    But she had to do something. Lucy didn’t understand how dangerous it was not to let sleeping dogs lie. And that woman copper who’d come to her house – Debbie had recognized her all right. Or rather, she recognized her type. She was clever, that Greene woman. And persistent. And good at her job – Debbie would have bet her house and last shilling on that. She’d keep on digging and upsetting things, and hurting everyone with her questions about Anne.
    Bloody Anne. Twenty years dead, and still causing everyone grief.
    No, Debbie knew she’d have to do something to keep the coppers happy. Toss that Greene woman some sort of bone, give her something to chew over. She’d have to think about it.
    In the meantime, she could only hope that her niece didn’t do anything stupid.
    Or Melvin either, for that matter.
     
    Back at HQ, Hillary Greene reached for the phone in her so-called office, and dialled one of the numbers from the new updated McRae folder.
    Sam and Vivienne had done a good job on it, chasing up all the information they could and accumulating new data. In twenty years a lot could change, and had. Witnesses died or moved away, and new addresses and phone numbers had to be found. People changed jobs, their circumstances altered. Melvin McRae, for instance, had moved and remarried.
    But