Free The Flyleaf Killer by William A Prater

learned to drive and, with the benefit of three professional driving lessons (a seventeenth birthday present), passed his driving test. Success behind the wheel coincided with another milestone—he landed a job!
    At interview, Robert seemed just the young man they sought: willing, presentable, intelligent, with impressive GCSE grades, and his father a senior employee of the Midland Bank.
    ‘Can you start next Monday?’ Mr Hathaway asked. Robert most certainly could.
    On Monday, 22 April 2002 Robert became a management trainee at the Long Ditton offices of Gaston Hathaway, a notable firm of estate agents with branches throughout Surrey.

Chapter Four
    Noises
    It was Sunday, 14 July, a little before midnight. For the third time since retiring, Daphne Frasier slipped into mules, shrugged into a dressing gown and padded uneasily out of the room. She crossed the landing and into the rear bedroom, where the sounds seemed more distinct, and listened.
There it goes again!
    Nervously, she peered from the darkened room through a slit in the curtains. A pale, crescent moon added little to a glimmer of reflected street lighting and, strain as she might, she saw nothing more than outlined shrubs and the garden fencing.
    Daphne was by no means nervous. Her natural self-reliance had stood her in good stead after the death of her husband three years earlier. Although she missed him terribly, social work, visits from her daughter, her son-in-law and baby grandson helped heal the hurt and render the loss more bearable; they fostered a determination to get on with her life.
    Knowing the neighbours were away for the weekend, she wondered whether the noises might be a scavenging animal of some description. The clatter of a falling dustbin often heralded the presence of a marauding fox, seeking an easy meal. But the more she listened, the more certain she became the sounds were not those of an animal. She hesitated a moment longer, tempted to go back to bed, and this time to stay there. Might there, after all, be a perfectly innocent explanation?
    She frowned into the darkness, annoyed with herself for dithering, but instinct told her something was definitely amiss. At the risk of being labelled a busybody, she returned to her bedroom, picked up the telephone and dialled 999.
    A brisk, female voice responded. ‘Emergency! Which service?’
    ‘Police,’ Daphne replied.
    ‘Connecting you,’ the operator said, and after a single ‘brrr brrr’, a pleasant, baritone voice came on the line.
    ‘Police! How can I help?’
    ‘Emergency call from an Esher number 01372 448721;’ the operator interjected, then: ‘You’re through, caller.’
    ‘I want to report unusual noises from the garden next door— eleven, Rodene Close, Lower Green,’ Daphne began, excitedly. ‘The owners—the Pearces—are away for the weekend.’
    ‘Just one moment, madam. Please confirm your telephone number, and state your full name and address.’
    The quiet, authoritative voice again. Daphne became impatient. ‘The noises, I keep hearing them. Someone’s trespassing; if you hurry you might catch them. Hurry, please hurry. If you waste time asking questions, whoever it is will be gone.’
    ‘Perhaps so, madam,’ the officer said, ‘but we still need details in order to take action.’
Keep calm
, Daphne told herself. Struggling for composure, she took another deep breath.
    ‘01372 448721; Frasier, Daphne—Mrs. Thirteen, Rodene Close, Lower Green, Esher,’ she managed, this time articulating slowly and deliberately.
    ‘Right, got that. Please describe the noises; explain exactly why you called.’
    ‘I’d gone to bed,’ she said, ‘when I heard unusual sounds. When I listened carefully, they appeared to be coming from round the back, so I got up and went into the rear bedroom, where the noises seemed louder. There were scraping sounds, and a sort of
thud, thud
, every now and then,’ she went on. ‘At first, I thought something was in my garden—an