Free False Tongues by Kate Charles Page A

they’ll be open.’
    At least Jane hoped so; she knew she couldn’t bear to wait another twenty-four hours.
    She did manage to wait until breakfast was over and she’d done the washing up and tidied the kitchen. By then the shops would be opening, she reckoned. Grabbing a jacket and her shopping bag, she headed along Sussex Gardens toward the nearest branch of Boots, on the Edgware Road.
    Why hadn’t she bought a testing kit already? Jane asked herself as she turned the corner into the busy road. She should have had one in a drawer at home, ready for this moment. It had been superstition that had prevented her: that perverse, niggling fear of tempting the fates, jinxing her luck, by assuming too much. She’d never acknowledged it as such, and she knew that as a Christian it was unworthy of her to succumb to such nonsense, but it had been at the back of her mind nonetheless.
    Well, now was the time.
    The testing kits were toward the back of the shop. There were various ones on offer, a confusing array. Jane, deciding that they would all do the same job, chose one more or less at random and started to make her way back toward the tills at the front.
    â€˜Jane!’ Coming up the aisle toward her, smiling, was Wendy Page.
    Instinctively, without even thinking about it, Jane shoved the test kit behind a bottle of shampoo on the shelves and picked up the first thing her hand fell on: a home hair-colouring kit, as luck would have it. ‘Oh, hello, Wendy,’ she said, striving for a normal tone of voice.
    â€˜Out shopping today?’
    Jane, put out at the interruption, was torn between one sarcastic reply (‘What does it look like?’) and another (‘Actually, I’m on holiday in Wales. You just think you see me.’) Instead she did the proper vicar’s wife thing and returned Wendy’s smile. ‘Just a few bits and bobs.’
    Wendy made a little face. ‘I had no intention of coming out to the shops today,’ she revealed. ‘But would you believe it? Philip has run out of mouthwash. And nothing would do but I had to get him some.’ She shook her head and rolled her eyes, adding ‘Men!’ in an exasperated voice.
    â€˜I know what you mean,’ Jane improvised. ‘Brian’s run out of…paracetamol.’ She looked at the box in her hand and put it down hastily.
    â€˜I’m not surprised he has a headache, with all he’s had to do over Easter.’
    Jane nodded. ‘Yes, well, it’s all part of a vicar’s job.’ She knew she probably didn’t sound very sympathetic. Brian didn’t really have a headache, after all, and if he did it was no more than he deserved.
    Wendy took a step back and gave her a long, searching look. ‘We all have our crosses to bear,’ she pronounced, her words heavy with meaning.
    ***
    Sid Cowley, to give him credit, had organised things swiftly. He’d got a car and was already waiting for Neville in the car park at the back of the station, smoking a cigarette.
    â€˜Bloody Dewi Jones,’ Neville growled, slamming the car door as he got into the passenger seat. ‘PC Dewi Bloody Jones. Give me strength.’
    â€˜What do you have against Dewi Jones?’ Cowley pinched out his fag and started the engine.
    He knew that Sid was just winding him up, but Neville couldn’t help himself. ‘Welsh twat,’ he said acidly. ‘Wanker. Thinks he looks like bloody Robbie Williams.’ Neville conjured up a mental picture of him: spiky gelled hair, tattoos. Muscle-bound body. ‘All brawn, no brains. Thick as you-know-what. The only reason he hasn’t been kicked off the force onto his fit little backside is that he’s Welsh. Evans has a soft spot for him.’
    â€˜Oh, you’re just jealous, then.’
    Neville decided not to rise any further to the bait and changed the subject abruptly. ‘Where are we going, then?’
    â€˜Not