Hard Time Read Online Free Page A

she checked caller ID. Turning her back, Jenny Page listened more than she talked.
    Bev didn’t need to hear. The ice maiden was losing her cool. “That was Richard.” The woman was shaking. “He hasn’t seen Daniel since breakfast.” A single tear
ran down the almost perfect face. “He says I called. Told him he didn’t have to collect Daniel. That I’d do it after all.”
    Mummy always said never to go with strangers. But the nice lady wasn’t really a stranger, was she? Even so, Daniel had hesitated just for a second when he saw who was at
the gates. He wasn’t scared or anything but he’d been so looking forward to seeing mummy. He’d met the nice lady before. It would be OK. And the bag from the Disney store must be
for him, mustn’t it?

5
    “What you reckon, guv?”
    Byford was on the phone, listening to Bev’s take on the interview with Jenny Page. The superintendent reckoned that his wayward sergeant shouldn’t need to ask for his input. That she
needed guidance too often these days. That she was in danger of losing her direction. And failing to give it. In part the big man was flattered she sought his advice; in greater part he was afraid
where it might lead. Professionally and personally.
    He’d detected changes in Bev over recent months, not just in her appearance. The shorter spikier hair did nothing to soften her face; the tongue, always sharp, could now be lacerating.
    Byford hoped Will Browne was rotting in hell for what he’d done to her. And for what he’d taken from her.
    The big man suppressed a weary sigh. “You tell me, Bev.”
    Long black mac flapping in the wind, he cut a lone figure in the huge bleak cemetery. Other mourners gone now, the grounds were deserted and silent apart from a chorus of rooks cawing in the
wings. Byford had been paying his last respects to ex-DCS Robbie Crawford. The two men went back a long way. As young cops, they’d patrolled the same patch in Aston, moved to CID within a few
months of each other, worked a handful of big cases together and socialised off-duty occasionally. Bev’s call was disturbing more than his private sorrow at a friend’s senseless and
untimely death.
    If that’s what it was. The superintendent had been unable to shake off a faint sense of unease about the hit-and-run. Difficult to describe, impossible to pin down but there all the same,
a niggle at the back of his mind.
    “It’s a bugger, guv.” On the phone he heard the rasp of a match followed by the sharp intake of what would undoubtedly be smoky breath.
    Byford glanced at his watch: 4.50. Alarm raised 3.30. Daniel last seen 12.20. Given that the first sixty minutes in any inquiry were the most crucial, the so-called golden hour, by his
calculations they were already in extra time. “What’s priority, Bev?”
    “The boy.” Ten out of ten.
    “Well, then?” All the fast actions were underway: tracker dogs, chopper, every available body searching, Bev en route to interview the father. Byford couldn’t see the
problem.
    “It’s not that simple.” More aural smoke signals. He’d already heard her out, read the silences, sensed the nuances. It was clear she had a problem with the boy’s
mother.
    “Jenny Page...”
    That was as far as he let her go. “Sergeant, don’t let personal...”
    “Not.”
    “You are. I’m aware the woman doesn’t fit your image of a distraught parent, but...” He didn’t need to spell it out. “A five-year-old boy’s missing.
That’s the bottom line, the top line, every line in between.” He paused. “It is that simple.”
    And Bev didn’t need him to tell her that. The operation was textbook so far, couldn’t be faulted. It was her attitude that was out of line.
    “It doesn’t add up, guv. There’s...”
    He supplied the word. “Discrepancies.”
    “Exactly.”
    His sigh went unsuppressed this time. “Is Mike Powell up to speed?”
    The DI. He’d been on the phone to Bev, said he’d handle the press. No