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registration number of the car on the back cover. ‘Well, I’ll soon find you now, my lovely, you can bet on it!’
    Then he slipped the notebook back into his pocket and telephoned for the emergency breakdown.
     
    Janet Fulton was on a high as the red MG left the outskirts of the town behind and headed into the wooded countryside beyond. She had enjoyed slashing the tyres on her husband’s car almost as much as seeing the look on his face when he had lumbered out of the driveway. Maybe now Jack would give her the attention she deserved after years of having to play second fiddle to his wonderful job. She knew her affair wouldn’t last long; they rarely did. She also knew Jack would take her back afterwards; he was daft that way. But until it all came to an end, she was determined to make the most of her new-found freedom and the opportunity it gave her to remind Mr Superintendent Fulton on which side his bread was buttered.
    She glanced slyly at the thin unshaven man beside her, appraising the dark curly hair and aesthetic features and inwardly congratulating herself on her catch.
    She had first met Doyle at art school. He was half her age, good-looking, athletic and naked. Modelling for art classes, he explained later, was just a beer-money job; his main interest in life was contemporary writing. As far as she was aware, he was not actually published, but he was always talking about his ideas for a real blockbuster and his rented cottage was coming down with books on the craft of writing and piles of unfinished manuscripts. Deep down, she knew he was a fraud, with the modelling jobs just a means of supplementing his income from social security handouts and the money he managed to milk from frustrated middle-aged women like herself to keep his rented cottage going and his car on the road. But she didn’t care, for he was also suave, gentle and considerate – all the things Jack had never been – and he made her feel alive again. Even more important, he liked to have sex with older women and she had discovered that particular fact just two hours into their first clandestine date.
    She had never had any illusions about herself. Forty plus, plump with thinning blonde hair and a nice long scar down her abdomen where they had wrenched her stillborn baby from her two years ago, she was hardly the most desirable conquest. Yet Doyle had treated her like some ravishing twenty-year-old and she was determined to keep that part of the fantasy going for as long as possible.
    ‘Satisfied now?’ he said, breaking in on her reverie.
    She grinned. ‘Oh, very. I reckon I ought to have been a criminal myself, you know.’
    He made a face. ‘You can say that again.’
    ‘Ringing him to make sure he was at home before we went over was a brilliant ploy.’
    He frowned. ‘I just hope your hubby didn’t clock our number when you thumped the horn as we drove away. Stupid that was.’
    She shrugged. ‘What if he did clock it? He can’t prove I was the one who slashed his tyres.’
    ‘No, but he could come looking for us and he’s a big guy.’
    ‘He’s also a senior policeman and he wouldn’t wreck his beloved career in that way.’ She stared at him keenly now, a flicker of disappointment in her blue eyes. ‘Not scared, are you?’
    He ignored the question. ‘I just don’t know why you keep trying to antagonize him,’ he said. ‘You should be concentrating on us, not playing silly games with your ex.’
    She lit a cigarette. ‘Oh I am, believe me, I am – and, on that subject, my stomach feels as though my throat’s been cut. We need to find somewhere to eat.’
    He made a face. ‘Ah, yes. Well, the trouble is I’m – er – a bit short at the moment and—’
    She produced a credit card from her handbag as he was speaking. ‘No problem, we’ll use my plastic.’
    He brightened. ‘That’s very generous of you. There’s a nice pub half a mile from my cottage.’ He cast her a sidelong glance. ‘Look, I know you