Innocent Blood (47 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Corley
At some time around midnight he found he couldn’t ignore the effects of the tea any longer and hurried down the hall to the cloakroom. When he returned her eyes were wide open, searching for him; her mouth was moving rapidly as if she had a critical message to share.
‘I’m here,’ he whispered, ‘don’t worry.’
Her lips opened and closed but he couldn’t make out what she was trying to say with such urgency.
‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘Come…funeral,’ she repeated. ‘Say mass.’
‘I can’t be there, not on the day. It—’
There was an infinitesimal shaking of her head that cut across anything he was about to say.
‘Remember…’ Her fingers clutched his hand in a surprisingly strong grip. ‘Family’s important.’
Her last words were no more than warm air against his ear but they sank deep into his heart as her eyes closed, and lay there, a burden he could not shake no matter how hard he prayed.
E
LIZABETH
C
ORLEY
was brought up in West Sussex. Married with a stepdaughter, she manages to balance her passion for crime-writing with a successful position as Chief Executive, Europe for a global investment company, dividing her time between London, Germany and France. A one-time committee member and vice-chairperson of the Crime Writers’ Association, Elizabeth is an active member of the organisation yet still finds the time to pursue her outside interests of travel, gardening and music.
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Hardback and trade paperback editions published in Great Britain in 2008.
Paperback edition published in 2009.
This ebook edition first published in 2012.
Copyright © 2008 by E
LIZABETH
C
ORLEY
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1132–1