Read Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street Online
Authors: Ann Cleeves
Vera Stanhope 06 - Harbour Street (38 page)
It was midday and they’d finished for the holiday. Stuart Booth had come to collect Kate Dewar. Vera wondered what sort of Christmas there’d be in that house, and if the relationship would survive beyond Boxing Day. Stuart had colluded with Kate to tell her what she wanted to hear: that Ryan wasn’t such a bad lad; the boy was misguided and had got caught up with the wrong crowd, but he was sound really. Had anyone in school seen the bullying and the drug-dealing, the petty cruelties? But perhaps nobody had wanted to see. Ryan came from a respectable family, his mam was Katie Guthrie, who had once been famous and would be guaranteed to pull in crowds at the summer fair. Only Margaret Krukowski was anxious, reminded of another cocky young man who’d thought himself above the law. And finally it was the parallel with Ricky Butt that had helped Vera and Joe to find the murderer too.
They stood in the car park outside the station. Vera, Joe and Holly. ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ Vera said. ‘To celebrate. Or come back to mine. I’ll shout the cabs to get you home.’
Holly looked shocked. Vera had never invited her to her house before. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m spending Christmas with my folks. It’s a long drive and they were expecting me yesterday.’
‘Ah.’ Vera was pleased really. She suspected Holly would disapprove of the state of her home. ‘Joe?’
‘Sorry! Sal’s got plans.’ He raised his hands, a gesture of apology. And to show that he’d have liked to come back with her to talk through the case, but Sal would really go ape if he came back pissed, today of all days.
‘Course she has,’ Vera said. ‘Wish the family happy Christmas for me.’
It was only as Holly got into her car that Vera remembered something. She chased after her, waving. Holly pressed a button and the driver’s window opened.
‘Shit, Hol, we never did that Secret Santa thing.’
‘Nah,’ Holly said. ‘Never mind. It was never going to work, was it?’
Vera got into Hector’s Land Rover and set off alone for the hills.
About the Author
Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV’s
Vera
and BBC One’s
Shetland
. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez – characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over one million copies worldwide.
Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for
Raven Black
, the first book in her Shetland series. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside.
By Ann Cleeves
A Bird in the Hand
Come Death and High Water
Murder in Paradise
A Prey to Murder
A Lesson in Dying
Murder in My Back Yard
A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy
Another Man’s Poison
Killjoy
The Mill on the Shore
Sea Fever
The Healers
High Island Blues
The Baby-Snatcher
The Sleeping and the Dead
Burial of Ghosts
The Vera Stanhope series
The Crow Trap
Telling Tales
Hidden Depths
Silent Voices
The Glass Room
Harbour Street
The Shetland series
Raven Black
White Nights
Red Bones
Blue Lightning
Dead Water
First published 2014 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2014 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-230-76812-3
Copyright © Ann Cleeves 2014
The right of Ann Cleeves to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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