Page 64 of Twisted Lies

Frost tried to protest, but the woman was already placing it gently around her shoulders.

‘We couldn’t get a licence plate number cos the van was side on to us, and he sped off like a scalded jack rabbit. Probably had a drink after work.’

It took Frost a few seconds to understand that the driver of the other vehicle had fled the scene.

Rear-ended in a hit-and-run. Where had she heard that before? Her throat dried up even more when she made the connection: Penny Colgan and Ariane Debegorski.

The trembling intensified as the phone in her handbag started to ring.

‘Let me get that for you, love,’ the woman said, coming around to the other side of the car. She opened the car door and fished out the phone, handing it to her.

It was a number she didn’t recognise, she realised, as she heard sirens in the background.

On the third attempt, she hit the answer button.

‘Hello…’

‘Hello, Ms Frost, this is Daryl Winston of Winston Associates.’

She immediately recognised the name of Nick Morley’s PR firm.

‘I do hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.’

The ebbing sickness rose like a tidal wave in her stomach.

His slimy, smarmy voice told her he knew exactly at what time he’d caught her. The timeliness of his call left her in no doubt that this had not been an accident.

‘Y… You…’

‘We’d like to meet with you, Ms Frost. At your convenience, of course, to discuss an exclusive interview with Nick Morley, who I’m sure would be happy to answer any of your questions.’

The sirens grew louder as Frost understood that meant in return for her not writing any more articles about Trisha Morley.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew she’d got herself into something bigger than she’d anticipated. She should have known they would not take kindly to her heckling their well-constructed news cycle.

She couldn’t deny that she was scared. But so were they.

‘So how about it, Ms Frost – shall we try to schedule a meeting?’

The sirens were growing ever louder, and the trembling that gripped her body was leaving her exhausted.

She pulled the kind woman’s jacket around her.

‘K… K… Kiss my fucking arse,’ she said, before ending the call.

Fifty-Three

It was almost eleven by the time Kim switched on the iPod in her garage. She knew that many people held all their music on their phones, but she preferred to keep hers separate, away from everything work-related.

Barney had brought his carrot to the doorway between the garage and kitchen and was munching happily after their late-night walk. It was the spot he always chose to lie on, and Kim understood that it was so he knew if she left the garage and went back to the kitchen. The place where all the food lived.

Eventually, when he accepted that he’d had his last treat of the day, he would saunter over to the king-size sheet which covered the floor and curl up about a foot away from her, tired and content.

‘If only life was that simple for us all, eh, boy?’ she asked, positioning herself beside the bike frame she’d acquired from Dobbie the scrap merchant a few weeks ago.

She still smiled when she remembered the look on his face when she had handed over the money they’d already agreed upon, despite his efforts to swindle her once he’d realised there was a demand for the frame.

And it didn’t look much right now, she admitted to herself. But back when it was introduced at the 1948 Motorcycle Show at Earl’s Court, it had been a machine ahead of its time. When tested by the respectedMotorcycleJournalthey’d concluded ‘it is a connoisseur’s machine: one with speed and acceleration far greater than any other standard motor cycle’.