AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

Previously On My Little Eye: Emily's boss suggests she should use Effy's friendship with Sgt Hathaway to uncover some new details on the murder case for her newspaper story which leaves Emily in a dilemma. Katie is finding it really hard going on day one of her abstinence from alcohol and begins to realise she might need more help than Emily can give her. Lara leaves hospital and arrives back at the house with JJ. On the upstairs landing Harvey can detect a different smell in the house from normal but can't locate the source of it. Lewis and Hathaway run through their early theories about the murders with a far from convinced Superintendent Innocent. Naomi notices food has vanished from the fridge and JJ suggests the house may have mice.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

PART 1

Cook awoke from a short, deep sleep with a start and an unintelligible grunt. He looked around wildly for a moment, temporarily disoriented as to his environment, before relaxing as he realised he wasn't in Naomi and Emily's grotty old shed but their much more comfortable and secure attic. He got up, yawned hugely and stretched out his arms to their fullest extent to get some energy and life back into his tired, aching bones. He needed to find out if the house was empty or, if not, who was still in it so he very slowly raised the trap door the merest fraction and peeped out cautiously onto the landing. He reached for the strong, thin piece of wood he had found lying around earlier in the day and used it skilfully to prop up the trap door so he could look out without having to hold it open with his hands.

No-one was to be seen hovering on the upstairs landing and so he lay down flat on the floor and cocked an ear through the small space afforded by his makeshift jack and listened intently to the muffled sounds that filtered up the stairs. After a while he was able to distinguish reasonably clearly the various voices talking down below and concluded that Naomi, JJ and Lara were still in the house. To his intense annoyance he failed to pick out the unmistakeable sweet sound of Effy's voice, leading him to suspect that she probably wasn't with the others. 'Bollocks!' he whispered softly and wondered if she had left the house while he was asleep. He was desperate to get her on her own so he could continue the conversation he had begun with her in the bar the other night but it looked like he would have to bide his time and exercise patience, not a quality he was particularly renowned for possessing.

He was very tempted to call her on his mobile but resisted the idea, aware that he didn't want to put the whole gang into an awkward position by revealing his whereabouts before he had had the chance to complete his unfinished business with Effy. He puffed out his cheeks and lit another cigarette to pass the time, noting he was down to his last half dozen which would necessitate a hazardous trip out into the big bad world where who knew how many coppers were on the look-out for him. He was also getting a bit low on food as he had wolfed down most of the few scraps he had pilfered from the fridge earlier in the morning and had only a couple of chunks of chocolate left to see him through until dinner time. He might have to risk another foray downstairs into the kitchen to see what else he could pinch to ward off his hunger for the rest of the day.

He allowed his mind to wander for a while as he tried to imagine what he was going to say to Effy if and when he finally managed to get her on her own but his studied concentration was suddenly disturbed by the sound of a dog barking excitedly below him. He rolled over from his prone position flat on his back and peered out through the slightly open trap door to be met with the sight of Harvey standing on the landing immediately below, yapping furiously up at him and jumping up and down in a vain and pointless attempt to get into the loft and confront this cheeky intruder.

'Shit a brick!' muttered Cook under his breath as he scowled down at Harvey whose tail was wagging so violently with the excitement of having discovered the source of the smell he had noticed earlier in the day that it threatened to drop right off. 'Piss off, pooch!' Cook whispered, afraid that the dog's sustained barking would alert the gang to the fact that something or someone on or around the upstairs landing was getting the little dog terribly excited. He listened intently for the tell-tale sounds of voices or footsteps coming up the stairs but for the moment there appeared to be no reaction from anyone in the house. But he couldn't be sure how long Harvey's sustained yapping and yelping would continue to be ignored so he needed to think of a way to make the irritating mutt shut the fuck up – and quickly.

He didn't have a great choice of diversions to hand and he certainly didn't want to hurt the poor little thing who was only doing what comes naturally to young dogs anyway. As he glanced around frantically for inspiration and frustratingly found nothing he was forced to resort to the age-old tactic for shutting up a barking hound- give it something to eat. He let out a groan as he acknowledged that in order to safeguard his hiding place he would have to sacrifice the remains of his food stash but drastic situations required drastic action and this was now one such occasion.

He dug into his pocket and pulled out the last two chunks of chocolate that he saving up to have with his afternoon tea – or rather his afternoon half a can of flat coca-cola. He crawled over to the trap door and peered out again at which point Harvey, who had briefly stopped yapping after Cook had temporarily disappeared from view, resumed his animated barking at the provocative sight of Cook's face staring down at him from above. He broke off one of the chunks of chocolate, took careful aim and lobbed it out through the door and down onto the landing where it fell to rest just a foot or so away from Harvey.

The puppy immediately pounced on the chocolate with relish and Cook watched with a knowing smile on his face as Harvey sniffed curiously at the piece of chocolate, picked it up in his mouth and trotted away out of view, presumably to examine this unexpected gift in more detail somewhere else and then to scoff it down his neck in pleasurable silence. Cook was gratified to see that his plan had worked for Harvey didn't return to recommence his annoying barking but appeared content with the spoils his dogged persistence had conjured up in the way of a placatory culinary treat

PART 2

Effy tutted and sighed once again in exasperation as yet another attempt to speak to James Hathaway ended in failure. He wasn't answering his phone and he hadn't so far returned any of the messages she had left him that morning. She forced a polite yet far from genuine smile at the waiter who had brought her coffee out to her table where she was sitting in front of the café entrance and picked up her mobile from the table where she had flung it down a few moments earlier. She would send him a text message as a last resort and pray to God he would pick it up and send a reply.

Hi James, its me. Where are u? Why wont you return my calls? We need to talk about last nite. PLEASE call me soon! Effy x

She sipped at her coffee which was hot, strong and rich, just the way she liked it but in truth she hardly took any of the flavour in. Her mind was fixed on the dramatic events of the previous night and the repercussions to her relationships with both Hathaway and Cook. She was desperate to hear the rest of Cook's story about Freddie which had been so inopportunely cut short by James' untimely entrance into the gents' restroom before Cook had been able to expand on his bizarrely cryptic preamble. But she felt equally anxious to explain her actions to James whom she imagined must be feeling let down and betrayed by her after bursting in on her secretive meeting with Cook, the man they had been searching for since the night of Naomi's party.

She thrashed a few random, desperate thoughts and ideas around in her head as she sat drinking her coffee and smoking a couple of cigarettes, her mind plagued with doubts and uncertainties about what her best course of action would be. She didn't want to just wait calmly and patiently for either James or Cook to contact her. Men never seemed to phone when you really wanted or needed them to – they had an instinctive knack of always turning up on your doorstep when you least wanted to see them and never getting in touch when you badly needed them to. It couldn't be something that was taught to them, they wouldn't have the patience to hang around long enough to take any such lesson in - it had to be the male equivalent of the universally acknowledged female intuition.

After half an hour of tortured deliberations during which she must have changed her mind at least three or four times, she decided she would be bold and call on James at the police station and ask to see him. If he was reluctant to come to her then she would have to make the decisive move to visit him in his own natural habitat. Her mind finally made up, she felt a wave of relief rush over her at having come to a positive decision and she was in a much more cheery mood as she paid for her coffee and left the café. She made the journey over to the Thames Valley CID headquarters with a quiet determination, hell-bent on confronting Sgt Hathaway and challenging him to settle any awkwardness or suspicions that might exist between them face to face. Nothing could be sorted out if they avoided talking to each other. However difficult and awkward their conversation might be, it would be infinitely preferable to days and days of cowardly silence and aimless non-communication leading nowhere.

PART 3

'Hello, Miss Martin,' said DI Lewis with a weak smile as the first victim's daughter, Jenny answered the front door. 'I'm sorry to have to trouble you both again but I have one or two more questions to ask about your father. May I come in?'

A pale-faced Jenny Martin looked somewhat reluctant to let the inspector in and quickly explained her reason. 'I'm afraid my mother's out at the moment. She's gone into town and probably won't be back for a couple of hours.'

'Well, maybe you might be able to help instead, Miss Martin. Can I come in anyway? It won't take too long, I promise – just a couple of routine questions, that's all.' Lewis gave the daughter a reassuring, kindly smile and had already skilfully eased himself halfway through the door before the hesitant young woman could even think about protesting. Lewis had noted immediately how pale and drawn she was looking compared to their first meeting and her obvious reluctance to let him in had aroused his suspicions even more. He was determined to take advantage of her mother's absence to quiz the daughter about her father and try to find out what it was that he and Hathaway had been convinced she had been keeping back from the police. When the two of them were sitting facing each other in the living room Lewis gently began his questioning, reckoning he should work his way gradually into gaining her confidence before he attempted to open her up and reveal any guilty secrets that might be lurking beneath the surface of this guarded, suspicious young woman.

'When I spoke to you and your mother last time I asked you both if you could think of any reason why anyone might want to harm your father. Has anything new come to mind since then that, maybe, didn't occur to you at that time?'

Jenny Martin didn't bother wasting time considering the question but instantly shook her head firmly but without returning Lewis' kindly gaze. 'No, nothing at all, Inspector.'

'I only ask because while your mother seemed adamant that your father had no enemies who could possibly want to harm him, I got the impression you might have wanted to say something but were….well, perhaps a little afraid to speak up in front of her.'

Jenny stared hard at Lewis with an expression of shock and surprise and Lewis thought he detected just a glimmer of fear in her eyes which she fought valiantly to cover up with a vigorous shake of her head and an exaggerated calmness in her voice.

'Absolutely not. I can't imagine what gave you that idea.'

'I just thought you seemed a little….uncomfortable when I was asking your mother about your father. Particularly when she was telling us about what a good husband and father he had been to both of you. You couldn't look any of us in the face when she was telling us that, not even your mother.'

Jenny appeared to be swallowing hard and Lewis couldn't help but notice that she was nervously fidgeting with her hands constantly and was again avoiding any direct eye contact. Something had definitely rattled her cage but he was wary of diving head first into the deep end in case she withdrew into her protective shell even further and completely clammed up.

'Well, I wasn't uncomfortable, just stunned by the news of my father's death. It came as a great shock.'

'How was your relationship with your father? Were you on good terms with him before he died? No arguments or problems in the family?'

Jenny seemed to purse his lips a fraction but replied coolly enough with a brief shake of the head. 'No, none at all. Not that I saw my parents on a daily basis of course. I have my own place but….. I came round to see them often enough.'

'So, you would say you were a perfectly normal, ordinary family, then?' Lewis still didn't totally believe this whiter than white picture Jenny was painting of the Martin family unit. He was convinced something sinister, something possibly quite dark and shameful lay hidden beneath these superficial layers of cosy normality and suburban innocence.

'Quite normal, Inspector,' she replied, surprising Lewis with a disarming smile which to his eyes seemed to be trying just s touch too hard to be reassuring and placatory. If she was holding something back, she wasn't going to be an easy nut to crack. If she and her mother had decided to present an identical story line of unsullied family contentment and peaceful harmony then she certainly wasn't going to be the one to waver from it first.

'Can I ask you to have a look at these photos, Miss Martin,' said Lewis, deciding it was time to change tack and adopt an alternative strategy. He brought out from his inside jacket pocket two photographs of the second and third victims, Christopher Wells and Simon Harvey and placed them face up on the small table in front of her. 'Do you recognise either of these men?' He watched her face carefully for the tiniest sign of any genuine shock or surprise which might indicate she did recognise one or other of the two fellow murder victims. She stared in silence at the two photographs for several seconds but other than that gave away no discernible reaction, made no audible or visible sound of involuntary shock at the sight of the two photos.

'I'm afraid I can't help you, Inspector. I've never met either of these men before. Who are they?'

'The man on the left was a Mr Christopher Wells who was the chief editor at the Oxford Herald local newspaper. The other man was Mr Simon Harvey, churchwarden at the church of Saint Saviours.' Lewis continued to contemplate intently Jenny Martin's face but the mention of the victims' names seemed to arouse no change in her cool, apparently perplexed demeanour.

'I'm sorry but I've never had anything to do with either the local newspaper or any church in Oxford. I'm an atheist, you see. And I don't have much time to read the newspapers.'

If she was lying, thought Lewis, then she was putting in a damn fine performance, he would have to give her credit for sticking to her guns and refusing to buckle under pressure. 'Okay, Miss Martin, I think that's all for the moment,' said Lewis, getting to his feet after picking up the photos and replacing them inside his jacket. 'But if you do remember anything at all about either of these men, please contact me at the station straight away.'

'How can I remember anything about them, Inspector? I've already told you I've never even met them.'

Oh, she's good, thought Lewis admiringly. She's very good. She's relaxed and become a lot more confident now that she thinks she's seen me off. 'Of course, so you did, I beg your pardon,' he apologised with a rueful grin. 'Thank you for your time,' he added before he was politely shown to the door by Jenny Martin who even forced out a half smile as Lewis took his leave and walked down the garden path and out through the garden gate. One thought reverberated in his mind as he walked slowly back to his car, convinced that the eyes of Jenny Martin were firmly fixed on his back which he refused to turn round towards her. One simple question screamed at him from inside his head as he got into his car, sat back and considered the results of his short yet fascinating conversation with Daniel Martin's daughter. Why the hell didn't she ask what had happened to those two men?

PART 4

'Why the bloody hell did we have to come to this dump?' Katie looked around the cafe with a scowl as wide as the Bristol Channel and fixed a thunderous, accusing pair of eyes on her sister who was distractedly picking at her lunch with a fork, pushing the food around her plate with all the interest and enjoyment of someone who had been served the previous night's cold leftovers for their lunch.

Emily looked up at Katie, stared at her bemused for a moment then glanced around the café attempting to find some meaning in Katie's bitter and heartfelt complaint. Okay, it wasn't the Ritz, I grant you that, she admitted. It wasn't even close to being amongst the better lunchtime eateries in Oxford, true enough. But it hardly warranted such a dismissive appraisal from Katie whom she felt was in the mood to have found fault with the most up-market, trendy, sophisticated, eat all you can for a fiver restaurant in town.

'Oh, come on! It's not that bad! I mean, it's hardly empty, is it? Lots of people come here for lunch. I think the food's pretty decent and it's not exactly expensive.'

'Yeah? So how come you've hardly touched your food since they served us, then?' Katie looked down at Emily's plate and then back up again at her sister who pulled a face in response. She fell silent for a while before putting her fork back on her plate which she pushed away from her. Normally Emily would have devoured the pasta special with a ravenous hunger but she had too much on her mind and had completely lost her normally healthy appetite.

'Let me make an educated guess,' said Katie, before taking a mouthful of fresh orange juice which she swallowed with as much enthusiasm and evident enjoyment as she could muster which wasn't very much. 'I imagine you suggested we ate here rather than somewhere decent so that I wouldn't have to sit around watching other people drink wine or beer or spirits or some other proper drink which normal people would have with their lunch. Am I right?'

Emily couldn't hide her guilty feelings from her twin so chose merely to nod in silence. There was no point making up some pathetic story to pull the wool over Katie's eyes. If she was going to help Katie get over her problem they both had to be open and honest with each other. Besides, Katie clearly hadn't lost her ability to read her sister's mind- an alarming dependence on alcohol hadn't dulled Katie's instincts as far as Emily could tell. If anything it had seemed to sharpen them and make them even more receptive than normal.

'So, you don't trust me, then? Is that it?'

'No! It's got nothing to do with not trusting you, Katie! I was thinking of you! I thought it would be hell for you to have to sit and watch other people knocking back the booze while you were just starting to give it up. I didn't want to put you through that torture.'

'Emsy, hiding me away from the sight and smell of alcohol is simply not going to work. You're not going to be able to protect me twenty-four seven from all those nasty, irresponsible pissheads knocking back the booze like there's no tomorrow. What's going to be your next trick? Get everyone else in town to stop drinking until I've finally managed to kick the habit?'

'Okay, okay, I'm sorry,' said a tearful Emily, realising that Katie was right. It was pointless trying to protect her from the temptations of alcohol. She had to face up to her demons square on, look them in the eye and choose to reject their advances. 'I was just trying to help. I'll have to think of something else, then.'

The two girls fell silent as they each finished off their drinks while looking down gloomily at the table, Emily desperately searching for inspiration in the unremarkable polished tabletop and Katie vainly trying to convince herself that the orange juice she was finishing off contained a very weak brand of vodka, so weak in fact that it could barely be detected.

'Look, Katie, I really do want to help you, you know? I am SO worried about you. I'll try anything to help you get off the booze.' Emily had leant forward towards her sister and had lowered her voice down to practically a whisper, not wishing anyone else sitting nearby to overhear their private and very personal conversation. 'I got hold of these leaflets this morning. I thought you might have a read of them and think really hard about giving it a go.'

Emily took out of her bag a couple of brightly coloured leaflets and pushed them across the table to Katie who picked them up with a baffled expression and glanced at them. Her mouth shot open in astonishment and she stared back at a nervous and concerned Emily in disbelief. 'Are you serious? Alcoholics Anonymous? You want ME to go to one of those meetings? Are you out of your tiny fucking mind?'

'Please, Katie. What harm can it do? You need professional help. You know I would do anything to help you but I'm…..I'm out of my fucking depth here. I'm not qualified enough to give you the help and support you need to get off the booze. These people….well, they know what they're doing. They've been there, seen it, done it. They really do know what you're going through, they've all been there themselves and come out the other side.'

'No fucking way,' insisted a clearly shaken Katie, throwing the leaflets back across the table at her sister. 'Going to one of those places, well…..it's just one short step away from being locked up in a loony bin. Is that what you want, Emsy? Do you want me put away in a hospital for the fruitcakes? Don't you remember what it was like for Effy in that clinic when she had her breakdown? She thought she might never get out at one point.'

'It's not like that, Katie. Effy was ill, Effy had a breakdown. She needed medical attention and specialist therapy to make her well again. You're not ill, you're not sick. You don't need doctors or psychiatrists looking after you round the clock. You just have a drink problem. You're not losing your mind, are you? Except…. perhaps when you're knocking back the drink. So you need professional help to get you off the booze. Look, just read the leaflets this afternoon and we'll talk about it again tonight. Please, do it for me, even if you don't want to do it for yourself.'

There were fresh tears beginning to form in Emily's eyes and Katie felt her chest begin to tighten like someone had fitted a clamp on her and a lump began to form in her throat which had suddenly become terribly dry. She reached out and picked up Emily's glass of water which was still half full and poured the ice cold refreshing liquid down her neck. For the first time she could recall since her early teenage years that mouthful of water tasted really good.

Aware that a young couple on a nearby table were taking particular interest in them ever since their last heated conversational exchange which had been carried out in something more than a whisper, Katie picked up the leaflets, motioned to Emily with a curt movement of her head that her sister should follow her and smartly made her way to the till to pay for their lunch, leaving an anxious Emily confused and unsure as to whether Katie's last gesture meant she had agreed to her plaintive suggestion or not.

AUTHOR'S FOOTNOTE

After an enforced absence I have returned with a new chapter – though how much longer I can keep going with this story God only knows! The excruciatingly old and slow laptop I am being forced to use instead of my usual PC is driving me insane and my patience is wearing thin and my tolerance levels are plummeting fast. Writing has become almost a grind and a chore lately rather than the huge pleasure it used to be. I'll just have to see how things go, I suppose. Thanks once again to everyone who has stuck with the story and read/reviewed it so far – your support means a lot to me!