Read Ellis Peters - George Felse 07 - The Grass Widow's Tale for Free Online Page B

push it out of sight, all of it…” The voice was thin, harsh and piercing, like broken glass.
    She fumbled at the silvery tendrils, which seemed still to have such innocent, sparkling life in them. She tucked the last strand out of sight, and her fingertips touched the cold, ice-cold face. The chill passed out of the dead flesh into the living without revulsion; all she felt was a dreadful, quickening pity over so much waste. She let down the lid gently, like the lid of a coffin, and turned the key upon the body. Slowly she straightened up and looked round blindly at the man with the gun, the bunch of keys outstretched in her hand.
    “Put them on the wing between us,” he said, and drew back a step out of her reach, with infinite care to be silent and restrained even in this movement. He didn’t want to startle her into some panicky reaction that would make the shot necessary.
    She laid down the keys where he indicated, releasing them softly, with the same exaggerated caution against any sound. And he reached out his free hand without taking his eyes from her, and gathered them up and pocketed them.
    “Let’s have it clear.” His voice was more assured now, and deader, if there are degrees in death. “If you make a single false move, even by mistake, I’ll kill you. What choice have you left me? You see I’ve nothing to lose now.”
    Her mind was beginning to work, clearly enough, but like the logical threading of a dream. She saw, and acted in accordance with what she saw. He had indeed nothing to lose. His back was against a wall, and he was proof against fears and scruples; and she was not going to make any false move. She looked back at him, motionless and attentive, and said nothing.
    “Get back in the car. I shall be close behind you.”
    She turned stiffly, obeying the motion of the hand that held the gun, and slowly circled the back of the car and walked to the passenger door. Slowly, in case he suspected her of an attempt at escape. She might, indeed, have risked it if the car had been drawn up on the other side of the road, but here there was only the narrow path and then the thick hedge, nowhere at all for her to take cover. He followed her step for step, she could feel the muzzle of the gun not six inches from her back. The transit of those four or five yards seemed to last a lifetime; at least it gave her a sudden dazzlingly clear distant view of her own situation. Only a few hours ago she had been laboriously extending her powers to cope with the realisation that half her life had slipped away almost unnoticed, and now she saw the other half bridged in one monstrous leap, and death within touch of her hand.
    No car came along. No one walked home by this way. No belated lovers dawdled in the dark. In summer there might have been a hope, there was none now. She was on her own, and there was nothing she could possibly do except obey him. Except, perhaps, leave some sign here to be found?
    Her handbag was on her wrist, and there was no chance of opening it without being detected. But her purse was in her left-hand coat pocket, and it contained a perspex window in the flap, with her name and address in it. Good-bye to seven pounds and some loose change, but what did she need with money now? At least it would show where she had been. She drew it out carefully but quickly, the swinging handbag hiding the movements of her hand, and tossed it slightly aside into the overgrown autumnal grass that separated the footpath from the road. It fell with very little sound, but she risked letting her foot slip from the edge of the kerb in a noisy stumble to cover the moment, and spread her right hand against the car to steady herself. The man behind her drew in his breath with a hiss of warning, alarm and pain, and the muzzle of the gun prodded her back and sent an icy chill down the marrow of her spine.
    “
Be careful
!”
    But he meant the stumble, not the purse she had thrown away. All his attention was focused on